Abstract
Tritium recovery from lithium at low concentrations is an important problem in the study of liquid metal breeder blankets in a fusion reactor. This paper focuses on the analysis of T extraction by permeation window and gettering processes. A time-dependent mass conservation equation for T in the liquid Li and a diffusion equation for T transport in the permeation tube were solved simultaneously. The effects of the diffusivity in the permeation tube are discussed. In the gettering process, it is important to characterize the T breakthrough curves as a function of the getter material characteristics, operating conditions, equilibrium adsorption data and mass transfer coefficients. The analysis approach utilized involves solving the momentum equation of the liquid Li and the mass conservation equation of the T in the packed bed column, coupled with the diffusion equation of the T in a single particle. It was found that the T breakthrough curve at the near-wall region is different from that at the center region in the getter bed.