Optimization of sintering conditions of advanced tritium breeder pebbles fabricated by the emulsion method

Hoshino, Tsuyoshi

Demonstration power reactors require advanced tritium breeders that have high stability at high temperatures. Therefore, an original material of LiTiO with excess Li (LiTiO) as an advanced tritium breeder that can make up to the lithium loss has been proposed. Furthermore, The author has been developing a technique of fabricating LiTiO pebbles using the emulsion method. Considering the tritium release characteristics and the packing factor of the blanket, the desired pebble diameter and grain size after sintering were 1 mm and 5 m, respectively. To prevent the grain growth of pebbles, calcined LiTiO pebbles were sintered in a vacuum atmosphere at 1073 K for 3 h and in a 1%H-He atmoshere at 1323K for 5 h. The average grain size on the surfaces and cross sections of the sintered LiTiO pebbles was 5 m. In addition, the diameter of sintered LiTiO pebbles was 1.07 mm.