Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology

This paper describes a compartment dynamic model for evaluating the contamination level of tritium in agricultural plants exposed by accidentally released tritium. The present model uses a timedependent growth equation of plant so that it can predict the effect of growth stage of plant during the exposure time. The model including atmosphere, soil and plant compartments is described by a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations, and is able to predict time-dependent concentrations of tritium in the compartments. To validate the model, a series of exposure experiments of HTO vapor on Chinese cabbage and radish was carried out at the different growth stage of each plant. At the end of exposure, the tissue free water(TFWT) and the organically bound tritium(OBT) were measured. The measured concentrations were agreed well with model predictions.

Keywords

tritium,compartment dynamic model,agricultural plants