Ceramic breeder materials: Status and needs

Existence states of deuterium irradiated into LiAlO2

“…In order to establish secure and efficient fuel cycles in fusion reactors, the behavior of tritium in the blanket breeding materials needs to be clarified [1,2]. Among the candidate breeders of Li-containing oxides, Li 2 O is the most widely investigated.…”

“…This type of information on tritium and defects in Li 2 O should be applicable to ternary Li-containing oxides. However, it is important to clarify the differences between Li 2 O and other ternary oxides, since different tritium release behaviors have been observed for each Li-containing oxide [2,[17][18][19]. In this respect, we selected LiAlO 2 as a representative of the ternary Li-containing oxides, due to its particular hydrogen-releasing behavior [20][21][22][23].…”

Reaction Kinetics for the Synthesis of Li4SiO4 by Solid State Reaction from Li2SiO3 and Li2CO3 for Tritium Breeder

“…4 He) because tritium, one of the most important nuclear fuels, is rather scarce in nature. Lithium based ceramics, such as Li 2 O, Li 2 TiO 3 , Li 2 ZrO 3 , and Li 4 SiO 4 , have been proposed as breeder candidates in upcoming International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) [1,2]. Generally, for tritium recovery and tritium diffusion purpose, the ceramic breeders should have a pebble configuration with small diameter (0.25-1 mm), have high density with open porosity (around 10-12 %) and uniform small grain size distribution [3,4].…”

Research on the preparation of ceramic tritium breeders in SICCAS

“…Different shapes were required for different applications. The most common shape of the online tritium breeders were usually adopted as a pebble, which has been the preferred option in most blanket designs due to its potential advantages in the assembly of blankets with complex geometry and in the relief of thermal stress and irradiation cracking [3,4]. For offline tritium breeders, the shape adopted was either a bar or a ring.…”