Tritium Confinement in a New Tritium Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site

A new tritium processing facility, named the Replacement Tritium Facility (RTF), is nearing completion and is being prepared for startup at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The RTF has the capability to load and unload tritium from gas containers and to recover, purify and separate hydrogen isotopes. A multilayered confinement system is designed to reduce tritium losses to the environment. This confinement system is expected to confine and recover any tritium that might escape the process equipment, and to maintain the tritium concentration in the nitrogen glovebox atmosphere to less than 10−1 µCi/cc tritium during normal operation.