Evaluation of tritium sorption rate in soil packed bed by numerical analysis

It is required that the behavior of tritium in the natural soil be clarified to evaluate the impact of the accident for fusion reactor. However, there has been little report on the behavior of tritiated water in the soil. In this study, top face of a soil packed bed was filled by tritiated water and subsequently distilled water was poured in the bed to recover tritium held up in the soil at room temperature. A tritium transport model in the soil has also been established and developed by this study. The tritium transfer phenomena in the soil is considered as percolation and isotope exchange reaction. The tritium transfer model in this study gives good agreement with experimental data for two samples by adjusting overall mass transfer coefficient representing percolation and isotope exchange reaction. It is also found that the value of overall mass transfer coefficient has a proper range for best fitting curve of experimental data of each soil sample.