Evaluation of hydrogen isotope exchange methodology on adsorbents for tritium removal

The Savannah River National Laboratory has demonstrated a potential process that can be used to remove tritium from tritiated water using Pt-catalyzed molecular sieves. The process is an elemental isotope exchange process in which H₂ (when flowed through the molecular sieves) will exchange with the adsorbed water, D₂O, leaving H₂O adsorbed on the molecular sieves. Various formulations of catalyzed molecular sieve material were prepared using two different techniques, Pt-implantation and Pt-ion exchange. This technology has been demonstrated for a protium (H) and deuterium (D) system, but can also be used for the removal of tritium from contaminated water (T₂O, HTO, and DTO) using D₂ (or H₂). (authors)