Post-irradiation experiments were performed to study the effect of 14 MeV neutron irradiation on the recovery of tritium from sintered lithium oxide. The chemical state distribution of tritium produced in the lithium oxide was found to depend on the neutron fluence because of the influence of radiation defects. When the lithium oxide was heated with a helium sweep gas, tritium was recovered mainly as HTO and its recovery was controlled by bulk diffusion of tritium in the T+ state except in an early period of recovery. The diffusion coefficient was expressed as D = 4.4 exp [−143 (kJ mol−1)/RT] cm2 s−1. When hydrogen was added to the sweep gas, on the other hand, a considerable amount of tritium was recovered as HT. The HT recovery was analyzed with first-order kinetics using the activation energy of 137 kJ mol−1. The reactions of tritium with F+ centers may be responsible for the observed behaviour.
Modeling of tritium recovery from ctr solid breeder