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Neutrons for Science
of the deuterium gas and fractional distillation which separates out hydrogen and tritium from the deuterium. This also removes all contamination of the heavy water by light water. All this is housed in a specially designed building where every precaution
is taken to avoid any explosion of hydrogen gas. I mentioned the difficulties of finding a buyer for the tritium. Such a plant was unique. In particular the Brookhaven HFBR had none. It would
be unfair to attribute closure in 1999 to this absence, but the shutdown followed a very light contamination by tritium in the basement of the reactor building. This tritium came from a storage pool containing used fuel elements which received a little tritiated water with each transfer from the core to storage.
5.3 The link between the ILL management and the project group
There were frequent discussions between Maier-Leibnitz and myself with Dautray and then with Chatoux and Eiserman. This was not enough to ensure a fully efficient cooperation. Two people played an essential role in this coordination. The first was Yves Droulers, already mentioned, who would have the responsibility for daily reactor operations once complete. For him it was clearly necessary to know it in every detail. He quickly formed the reactor service (there was always a policy towards early recruitment) which at the end of 1970 already comprised 37 staff, who were tightly integrated with the teams of the project group and the industrial architect; it was certainly the best way to learn about the reactor. The second person was Paul Ageron (Fig. 5.8). We have
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