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tritium partition factor



 From the RadChem listserver.
This is a lot better separation/enrichment factor than I thought it was.  I 
would think this would result in tritium preferentially migrating from 
surface contamination to air contamination over the long term (absent an 
added source term to the air).  I wonder if Argonne or HFBR or SRL have 
looked at this in their decommissioning activities of tritium contaminated 
facilities?  That is, is there a passive decontamination halftime for 
tritium contaminated surfaces?

See:  Baumgartner F. and Kim. M.  "Isotope effects in the equilibrium and
non-equilibrium vaporization of tritiated water and ice" Appl. Radiat. Isot.
41 (4) 395-399 (1990).

P(H20)/P(HTO) (liquid) at equilibrium = 1.123 +/- 0.014 at zero degrees,
reducing to 1.054 +/- 0.008 at 80 degrees.

These are EQUILIBRIUM values.  The paper isn't so clear about
non-equilibrium, saying "non-equilibrium phase transition from liquid to gas
is difficult to realize by adjustment of the system pressure".

Regards

Keith Bradshaw
keith.bradshaw@nnc.co.uk

 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: Erik Nielsen [SMTP:enielsen@ANTECHLTD.NET]
 > Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2001 7:21 PM
 > To:   RADCH-L@in2p3.fr
 > Subject:      Tritium Enrichment by Distillation?
 >
 > Does anyone know of or where to find a tritiated water distillation
 > concentration coefficient that describes the percentage of tritiated water
 > retained in the water fraction vs that released as vapor?
 >

Disclaimer:  the above are the personal musings of the author, and do not 
represent any past, present, or future position of NIST, the U.S. 
government, or anyone else who might think that they are in a position of 
authority.
Lester Slaback, Jr.  [Lester.Slaback@NIST.GOV]
NBSR Health Physics
Center for Neutron Research
NIST
100 Bureau Dr.  STOP 3543
Gaithersburg, MD  20899-3543
301 975-5810 voice
301 921-9847 fax

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