Re: Follow up to RE: Tritium Absorption in Materials

["Don Jordan" <ramservices@lsol.net>]

Tritium apparently behaves somewhat more subtly than my chemist's prejudices
would have admitted,  The DOE Handbook, HDBK-1129-99, "Tritium Handling and
Safe Storage" contains the following statements:

"...[T]he energy provided by the radioactive decay of tritium provides the
activation energy required so that some reactions occur with tritium that
will not occur with deuterium or hydrogen.", [at 5].

"Tritium in the form of T2O may be difficult to store for long periods due
to its corrosive properties.  Classified experiments with T2O indicate that
pure T2O is corrosive.  This corrosiveness is likely due to tritium oxide
generating free radicals [OH*] from radiolytic decomposition of water....",
[at 8].

"In a severe case, storage of tritiated water ... in liquid form at
concentrations as low as a few curies per milliliter has corroded through
the weld area of stainless steel vessels after only a few days of exposure."
, [at 8].  The authors note, however, that in this particular case the
extreme corrosiveness may have been due to chlorine contamination.

Although few of us work with such dilute solutions as a "few curies per
milliliter", it seems evident that tritium may not behave simply as fat
hydrogen.


Don Jordan
RAM Services, Inc.
ramservices@lsol.net
Tel. 920-793-2259
Fax 920-793-5886

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