Tritium is usually stored in the form of a metal tritide since it is safe to handle in this form, easily recoverable, and further large quantities of tritium can be stored. However, since tritium is radioactive it decays into ~3He and an electron. Helium recoil energy in this reaction is very small, and not enough to create defects. We have performed ab-initio electronic structure calculations that show that in PdT, a considerable amount of ~3hE can be accommodated at the octahedral interstitial sites where it is produced. Our calculations also show that the presence of ~3He results in an overall enhancement in the strength of the metal-tritium bonding that leads to the lowering of the plateau pressure. We also find that there is a weakening of the metal-metla bonds due to the repulsive interaction with ~3He.
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