Critical Review on Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium of Hydrogen Isotope Mixture for Fusion Application

摘要

Since the relative volatilities for the D sub 2 -DT-T sub 2 system are close to unity (the values for D sub 2 -DT or DT-T sub 2 are in the range from 1.1 to 1.3), even minor errors in the relative volatilities lead to a considerable error in the number of total stages required for a cryogenic distillation column to meet the prescribed output specifications. Thus, the extent of nonideality (or equivalently, the Raoult's Law deviation) is a major concern in simulation studies for the columns. Sherwood and Souers proposed an estimation procedure for the deviation of hydrogen isotope mixtures, but the deviation experimentally observed for mixtures including tritium is significantly higher than that predicted by the procedure. They thought that this discrepancy was ascribed to the too large deviation apparently observed stemming from a temperature sensor problem caused by tritium x-ray effects. The authors doubt that the sensor problem is the only factor affecting the too large deviation observed, and give some discussion on expected radiochemical effects by tritium on the deviation. (Atomindex citation 17:046175)