Tritium separation by carbon dioxide gas laser

In Japan, the separation and recovery of tritium accumulating with the development of heavy water reactors have become an important problem, and the release of tritium into environment at the time of nuclear fuel reprocessing is also problematic. The establishment of the production and separation techniques for tritium is indispensable for the advancement of nuclear fusion research. As the method of separating tritium, of which the necessity has increased rapidly, the method of separating deuterium carried out so far can be extended in principle, but the separation factor is small, and the installation and the inventory become large. But in the case of laser separation method, there is the possibility to obtain high separation factor, and the energy required for the separation is used efficiently, since it is given to the object isotope selectively and concentratedly. The authors attempted the selective decomposition of tritium compounds by multi-photon dissociation using powerful carbon dioxide gas laser, and separated tritium with laser successfully for the first time in the world. The selection and synthesis of the working substance CTF3, laser irradiation and chemical analysis, the reaction rate constant, the wavelength dependence of the decomposition rate, the effect of tritium concentration and others are reported. (Kako, i.)