Tritium treatment

Introduction:

            The report is about tritium treatment and is based on particular objectives. Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen and is a radioactive element. It emits ionising radiation but does not have any toxic chemical effects (Chakin et al., 2018). Tritium treatment is used to reduce emissions, which is the primary reason for cancer. Different treatment methods used are water distillation, vapour recompression, combined electrolysis catalytic exchange, biothermal hydrogen water process, girdler sulphide process, and many more. The report will discuss and evaluate the expertise to conduct market place analysis while considering the existing organisations and companies. Moreover, different companies will be discussed who have developed the tritium treatment technology. It will help in the formulation of the marketplace framework of nuclear facilities.

Objectives of tritium treatment:

The marketplace analysis indicates that tritium management takes places at different nuclear facilities, and the members of the international atomic energy agency have selected states as members for tritium management. The current expertise of the market analysis associates with several aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle. This includes the source of isotope, the behaviour when tritium is released to the environment—different nuclear facilities analyses different aspects of management, such as trapping instead of choice. Conditioning, storage, and disposal are also involved in this. IAEA took different steps in the handling of tritium. The market analysis predicts that a wide range of parameters are assessed, including the temperature up to 770K, pressure ranges between 1 × 10−4 MPa to 0.05 MPa, and tritium concentration in between concentration of 1at.% to 98 at.%. The tritium concentration is measured through the metals using radiography, radioluminography, β ray induced X ray spectroscopy and acid etching methods. All these experts are required to conduct the marketplace analysis efficiently. Source and the exposure control, exposure assessment and ALARA programme are also involved in marketplace analysis. Radiation protection training is another industrial aspects which most nuclear plants use (Tanabe, 2017).

Tritium has different forms of radioactive affluents, and every company has its way of exposition of different technologies required for possible treatment. Treatment of the tritium is very involved in every nuclear industry. Management of tritium is associated with the fission reactions which took place in a nuclear reactor. The company treating the Fukushima uses a treating system for cleaning tons of radioactive water that the plant generates. Due to the basic thermo isotopic properties, the companies dictate that tritium is complex, and it has different species in the nuclear industry (Rickard et al., 2001). Most companies and organisations use the neutron activation of the lithium 6 method for the manufacturing process of tritium. To develop hydrogen isotope separation technologies, two process tritium sorbent and other developmental processes are involved (Benamatic et al., 2010). The organisations and industries use different separation technologies of hydrogen isotope. This includes membrane mediated separation, laser induced tritium separation, variations of the dual temperature liquid phase catalytic exchange processes (Rozhko et al., 2016). Every process has been analysed based on the information of these processes by different researchers and companies. Also, the companies operate different nuclear reactors at different values of high temperature and pressures.

Different nuclear plant owners and operators operate in different places and introduce the tritium treatment s advanced technology. US is the most significant nuclear power plant in the world for tritium treatment. The names of the plants and operators are beaver valley two and Braidwood 1 and 2. The holding companies for these nuclear plants and operators are FirstEnergy Copr and the Exeton Corp. Unites States and France are producing the best nuclear reactors for the tritium treatment (Perevezentsev et al., 2008). These nuclear reactors have a net capacity of 392,779 MWe, which makes them operational and the largest electricity producer. Other companies in the nuclear sector involves BHP Billiton in australis and the Franco Belge de Fabrication du Combustible in France. The palladium membrane reactor is one of the most advanced forms of the nuclear reactor and has been used to separate hydrogen gas from other molecules (Glugla et al., 2007). Although it is not a direct method of producing hydrogen gas, it produces a crude product followed by the hydrogen isotope separation process. Other methods associated with this are H² and H²O catalytic exchange, cryogenic distillation, gas diffusion, thermal diffusion or gas absorption. Girdler sulphide process is another technologically advanced process used to drive the separation process for the tritium treatment. This process does not require any catalyst and is one of the most advanced nuclear reactor technology.

A specified marketplace is required in the nuclear reactors for the tritium treatment. Different companies offer different nuclear frameworks for tritium treatment. This framework follows an appropriate range of steps (Naruse et al., 2011). Different nuclear reactors work on different technological processes like the release and diffusion of tritium and helium follows lithium s fission. This method takes places within ceramics, referred to as breeder ceramics. The fusion of deuterium with tritium releases about 17.6 MeV of energy. Tritium treatment reduces the toxicity of the radioactive radiations and is then used in the military nuclear program. Also, the resulting treatment helps in biochemical researches and animal metabolism studies. The international framework of the nuclear energy corporation aims to accelerate the development of advanced nuclear fuel energy (Jia et al., 2017). This framework involves different technological processes. The infrastructure of the nuclear facilities works in correspondence with the GNEP, IFNEC and IAEA (Taylor, 2012). All these infrastructures pursue ways of nuclear power without the establishment of any sensitive fuel. The following figure represents the tritium treatment process which nuclear facilities use:

Conclusion:

To conclude, tritium treatment is a complex process and involves a lot of complexities in its manufacturing. Also, tritium is difficult to deal with due to the toxic effects. Still, different companies have introduced several methodologies for tritium treatment. This involves industrial treatments and the developmental hydrogen isotope separation technologies. US has the top companies with highly efficient nuclear reactors for tritium treatment. Different international frameworks are used for the tritium treatment introduced by GNEP, IFNEC and IAEA. So, this treatment is not limited to a single process (Taylor, 2012).

References:

            Chakin, V., Rolli, R., Gaisin, R., Kurinskiy, P., Kim, J.H. and Nakamichi, M., 2018. Effect of heat treatment of titanium beryllide on tritium/hydrogen release. Fusion Engineering and Design, 137, pp.165 171.

            Benamati, G., Chabrol, C., Perujo, A., Rigal, E. and Glasbrenner, H., 2010. Development of tritium permeation barriers on Al base in Europe. Journal of Nuclear Materials, 271, pp.391 395.

            Glugla, M., Antipenkov, A., Beloglazov, S., Caldwell Nichols, C., Cristescu, I.R., Cristescu, I., Day, C., Doerr, L., Girard, J.P. and Tada, E., 2007. The ITER tritium systems. Fusion Engineering and Design, 82(5 14), pp.472 487.

            Jia, F., Xie, F., Li, H. and Cao, J., 2017, July. Generation and Distribution of Tritium in HTGRs and Review on the Tritiated Water Treatment Technologies. In 2017 25th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering. American Society of Mechanical Engineers Digital Collection.

Naruse, Y., Matsuda, Y. and Tanaka, K., 2011. Tritium process laboratory at the JAERI. Fusion Engineering and design, 12(3), pp.293 317.

            Perevezentsev, A.N., Bell, A.C., Rivkis, L.A., Filin, V.M., Gushin, V.V., Belyakov, M.I., Bulkin, V.I., Kravchenko, I.M., Ionessian, I.A., Torikai, Y. and Matsuyama, M., 2008. Comparative study of the tritium distribution in metals. Journal of nuclear materials, 372(2 3), pp.263 276.

            Rickard, L., Weller, F. and Wilks, J., 2001, September. Management of Tritium Wastes. In International Conference on Radioactive Waste Management and Environmental Remediation (Vol. 80180, pp. 1343 1347). American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

            Rozhko, T.V., Badun, G.A., Razzhivina, I.A., Guseynov, O.A., Guseynova, V.E. and Kudryasheva, N.S., 2016. On the mechanism of biological activation by tritium. Journal of environmental radioactivity, 157, pp.131 135.\

            Tanabe, T. ed., 2017. Tritium: Fuel of fusion reactors. Springer Japan.

            Taylor, R.W., 2012. Effluent Treatment Facility emissions monitoring (No. DPST 89 309). Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab.(SRNL).