Contamination of aluminum and painted surfaces exposed to tritium

There are a number of facilities in the world that handle large quantities of tritium. Many more are envisioned as deuterium-tritium-burning fusion test and power reactors come on line. To cope with increasing environmental concerns, many of the designs of such facilities will probably incorporate some type of emergency air detritiation system. To better design the ventilation and detritiation systems for such facilities, more data are needed regarding the conversion of HT to HTO under realistic release conditions and the uptake and subsequent release (outgassing) of surfaces contaminated by airborne tritium. Surface contamination studies begun several years ago at the Los Alamos National Lab. using small, painted samples were recently expanded using a large exposure chamber. This paper summarizes the results of the earlier unpublished work and compares the newest data with recently reported results and their implication for tritium facilities