A Light-Water Detritiation Project at Chalk River Laboratories

The NRU reactor Rod Bays is a large, open pool of water that receives hundreds of fuel rods annually, each carrying a small amount of residual tritiated heavy water. The tritium concentration of the Rod Bays water has risen over the years, to a level that is of concern to the operations staff and to the environment. The long-term solution that is currently being studied is to reduce the Rod Bays tritium concentration by bleed-and-feed detritiation of the water.