Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Fusion Engineering and Design journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fusengdes Cernavoda tritium removal facility: A key tritium supplier for future fusion facilities Liviu Stefan a, ⁎ , Nicolae Trantea b , Anisia Bornea a , Marius Zamfirache a , Nicolae Bidica a , Iuliana Stefan a a ICSI, Str. Uzinei nr. 4, Ramnicu-Valcea, Romania b CNE, Str. Medgidia nr. 1, Cernavoda, Romania ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Tritium Detritiation TRF Fusion ABSTRACT National R&D for Cryogenics and Isotopes Separation (ICSI) completed the conceptual design of the Cernavoda Tritium Removal Facility (CTRF) in 2015. CTRF is located at CNE 1 Cernavoda and is sized to process 40 kg/h heavy water from 2 CANDU reactors, with a detritiation factor of 100, over 40 years design life. CTRF removes tritium using liquid phase catalytic exchange (LPCE) paired with cryogenic distillation (CD). The design of CTRF uses expertise from ICSI (Pilot Plant for Tritium and Deuterium Separation) and from Canada (Kinectrics), to- gether with experience from Wolsung TRF project, research tritium laboratories and industry. The CTRF design uses the most advanced TRF technology, including recent safety requirements for a tritium industrial facility as specified by the Romanian Regulator. Construction of CTRF is planned to start in 2020 and the detritiation of heavy water from first reactor is scheduled to begin in 2026. After this date tritium stored will become available to be used for fusion research and industrial facilities. First phase of detritiation process is to reduce the moderator tritium content from 65 Ci/ kgto10Ci/kg,secondphasetomaintainthetritiumconcentrationupto10Ci/kgandthirdphasetouseCTRFto reduce tritium content as low as possible before decommissioning of the site. This paper will present the technologies used, provide a prediction of tritium production, and considerations for possible use of CTRF for supplying He-3, as a by-product of the detritiation process. 1. Tritium – market requirements Fusion applications (development of future reactors or demo facil- ities, including R&D) is expected to become the main consumer of available tritium on the market in the future years, as non-fusion de- mand for tritium is only for low quantities and is constant. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) program started years ago, but recently developed an updated schedule which includes delays for tritium deuterium (D–T) operation. The main supply of tritium comes from CANDU-type reactors, which produce tritium as the result of neutron interaction with the heavy water moderator. Even though there are several CANDU units already operating in the world, and there are plans for the construction of new facilities, tritium produced during operation can be made available only using Tritium Removal Facilities (TRF) at industrial scale (Table 1). Recent research has confirmed the availability of ample quantities of tritium available from Canada (Darlington TRF) and from South Korea (Wolsong TRF) [1,2,5]. Any new TRF which can be built in the near future will provide support for operation of fusion facilities. There are important R&D fusion facilities which will be constructed in next 2 decades who may need tritium, but not too many CANDU reactors are to be constructed in the same time of evaluation, as pre- sented in Table 1. Kinectrics produced in 2015 for CTRF a comprehensive tritium market study to support decision to start CTRF construction program indicating an industrial non-fusion quantity of 0.1 kg/year and eval- uated ITER requirement of 16.8 kg for 12 years of operation (up to 1.2kg/year). An unofficial estimate of tritium required for ITER operation was provided by Michael Kovari et al. [5] indicating that a significant tri- tium consumption by ITER will starts in 2036 and totaling 12.3 kg of tritium. Considering only tritium for ITER, Michael Kovari presents a sug- gestive diagram of the impact of tritium inventory to ITER different https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2019.02.116 Received 7 October 2018; Received in revised form 11 February 2019; Accepted 26 February 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: liviu.stefan@icsi.ro (L. Stefan). 1 Centrala Nucleara Electrica - NPP Fusion Engineering and Design xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx 0920-3796/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Liviu Stefan, et al., Fusion Engineering and Design, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2019.02.116