being KATRIN). The low energy of tritium's radiation makes it difficult to detect tritium-labeled compounds except by using liquid scintillation counting. Production Lithium Tritium is most often produced in nuclear reactors by neutron activation of lithium-6. The release and diffusion of tritium and helium produced by the fission of lithium can take place within ceramics referred to as breeder ceramics. The production of tritium from lithium-6 in such breeder ceramics is possible with neutrons of any energy, though the cross section is higher when the incident neutrons have lower energy, reaching more than 900 barns for thermal neutrons. This is an exothermic reaction, yielding 4.8 MeV. In comparison, the fusion of deuterium with tritium releases about 17.6 MeV of energy. For applications in proposed fusion energy reactors, such as ITER, pebbles consisting of lithium bearing ceramics including Li2TiO3 and Li4SiO4, are being developed for tritium breeding within a helium-cooled pebble bed, also known as a breeder blanket. :{| border="0" |- style="height:2em;" | ||+ || ||→ || ||( ||2.05 MeV ||) ||+ || ||( ||2.75 MeV ||) |} High-energy neutrons can also produce tritium from lithium-7 in an endothermic (net heat consuming) reaction, consuming 2.466 MeV. This was discovered when the 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test produced an unexpectedly high yield. :{| border="0" |- style="height:2em;" | ||+ || ||→ || ||+ || ||+ || |} Boron High-energy neutrons irradiating boron-10 will also occasionally produce tritium: :{| border="0" |- style="height:2em;" | ||+ || ||→ ||2 ||+ || |} A more common result of boron-10 neutron capture is and a single alpha particle. Especially in pressurized water reactors which only partially thermalize neutrons, the interaction between relatively fast neutrons and the boric acid added as a chemical shim produces small but non-negligible quantities of tritium. Deuterium Tritium is also produced in heavy water-moderated reactors whenever a deuterium nucleus captures a neutron. This reaction has a quite small absorption cross section, making heavy water a good neutron moderator, and relatively little tritium is produced. Even so, cleaning tritium from the moderator may be desirable after several years to reduce the risk of its escaping to the environment. Ontario Power Generation's "Tritium Removal Facility" processes up to of heavy water a year, and it separates out about of tritium, making it available for other uses. CANDU reactors typically produce of tritium per year, which is recovered at the Darlington Tritium Recovery Facility (DTRF) attached to