DEVELOPMENT OF FUSION FUEL-CYCLE TECHNOLOGY AT THE TRITIUM LABORATORYKARLSRUHE - THE EXPERIMENT CAPRICE

A facility carrying the acronym CAPRICE has been erected at the Tritiu m Laboratory Karlsruhe to demonstrate fuel clean-up technology for ITE R with tritium. The clean-up process for the recovery of molecular and chemically bonded tritium and deuterium from all reactor exhaust stre ams is based on the combination of hydrogen isotope permeation through palladium-silver with catalytic process steps involving the thermal d ecomposition of hydrocarbons and the reduction of water vapour by carb on monoxide. On the basis of the CAPRICE process and from recent resul ts on mathematical modelling of a permeator-catalyst combination, a si mple continuous clean-up concept for ITER with low tritium inventories is proposed.