Novel Non-Evaporable Getter Materials and Their Possible Use in Fusion Application for Tritium Recovery

Non-evaporable getters (NEGs) are metallic compounds of the IV group, particularly titanium and/or zirconium-based alloys and are usually used as pumps in vacuum technologies since they are able to sorb, by chemical reactions, most of the active gas molecules, with particular efficacy towards hydrog...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2020-12, Vol.25 (23), p.5675
Main Authors: Santucci, Alessia, Farina, Luca, Tosti, Silvano, Frattolillo, Antonio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alloys
Alloys - chemistry
Chemical reactions
Coolants
Feasibility studies
Flow velocity
Gases
Gettering
Getters
Heat
Helium
High temperature
Hydrogen
hydrogen adsorption
Hydrogen isotopes
Isotopes
Mass balance
Metal compounds
non-evaporable getter
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear reactors
Power plants
R&D
Research & development
Titanium - chemistry
Tritium
Tritium - analysis
Tritium - chemistry
Tritium - isolation & purification
tritium recovery
Zirconium
Zirconium - chemistry
Zirconium base alloys
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Summary:Non-evaporable getters (NEGs) are metallic compounds of the IV group, particularly titanium and/or zirconium-based alloys and are usually used as pumps in vacuum technologies since they are able to sorb, by chemical reactions, most of the active gas molecules, with particular efficacy towards hydrogen isotopes. This work suggests an alternative application of these materials to fusion nuclear reactors, where there is the need to recover small amount of tritium from the large helium flow rate composing the primary coolant loop. Starting from the tritium mass balance inside the primary coolant loop, the amount of coolant to be routed inside the coolant purification system (CPS) is identified. Then a feasibility study, based on the bulk getter theory, is presented by considering three different commercial alloys, named ST707, ST101 and ZAO. The results provide the mass, the area and the regeneration parameters of the three different alloys necessary to fulfill the requirements of the CPS unit. By comparing the features of the three alloys, the ZAO material appears the most promising for the proposed application because it requires the lower amount of material and a lower number of regeneration cycles.
ISSN:1420-3049
1420-3049
DOI:10.3390/molecules25235675