TRIAL FABRICATION OF TRITIUM BREEDERS FOR FUSION BLANKET WITH LITHIUMRECOVERED FROM SEAWATER

Lithium ceramics have been considered as one of the candidates for the fabrication of tritium breeders for fusion reactors. As a part of the study program for fusion blanket development, fabrication techniques for tritium breeders which are made of lithium ceramics have been inve stigated and the characteristics of tritium breeders fabricated by sev eral fabrication methods are estimated. On the other hand, lithium dep osits in ore are very poor in Japan. Hence, lithium recovered from sea water should be effectively utilized for tritium breeders. In this stu dy, gamma-LiAlO2 pellets were fabricated by solid-solid reactions betw een Al2O3 and Li2CO3 recovered from seawater or ore, and the character istics of two kinds of gamma-LiAlO2 mentioned above, i.e. fabrication, physical and thermal properties, were estimated. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sc ience S.A. All rights reserved.