Study on kinetics of hydrogen dissolution and hydrogen solubility in oxides using imaging plate technique

Abstract Using a tritium imaging plate technique, kinetics of tritium dissolution and its solubility in several oxides were examined. Mirror-polished single crystals of alumina, spinel and zirconia were used as specimens, which were exposed to 133 Pa of a tritium(T)–deuterium(D) gas mixture (T/(T + D) ∼ 0.17) at temperatures ranging from 673 to 973 K for 1–5 h. The T surface activity on the specimens increased with increasing temperature and exposure time, it almost saturated at 873 K and reached 2 × 10 5  Bq/cm 2 (1 × 10 14  T/cm 2 ), and no clear difference appeared among the types of specimens. The T activity in the oxide bulk also increased with temperature, in which there was a trend for the oxides: spinel ≧ zirconia ≧ alumina. In the T dissolution process for all oxides, the concentration gradient due to its diffusion was not observed even for short exposure times: the T density was almost uniform over the specimens in transition states and increased with exposure time up to the saturated value. These experimental results suggested that the rate-controlling process of T dissolution in the temperature region should be not its diffusion in the oxides but dissociation of hydrogen molecules (T–D mixture in this case) into atoms, its adsorption on the surface and/or T penetration from the surface into the bulk.