Tritium Production from Palladium Alloys

A number of palladium alloys have been loaded with deuterium or hydrogen under low energy bombardment in a system that allows the continuous measurement of tritium. Long run times (up to 200 h) result in an integration of the tritium and this, coupled with the high intrinsic sensitivity of the system (approximately0.1 nCi/l), enables the significance of the tritium measurement to be many sigma (>10). We will show the difference in tritium generation rates between batches of palladium alloys (Rh, Co, Cu, Cr, Ni, Be, B, Li, Hf, Hg and Fe) of various concentrations to illustrate that tritium generation rate is dependent on alloy type as well as within a specific alloy, dependent on concentration