Highly efficient preparation of Li₂O breeder materials with core‐shell structure by oil‐based granulation route

Abstract

This paper gives an oil‐based granulation approach to realize the efficient preparation of Li2O breeder materials, which solve the problems of long preparation cycle, high manufacturing cost and difficult to be homogenization and densification in the past. Li2O precursor spheres with narrow size distribution and uniform spherical shape can be obtained using paraffin oil as binders. The Li2O feed powder with bimodal size distribution will self‐organize to form a core‐shell structured sphere during granulation, in which the core and shell are composed of small particles and large particles, respectively. Notably, the Li2O ceramic spheres sintered at 900°C can achieve a crush load of 40.69 ± 4.01 N and a theoretical density of 79.66% TD, which was not achievable by the methods reported in the previous literature. The strategy proposed in this work not only can be easily extended to other material systems but also opens up a new avenue for the design and preparation of tritium breeder materials with uniform size distribution and satisfactory mechanical properties.