Brief review on tritium recovery from inert gases by uranium getter beds

The present report gives a brief, critical review of the previously published works on tritium recovery from inert gases by uranium getter beds. The attention of the review is focused on chemical engineering aspects. There is general agreement in the fusion research community that the design model proposed by Maienschein for metal getter beds gives good description to the experimentally observed breakthrough curve. The authors question this agreement in the review, and raise some problems to be solved. An improved design model is then proposed, and subjects to be treated in future experimental studies are clarified. (author)