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.