Characteristics of a source of atomic tritium used to obtain tagged compounds

The authors describe reactor designed for the production of atomic tritium and the synthesis of atomic tritium-labelled organic compounds which consists of a spiral tungsten wire as a catalyst for the dissociation of molecular tritium and walls lined with the organic target material. The tritiation of indole is used as a demonstration of the reactor operation. A model is created describing the flow dynamics and thermodynamics within the reactor during the dissociation and labelling process. The chemical aspects of the radioactivation of indole are also assessed