Out-of-pile tritium release study on Li4SiO4 pebbles from TRINPC-I experiments

Out-of-pile tritium release examinations of irradiated Li4SiO4 pebbles were performed in TRINPC-I experiments for evaluating material performance and verifying the system design. To generate tritium the specimens were irradiated with neutrons. Li4SiO4 pebbles were made by a freeze-drying method. In the experiments, concentrations of tritium in the form of tritium gas (HT + T2) and tritiated water (HTO + T2O) in the outlet streams of a reactor tube were measured separately with an ionization chamber and a liquid scintillation radiometer. The results show that the percentage of tritium gas (HT + T2) and tritiated water trapped by the breeder pebbles were about 72% and 19% of totally released tritium, respectively. Thus, more tritium was released in the form of tritium gas in this work. In addition to tritium trapped by the breeder pebbles, the amount of free tritium was also measured by breaking on-line a quartz capsule containing Li4SiO4 pebbles, the percentage of which was 9% of totally released tritium. The temperature peaks of tritium gas mainly appeared at about 477 °C and 654 °C, while the temperature peak of tritiated water appeared at about 402 °C, under which most of tritiated water released.

Graphical abstractFlow chart of out-of-pile tritium release experiments in this work. Ionization chamber I was used for measuring molecular form of tritium while ionization II was used for monitoring tritium released to environment. The liquid scintillation radiometer was used for measuring accumulated amount of tritiated water in glycol bubblers I and II. The instantaneous concentration of tritiated water was calculated from average concentration during two sampling period which was taken every several minutes.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide