Deactivation of hydrophobic Pt/SDBC catalyst in the WTRF LPCE column for tritium separation

The styrene divinylbenzene copolymer (SDBC) supported platinum catalyst and the liquid phase catalytic exchange (LPCE) column have been developed to be applicable to the Wolsong tritium removal facility (WTRF) in Korea. The catalyst deactivation subject to both reversible uniform poisoning and permanent loss by impurity poisoning was investigated using a time-on-stream theory and a simplified shell progressive poisoning scenario in special case of higher internal diffusion resistance. Experimental data from fixed bed reactors with the Pt/SDBC catalysts have been used to establish the deactivation model and to estimate key parameters to be used in the WTRF LPCE column design. It was found that an impurity control in the streams would be critical to the WTRF LPCE column operation since the impurity poisoning played a very important role in the overall catalytic exchange reaction. Except for the case of the severe impurity poisoning of the whole catalysts, the LPCE column can be in operation over 10 years without any regeneration of the catalysts. (author)