Influence of deuterium on the design of the JET water detritiation system

The water detritiation system (WDS) for JET is based on the combined electrolysis catalytic exchange (CECE) process employing a liquid phase catalytic exchange (LPCE) column. The final goal of WDS is to convert tritiated water to tritium–deuterium–hydrogen mixture for further enrichment of tritium by cryogenic distillation (CD), followed by recovery of high quality tritium in the gas chromatography (GC) from active gas handling system (AGHS) of JET. A tritium decontamination factor (DF) of 104 is required along the striping section of the LPCE column in order to discharge essentially tritium free molecular hydrogen product into the environment. iled analysis of the combination CECE–CD processes revealed the necessity to consider also the deuterium content in the water to be processed. Based on deuterium content measured in tritiated water collected at JET, the interface between the CECE and CD was evaluated in detail and the optimum values for deuterium and tritium composition at this interface have been established.