Operation and characterization of a Water Detritiation Facility at the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe

For the design of the European procurement package for the ITER Water Detritiation System (WDS) an experimental WDS called TRENTA3 was installed and commissioned at the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK). For TRENTA3 a Combined Electrolysis and Catalytic Exchange (CECE) process has been applied. Two electrolyzer units with a total capacity of 2 (N)m3h−1 H2 and a Liquid Phase Catalytic Exchange (LPCE) column equipped with packing materials and a hydrophobic catalyst along an effective length of 8 m are the two main subsystems to process tritiated water. After commission several experimental runs with feed water concentrations ranging from 0.2 GBqkg−1 to 44 GBqkg−1 and with durations up to 4 weeks of continuous operation were performed. The performance of the LPCE column was investigated primarily under the influence of different operational parameter sets. The campaigns revealed excellent results regarding the decontamination factor of the tritiated gas along the column and a high reliability of the system components under tritiated operational conditions.