Determination of Tritium Concentration in Heavy Water

Abstract

In this work, tritium concentration was determined in different D2O enrichment in heavy water samples. Samples were prepared from Arak Heavy Water Production Plant. Tritium concentration was determined utilizing liquid scintillation detector (LSC) system based on β-decay of tritium isotope. In this work instead of simple distillation, the azeotropic distillation method was used. Absorbed spectra and fluorescence spectra were registered by Shimadz spectrometer UV-2100 model and fluorescence spectrometer LS50B model respectively. Tritium concentration was obtained from 1.75 ± 0.80 up 6.16 ± 1.01 Bq/L for 0.35% to 77.50% enrichment of D2O concentration in heavy water samples. Coefficient correlation between tritium concentration and D2O concentration in heavy water R2 = 0.853 was derived. For 99.8% enriched D2O in heavy water, deviation was observed from direct line that caused decreasing of R2.