Abstract: The influence of packing material in the countercurrent catalytic column on the efficiency of liquid phase water-hydrogen isotope exchange is studied. Stainless steel triangle spring packing de-(monstrates) best performance among the tested three hydrophilic packing materials. Pretreatment of the stainless steel packing lowers the height of a mass transfer unit (HTU) by about 50%. The effectiveness of a catalytic column for water-hydrogen isotope exchange is proved to be higher when the column is packed in layers with hydrophilic packing and hydrophobic catalyst in the volume ratio 1∶4.