Oxidative Decontamination of Tritiated Materials Employing Ozone Gas

Abstract

The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory has developed a process by which to significantly reduce surface and near surface tritium contamination from various materials. The Oxidative Tritium Decontamination System (OTDS) reacts gaseous state ozone (accelerated by presence of catalyst), with tritium entrained/deposited on the surface of components (stainless steel, copper, plastics, ceramics, etc.) for the purpose of activity reduction by means of oxidation-reduction chemistry.

Detritiation of type 316 stainless steel by treatment with liquids at ambient temperature

“…While in recent years the thermal deactivation of tritium-contaminated stainless steel in the presence of different sweep gases such as air [2], gas mixtures containing hydrogen, moisture, ammonia or ozone [2][3][4][5][6], by heating with an open flame [2] have received considerable attention, comparatively little is known on the mechanism and degree of decontamination achievable when contaminated materials are subjected to treatment with liquid reagents [7]. To gain a more thorough understanding of this topic, a systematic study on the detritiation efficiency of SS316 submerged in different reactive liquids at ambient temperature was performed.…”