The Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK) has been designed to handle relevant amounts of tritium for the development of tritium technology for fusion reactors. This paper describes the tritium technology development and experience gained during the upgrade of facilities, interventions, replacement of failed components and operation of the TLK since its commissioning with tritium in 1994.

The ITER Isotope Separation System (ISS) and Water Detritiation System (WDS) should be integrated in order to reduce potential chronic tritium emissions from the ISS. This is achieved by routing the top (protium) product from the ISS to a feed point near the bottom end of the WDS Liquid Phase Catalytic Exchange (LPCE) column. This provides an additional barrier against ISS emissions and should mitigate the memory effects due to process parameter fluctuations in the ISS.To support the research activities needed to characterize the performances of various components for WDS and ISS processes under various working conditions and configurations as needed for ITER design, an experimental facility called TRENTA representative of the ITER WDS and ISS protium separation column, has been commissioned and is in operation at TLK.The experimental program on TRENTA facility is conducted to provide the necessary design data related to the relevant ITER operating modes. The operation availability and performances of ISS-WDS have impact on ITER fuel cycle subsystems with consequences on the design integration. The preliminary experimental data on TRENTA facility are presented.

The ITER Isotope Separation System (ISS) and Water Detritiation System (WDS) will be integrated in order to reduce potential chronic tritium releases from the ISS by routing the top (protium) product from the ISS into the Liquid Phase Catalytic Exchange (LPCE) column of WDS. This provides an additional barrier against ISS tritium releases and should mitigate the memory effects due to process parameter fluctuations in the ISS.To support the research activities needed to characterize the performances of various components for WDS and ISS processes in various working conditions and configurations as needed for ITER design, an experimental facility called TRENTA and representative of the ITER WDS and ISS protium separation column has been commissioned at Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK).The TRENTA facility consists of Combined Electrolysis Catalytic Exchange (CECE) process, with an LPCE column of 8 m, in combination with a cryogenic distillation (CD) process. The processes description and the status of commissioning of TRENTA facility is presented. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

One of the most used methods for tritium recovery from different sources of tritiated water is based on the combination between Combined Electrolysis Catalytic Exchange (CECE) and Cryogenic Distillation (CD) processes. The development, i.e. configuration, design and performance testing of critical components, of a tritium recovery system based on the combination CECE - CD is essential for both JET and ITER. For JET, a Water Detritiation System (WDS) is not only needed to process tritiated water which has already been accumulated from operation, but also for the tritiated water which will be generated during decommissioning. For ITER, the WDS is one of the key systems to control the tritium content in the effluents streams, to recover as much tritium as possible and consequently to minimize the impact on the environment. A cryogenic distillation facility with the aim to investigate the trade-off between CECE-CD, to validate different components and mathematical modelling software is current under development at Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK) as an extension of the existing CECE facility.

After the KATRIN Letter of Intent in 2001 and the Addendum to the LoI in 2002, this Design Report 2004 gives a detailed overview of the KATRIN experiment in its phase of building and testing of the first components. We critically assess the actual status in neutrino physics with respect to direct and indirect searches on the neutrino mass in particle physics and cosmology and the impact by KATRIN. The physical parameters as well as the schemes for the technical realization of the central experimental components and their status are reported. Having optimized the experimental configuration compared to the LoI, we anticipate a KATRIN sensitivity on the neutrino mass of m(ν e ) = 0.2 eV (90% C.L.) corresponding to a 5 σ discovery potential for m(ν e ) = 0.35eV, based on a detailed assessment of systematic and statistical uncertainties.

The confinement of tritium within its respective processing systems is clearly one of the most important safety objectives for fusion reactors. Consequently, the functional safety of all the subsystems of the inner deuterium/tritium fuel cycle of ITER need to be carefully analyzed and the results implemented into the design of the Tritium Plant as a whole. The basic principles for the management of functional safety are laid out in the international standard IEC 61508.The tritium bearing systems need to be particularly protected against over-pressure and over-temperature, even at levels significantly below values at which sensors or components would loose their mechanical integrity. The design shall take into account the necessity to validate and test the protection measures, noting the contamination of the equipment with tritium and the restricted access due to multiple barriers.Any protection measure has its characteristic but limited credibility. Software based safeguarding, for example, is not fully satisfactory in certain cases. In spite of the developments in software and the increasing possibilities to assure its quality, hard-wired signal processing is still considered to be necessary within the ITER Tritium Plant. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK) was commissioned with tritium in 1994 and since then has continuously improved its infrastructure and has expanded its experimental activities. With a fully closed tritium cycle and the license to handle 40 g of tritium TLK is an almost unique experimental facility. More than 10 glove box systems with a total volume of about 125 m(3) are operated to house experiments and infrastructure facilities on an area of more than 1000 m(2). Today TLK has about 23 g of tritium on site. The paper describes the closed tritium loop of the TLK infrastructure and its links to different experiments. Some experience gained during operation of TLK is also presented.

The safety of people and the environment is increasingly important in the operation and, consequently, also in the project design of process equipment. Rules and regulations for safeguarding of industrial process plants (not-nuclear and nuclear) by means of process control engineering are either being developed or expanded. This includes the international harmonization of existing national codes. This article presents an introduction into the philosophy of ensuring plant safety by means of instrumentation and control protection systems. The methods of risk assessment are described, and various potential solutions are shown which are geared to achieving the necessary level of safety and, at the same time, allowing flexible operation to be maintained. Reference is made to the problems existing with respect to integrating people into this process, i.e. man-machine interaction, especially in view of possible interventions in emergencies.