Chemical form of tritium released from solid breeder materials

The fraction of HTO in total tritium was measured at release of the bred tritium to the purge gas with hydrogen using the thermal release after irradiation method, where neutron irradiation was performed at the Japan Research Reactor-3 (JRR-3) in Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) or the Kyoto University Research Reactor (KUR reactor) in Kyoto University. It is experimentally confirmed in this study that not a small portion of bred tritium is released to the blanket purge gas in the form of HTO from ceramic breeder materials even when hydrogen is added to the purge gas. Observation in this study implies that it is necessary to have a bred tritium recovery system useful for both HT and HTO form tritium. The water formation properties from Li2TiO3 bed placed in the hydrogen atmosphere were also discussed in this study.