Ratio of tritiated water and hydrogen generated in mercury through a nuclear reaction.

Tritium generated in a mercury target is a source of potential exposure of personnel at high-energy accelerator facilities. Knowledge of the chemical form of tritium is necessary to estimate the internal doses. We studied the tritium generation upon thermal neutron irradiation of a mercury target modified into liquid lithium amalgam to examine the ratio of tritiated water ([3H]H2O) and tritiated hydrogen ([3H]H2). The ratio between [3H]H2O and [3H]H2 generated in lithium amalgam was 4:6 under these experimental conditions.