TRITIUM RELEASE FROM LITHIUM TITANATE, A LOW-ACTIVATION TRITIUM BREEDING MATERIAL

The goals for fusion power are to produce energy in as safe, economica l, and environmentally benign a manner as possible. To ensure environm entally sound operation low-activation materials should be used where feasible. The ARIES Tokamak Reactor Study has based reactor designs on the concept of using low-activation materials throughout the fusion r eactor. For the tritium breeding blanket, the choices for low activati on tritium breeding materials are limited. Lithium titanate ii an alte rnative low-activation ceramic material for use in the tritium breedin g blanket. To date, very little work has been done on characterizing t he tritium release for lithium titanate. We have thus performed labora tory studies of tritium release from irradiated lithium titanate. The results indicate that tritium is easily removed from lithium titanate at temperatures as low as 600 K. The method of titanate preparation wa s found to affect the tritium release, and the addition of 0.1% H-2 to the helium purge gas did not improve tritium recovery.