Calibrating a gas chromatograph to measure tritium using calorimetry

The availability of calibrated gas mixtures in a tritium plant is an important precondition for correct analysis of unknown gas samples because a quantitative analysis with a gas chromatograph (GC) requires frequent calibration checks. To calibrate a GC for tritium, certified gas mixtures with different tritium concentrations are necessary. These mixtures can be produced directly in a laboratory. In this case an independent method is needed to determine the tritium concentration in the mixture with high accuracy. Calorimetry is the method of choice because its accuracy is better than 1% and it is non-destructive method.Using the closed tritium loop of the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK), different mixtures containing tritium in the range 1–100% have been produced and measured with one of the in-house calorimeters. After that the GC of the CAPER facility at TLK has been calibrated several times with an uncertainty of a few percents.