NUMERICAL APPROACH FOR A STUDY OF THE HYDROGEN ISOTOPES SEPARATION BYPALLADIUM ALLOY MEMBRANES

In this work, a simple and stable method is proposed to design a hydro gen permeator operating with Pd/Ag membranes in countercurrent or cocu rrent mode. The method is based on an iterative calculation that requi res as input data a tentative value of the outlet permeate composition . The isotopic competition effect in the permeation process has been i ncluded in the flux formula. The model supported by a computer code ha s been used to study the hydrogen isotopes extraction from the gas str eam arising from a tritiated water gas shift reactor under conditions relevant to a solid breeding blanket of ITER (International Thermonucl ear Experimental Reactor) size. The model and the code have also been tested with experimental data reported in the open literature. (C) 199 8 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.