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Evaluation of Tritium Sorption Rate in Soil Packed Bed by Numerical Analysis

Kazuya FURUICHI, Kazunari KATAYAMA, Hiroyuki DATE, Tatsuro HYUGA and Satoshi FUKADA

Department of Advanced Energy Engineering Science, Kyushu University, 6-1 Kasuga-koen, Kasuga-shi, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan

(Received 1 December 2015 / Accepted 2 February 2016 / Published 15 April 2016)

Abstract

It is required that the behavior of tritium in the natural soil be clarified to evaluate the impact of the accident for fusion reactor. However, there has been little report on the behavior of tritiated water in the soil. In this study, top face of a soil packed bed was filled by tritiated water and subsequently distilled water was poured in the bed to recover tritium held up in the soil at room temperature. A tritium transport model in the soil has also been established and developed by this study. The tritium transfer phenomena in the soil is considered as percolation and isotope exchange reaction. The tritium transfer model in this study gives good agreement with experimental data for two samples by adjusting overall mass transfer coefficient representing percolation and isotope exchange reaction. It is also found that the value of overall mass transfer coefficient has a proper range for best fitting curve of experimental data of each soil sample.

Copyright (c) 2016 The Japan Society of Plasma Science and Nuclear Fusion Research

Keywords

tritium, environment, soil, isotope exchange reaction, percolation

DOI: 10.1585/pfr.11.2405050

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