Hydrogen isotopes separation using frontal displacement chromatography with Pd–Al2O3 packed column

Separation or purification of tritium isotopes is one of the key technologies in ITER. A set of frontal displacement chromatography (FDC) device was designed and constructed for hydrogen isotopes separation using palladium loading on/in alumina (Pd–Al2O3) as the separation material. The hydrogen isotopes separation experiments were carried out. It was found that deuterium abundance of the product was up to 98.5% and the average separation factor was as high as 64, under the condition of 273 K column temperature and 15 mL(NTP)/min flow rate, for a feed gas of 5%H2-5%D2-90%Ar. The deuterium recovery ratio was 42% in this separation test. The results showed that the separation performance of our FDC device was good by using Pd–Al2O3 as separation materials, and it suggested considerable potential for the applicability of FDC in hydrogen isotopes separation.