Experimental and simulation study on adsorption of hydrogen isotopes on MS5A at 77 K

Extraction of tritium from the sweep gas of the ITER Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) Test Blanket Module is proposed to be carried out in a two-step process: trapping of water in a cryogenic cold trap, and adsorption of hydrogen isotopes (H2, HT, T2) in a Cryogenic Molecular Sieve Bed (CMSB) at 77 K. A CMSB mock-up in a semi-technical scale (1/6 of the flow rate of the ITER-HCPB) was designed and constructed at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. In this work, the adsorption isotherms of hydrogen and deuterium on the MS5A adsorbent were investigated by the volumetric method. The correlation of the experimental adsorption isotherms of hydrogen and deuterium on the MS5A adsorbent were performed. To validate the cryogenic adsorption process, breakthrough experiments were performed using the CMSB mock-up. The experimental breakthrough curves obtained were analyzed with model mass balance equations, and scale-up numerical simulations were carried out.