Tritium behavior in lithium ceramics

Tritium is the principal fuel for future fusion power reactors. Unfortunate ly, tritium is not available naturally and so must be produced through tran smutation of lithium. The current approach to fusion reactor breeder blanke t design is to place lithium-containing ceramics in a blanket module that s urrounds the fusion plasma. These materials have performed well in numerous in-pile experiments, showing good thermal stability and good tritium relea se characteristics. Tritium release is particularly facile when an argon or helium purge gas containing hydrogen, typically at levels of about 0.1%, i s used. However, the addition of hydrogen to the purge gas imposes a penalt y when it comes to recovery of the tritium produced in the blanket. Optimiz ing tritium release while minimizing the amount of hydrogen necessary in th e purge gas requires a detailed understanding of the tritium release proces s, especially the interactions of hydrogen with the surface of the lithium, ceramic. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.