Role of microstructure and heat treatments on the desorption kinetics of tritium from austenitic stainless steels

Abstract The liquid scintillation counting of solid samples (LSC-SS technique) was successfully used to study the role of microstructure and heat treatments on the behavior of residual tritium in several austenitic stainless steels (as-cast remelted tritiated waste, 316LN and 321 steels). The role of desorption annealing in the 100–600 °C range on the residual amount of tritium in tritiated waste was investigated. The residual tritium concentration computed from surface activity measurements is in good agreement with experimental values measured by liquid scintillation counting after full dissolution of the samples. The kinetics of tritium desorption recorded with the LSC-SS technique shows a significant desorption of residual tritium at room temperature, a strong barrier effect of thermal oxide films on the tritium desorption and a dependance of the tritium release on the steels microstructure. Annealing in the 300–600 °C range allows to desorb a large fraction of the residual tritium. However a significant trapping of tritium is evidenced. The influence of trapping phenomena on the concentration of residual tritium and on its dependance with the annealing temperature was investigated with different recrystallized and sensitized microstructures. Trapping is evidenced mainly below 150 °C and concerns a small fraction of the total amount of tritium introduced in austenitic steels. It presumably occurs preferentially on precipitates such as Ti(CN) or on intermetallic phases.