A reaction engineering approach was used to design a SAES St 198 metal getter reactor for a glovebox detritiation system. The detritiation system will be used to decontaminate and decommission an Li(D,T)-contaminated glovebox previously used in the U.S. nuclear weapons program. The approach involved development of a model that calculates reactor breakthrough curves as a function of various reactor physical parameters. Experiments involving flow of deuterium in nitrogen through a small metal getter reactor validated the model. The model was then used to investigate the effects of temperature, getter pellet size, reactor diameter, and reactor volume on the reactor performance. The resulting design was a 7 cm diam. by 40 cm long cylindrical reactor that operates at 250 °C, and is filled with 5 kg of as-received SAES St 198 getter pellets. The reactor handles a flow rate of 100 L/min. An St 909 getter reactor was used upstream of the St 198 reactor for impurity removal and water decomposition. The glovebox cleanup system design and getter reactor mechanical design are discussed.