TRITIUM PERMEATION AND TRANSPORT IN THE GASOLINE PRODUCTION SYSTEM COUPLED WITH HIGH TEMPERATURE GAS-COOLED REACTORS (HTGRS)

This paper describes scoping analyses on tritium behaviors in the HTGR-integrated gasoline production system, which is based on a methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) plant. In this system, the HTGR transfers heat and electricity to the MTG system. This system was analyzed using the TPAC code, which was recently developed by Idaho National Laboratory. The global sensitivity analyses were performed to understand and characterize tritium behaviors in the coupled HTGR/MTG system. This Monte Carlo based random sampling method was used to evaluate maximum 17,408 numbers of samples with different input values. According to the analyses, the average tritium concentration in the product gasoline is about 3.05×10-3 Bq/cm3, and 62 % cases are within the tritium effluent limit (= 3.7x10-3 Bq/cm3[STP]). About 0.19% of released tritium is finally transported from the core to the gasoline product through permeations. This study also identified that the following four parameters are important concerning tritium behaviors in the HTGR/MTG system: (1) tritium source, (2) wall thickness of process heat exchanger, (3) operating temperature, and (4) tritium permeation coefficient of process heat exchanger. These four parameters contribute about 95 % of the total output uncertainties. This study strongly recommends focusing our future research on these four parameters to improve modeling accuracy and to mitigate tritium permeation into the gasol ine product. If the permeation barrier is included in the future study, the tritium concentration will be significantly reduced