DERIvATE: Deployable ElectRochemIcally Assisted Tritium dEtection

Tritium is a radioactive hydrogen isotope made in nuclear reactors, often present as tritiated water (HTO) in spent fuel cooling ponds, reprocessing effluents and waste treatment facilities. HTO behaves identically to water, i.e., it is highly mobile in the environment and human tissue and can be an indicator of significantly greater radiotoxins (Cs-137, Sr-90) migrating in the ground.

Thus, there are pressing safety, environmental and economic needs for fast, accurate and precise measurement of tritium around nuclear sites and in the waste-streams arising from their operation and decommissioning.

Tritium is a low-energy beta emitter. It is therefore not easily detected based on the radiation it emits and its half-life is too long (12.3-years) to wait for it to decay away. Lancaster University have devised a novel technique whereby tritium is selectively and reversibly sequestered by palladium from HTO, and pre-concentrated to a level detected easily by in-situ scintillation counting.

Collaborators, Hybrid Instruments Ltd., have recently developed two prototype devices that utilise this technique. Building on this established partnership, this project aims to embed a digital researcher to develop the two prototype instruments so that they can be operated as a digital network of in-situ monitors for automated, fast and interference-free waterborne tritium monitoring.

Research beneficiaries include the UK nuclear industry (site licensees and their supply chain), regulators, the public and academia. The knowledge generated will allow industry to meet regulatory requirements more effectively. Current monitoring involves ex-situ sample analysis that is slow and expensive.

The proposed technology will provide regulators with easily deployable and cost-effective tools, reducing the burden to taxpayers, enabling faster detection and greater public confidence in land monitoring in and around nuclear sites. Keywords: tritium; instrumentation; electrochemistry; real-time; groundwater monitoring.