Experimental and computational study of hydrogen isotope separation with a vanadium particle bed

Establishing a fuel cycle of hydrogen isotopes in a deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion reactor is important for solving energy problems. An experimental and analytical study was carried out for the separation of a single component from hydrogen-inert gas mixtures or from hydrogen-deuterium mixtures using a vanadium particle bed. The separation was effectively performed using a single-column pressure swing absorption (PSA) process. It consists of a series of three steps: a pressurization step, a high-pressure feed step and a blowdown step. The analytical results obtained by computer simulation could be well fitted to the experimental data.