Tritium separation from gaseous ^1,2,3H isotopologue mixtures by selective adsorption on Ag-exchanged zeolite type Y

Efficient separation of hydrogen isotopologues is crucial for applications such as the recycling of exhaust streams in nuclear fusion reactors. We report on separation of a ternary ^1,2,3H isotope mixture using thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS), achieving an enrichment of 1:41:175 (H₂:D₂:T₂) from an initially equimolar (1:1:1) gas mixture, based on selective adsorption using an Ag(I)-exchanged zeolite type Y. Further experiments on binary hydrogen isotope mixtures validated numerical predictions of the separation efficiency for T₂. Specifically, the high selectivity for tritium over protium of 244 makes the Ag(I)-exchanged zeolite an excellent candidate for energy-efficient isotope separation at liquid-nitrogen temperature.