Tritium evolution from various morphologies of palladium

The authors have been able to extend the tritium production techniques to various novel morphologies of palladium. These include small solid wires of various diameters and a type of pressed powder wire and a plasma cell. In most successful experiments, the amount of palladium required, for an equivalent tritium output, has been reduced by a factor of 100 over the older powder methods. In addition, they have observed rates of tritium production (>5 nCi/h) that far exceed most of the previous results. Unfortunately, the methods that they currently use to obtain the tritium are poorly understood and consequently there are numerous variables that need to be investigated before the new methods are as reliable and repeatable as the previous techniques. For instance, it seems that surface and/or bulk impurities play a major role in the successful generation of any tritium. In those samples with total impurity concentrations of >400 ppM essentially no tritium has been generated by the gas loading and electrical simulation methods.