Characterization of Corrosion Behavior of CLF-1 in Liquid Lithium Using Calibration-Free Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy in Depth Profile Analysis

Abstract

It is important to get fast and quantitative compositional depth profiles for the boundary layer of the corroded specimen in order to understand the corrosion process and mechanism due to liquid lithium induced corrosion problems to structural material of fusion reactors. In this work, calibration-free laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (CF-LIBS) is introduced to investigate the compatibility of CLF-1(China low-activation Ferritic steel) exposed in liquid lithium at 500 °C for 500 h. The results show that CF-LIBS constitutes an effective technique to observe the corrosion layer of specimens which are non-uniform and the elements of matrix show gradient distribution from the boundary to the inner layer. The concentration was 82–95 wt.% Fe, 5–12 wt.% Cr, 0.45–0.85 wt.% Mn, 1.6–1.1 wt.% W, 0.11–0.16 wt.% V, and <0.2 wt.% Li along the longitudinal corrosion depth for the corrode CLF-1. The results reveal the quantitative elemental variation trend of CLF-1 in the lithium corrosion process and indicate that the CF-LIBS approach can be applied to the analysis of composition in multi-element materials.

Catching up on calibration-free LIBS

“…Cao et al 90 investigated the feasibility of CF-LIBS to obtain a quantitative depth profile of corrosion layers in fusion reactors. Feng et al 91 analyzed the depth distribution of lithium corrosion resistance of erbium oxide (Er 2 O 3 ) to prevent damage to Tokamak blanket systems.…”

Atomic spectrometry update: review of advances in the analysis of metals, chemicals and materials

“…The corrosion behaviour of steel materials in fusion reactors was investigated in several studies. Two studies by Cao et al characterized Li-induced corrosion behaviour of China Low activation Ferritic steel (CLF-1), one using calibration-free LIBS for depth profile analysis, 179 and the second using an improved internal standard LIBS method. 180 Following 500 hours exposure at 500 °C liquid Li, CF-LIBS effectively showed the non-uniformity of the corrosion layer and gradient distribution of elements, including the weight% of elements along the longitudinal corrosion depth for the corroded sample.…”