Comprehensive Review and Critical Evaluation of the Half-Life of Tritium

As part of the preparation and calibration of three new National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tritiated-water radioactivity Standard Reference Materials (SRMs), we have performed a comprehensive review and critical evaluation of the half-life of tritium (hydrogen-3). Twenty three experimentally-determined values of the half-life of tritium, reported between 1936 and 2000, were found. Six of these values were updated by later values. Two values were limits. Two values were deemed to be outliers. The 13 remaining values were evaluated in several ways. The results are compared with the results of other recent evaluations and all are found to be in good agreement. Our final recommended value for the half-life of tritium is the average of the adopted values from the four most recent evaluations, (4500 ± 8) d, where 8 d corresponds to one standard uncertainty.