# The Impact of Tritium in the Environment
## 3 Waste Management  
Unconditioned solid tritium wastes in the mixture of radioactive waste are usually stored in near-surface facilities designed to contain radioactive sources, radioactive material, spent fuel, or radioactive waste with the intention of retrieval [33], and they are arranged with a concrete biological barrier. Experimental studies [25], have shown that the condensation of moisture inside vaults (containers, packages, etc.) and the interaction of H\({}_{2}\)O with the body of storage due to isotopic exchange results in tritiated water formation that is filtered through the concrete, which is essentially a porous material, and eventually released into the environment (Figure 8). Additional water may enter the vaults by filtering through the concrete from the environment because of natural weakening or mechanical damage to the insulation barriers during long-term operation of the storage facility. It is interesting to note that extremal tritium contamination of a groundwater aquifer was eliminated in a few months after pumping the inventory of condensed tritiated water from the vaults (Figure 9). These data were confirmed during the operating of near-surface radioactive waste storage facilities in the United States, Canada, France, Hungary, Latvia, and other countries [34; 35; 36]. As radioactive waste storage facilities localized near the Earth's surface usually contain condensed water, which may penetrate multiple engineered barriers,including the waste form, waste packaging, and other engineered barriers, including concrete, it is possible to conclude that a revision of the basic principles of tritium solid waste management could be necessary. Concrete does not provide a barrier function for the safe storage of tritium waste. It needs to be improved with a water-absorbing material that performs hydrogen isotopic fractionation. Tritiated waste management is of great importance for the future of fusion. One of the most sensitive processes occurring in a nuclear fusion reactor is the interaction with hot plasma under temperatures higher than those found in the core of the Sun. The interaction between the plasma and the first wall leads to extreme thermal stresses, repetitive intense thermal shocks, plasma ion and neutral particle (D, T, He) shocks, high-energy neutron shocks (energies up to 14 MeV), thermally induced defects (cracking, melting of plasma surface material), thermal fatigue damage, dusting, hydrogen-induced blisters, helium-induced nanoscale cluster formation, neutron degradation of the wall armor through thermal conductivity reduction, embrittlement, transmutation, and activation [37]. In these conditions, a great volume of solid tritated materials will be produced, and the first metals will have a tritium inventory of up to 50 MBq\(\cdot\)g\({}^{-1}\). The main method for dettritization of solid waste is thermal desorption in an air atmosphere, which includes the desorption of tritium-containing substances from the metal surface and their isotopic exchange with water vapor in the air [38; 39]. Schematically, this can be represented as follows:  
\[ \begin{array}{c}SolidRAW\begin{array}{c}heating\\ (metal)\end{array}\begin{array}{c}GaseousRAW\\ \rightarrow\end{array}\begin{array}{c}liquidRAW\\ (H,D,T)_{2}\end{array}\begin{array}{c}liquidRAW\\ \rightarrow\end{array}\begin{array}{c}(H,D,T)_{2}O\end{array}\end{array}  \tag{6}\]  
However, this scheme seems to be imperfect, since heat treatment at about 1000 \({}^{\circ}\)C changes the physical state of the volatile contaminants, vaporizing them from a solid waste material to a (highly migradable) gas, determining a significant increase in the waste volume and, in turn, the risk of environmental contamination. Subsequently, the oxidation of tritium gas (HT, DT, T\({}_{2}\)) produces its aqueous vapor forms (HTO, DTO, T\({}_{2}\)O), the radiological hazard of which is 10,000 times higher [40].