Low temperature distillation system for tritium recovery

A low temperature (24 K) distillation system for recovering tritium from mixtures of hydrogen isotopes has been installed at Mound as the main component of the Hydrogen Isotope Separation System (HISS). The HISS will handle feed mixtures containing all six molecular species of hydrogen (H2, HD, HT, D2, DT, T2) and impurities (He, Ar, CO2, air) and will enrich the tritium while producing a stackable raffinate. A gas handling system designed and built at Mound receives the gaseous feeds, assays the tritium, removes the non-hydrogen species, and blends batches of gas to feed to the distillation system. The distillation system was designed and built by Arthur D. Little, Inc. to handle feeds containing a wide range of tritium concentrations and yield a bottom stream containing greater than 90 at. % tritium. The HISS is currently in startup; integrated system testing is scheduled in March 1986