International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Vol.43, No.45, 20750-20757, 2018
Hydrogen isotopes separation validation of frontal displacement chromatography for various compositions of feed gas and tritium extraction simulation for TBM
Based on the previous study in frontal displacement chromatography (FDC) packed with Pd-Al2O3, three groups of separation tests were carried out to verify the separation performance of the constituted FDC device for various compositions of feed gas and to validate the application probability of FDC in the Tritium Extraction System (TES) of ITER and China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR). The separations were conducted by the FDC procedure with characteristics of the feed gas one-time flushing though the column and then reasonable separation performance had been obtained. The results indicate that the FDC process could be applied to deal with the desorbed gas mixtures from TES and/or further to extract and thereafter enrich the breeding tritium in ITER or CFETR, which would take the advantages of system compactness and efficiency over the present route of TES. Comparing to other related displacement chromatography procedures, the FDC process could be applied in tritium pre-enrichment for the mixtures of low tritium concentrations, which is highlighted by the outstanding merit of operation simplicity. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.