As our global demand rises for clean energy sources in our energy transition, the EU hopes to achieve climate-neutrality by 2050. Tritium is essential for nuclear fusion activities and in order to keep the tritium circuit self-sufficient it cannot go below a certain limit for nuclear fusion functionality. Therefore, the need to investigate tritium breeding, capture, and reuse is vital to nuclear activities in the fusion community. It is critical to reduce tritium permeation, not only for its reuse, but also to minimise its release into the environment given its radiotoxicity as a waste.

Following from TRANSAT, the TITANS project aims to develop methods to mitigate the tritium release into the environment. The TITANS project focuses on the:

• Enhancement of barriers to minimise tritium permeation at source through surface treatments;
• Innovation of tritium inventory models to better understand transfers to the environment, facilitate the planning of tritium leak mitigation strategies during the conceptual and design phase for future nuclear reactors;
• Improvement of tritium recovery and its reuse as tritium is needed for nuclear fusion/fission activities (contributing to the circular model);
• Refinement of tritiated waste management, specifically the conceptualisation of a mobile detritiation facility;
• Improvement of knowledge on tritium health effects as well as tritium management for decommissioning activities.

Further, the active barrier to reduce tritium permeation in TITANS is the concept of a final barrier against tritium permeation into the environment, the proof of active barrier concept has already been achieved in TRANSAT (TRL 2) from which, TITANS investigates where the new barrier concept is needed to limit the spread of tritium.

The TITANS project commits to providing a solution to clean, accessible, and reliable energy and contributes to the Generation-IV Framework to achieve Europe’s Horizon 2050 climate goals.

The TITANS project strives to improve tritium management and knowledge to meet the growing nuclear energy demand. By enhancing knowledge and methods for minimising tritium release to the environment, mitigating tritium permeation in nuclear facilities, improving tritium recovery, raising awareness to the public that nuclear waste emissions can be reduced and controlled and have low environmental impact, and to educate the new generation surrounding tritium management during decommissioning activities.