Modification, enhancement and operation of a water detritiation facility at the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe

For the design and development proposal of the European procurement package of the Water Detritiation System (WDS) for ITER, an experimental WDS was installed at the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK) to investigate the process and various components of the system. The WDS facility at TLK uses the Combined Electrolysis Catalytic Exchange (CECE) process and consists of two Solid Polymer Electrolyte (SPE) electrolysis cells and a stainless steel Liquid Phase Catalytic Exchange (LPCE) column with an effective length of 8 m. After installation and commissioning, the first experimental runs were performed with a tritium concentration up to 0.6 GBq kg−1 in the feed water to test the operation modes of the facility, all the safety installations and procedures and the performance of the LPCE column during a runtime of up to 130 h.Regarding the final design of the WDS for ITER, the first experiments indicated several aspects which had to be modified in order to enhance the procedural and operating performance of the facility.