LITEC: An experimental facility for the validation of the IFMIF-DONES Impurity Control System

Abstract

The Impurity Control System (ICS) of IFMIF-DONES is devoted to assuring lithium purity. After its circulation through the target, some undesired products will contaminate the lithium: deuterium, hydrogen, tritium, and beryllium. In addition, due to the high velocity of the flowing lithium, the target assembly, piping system, and other auxiliaries are subjected to a significant corrosion rate, thus leading also to the presence of metallic impurities in the liquid lithium (iron, nickel, molybdenum…). Finally, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon will also be present.These impurities may compromise the operation of the facility: they may enhance the erosion/corrosion effect, shortening the operational life of equipment; they may be activated having an important impact on safety strategy, maintenance, and operational procedures; finally, the erosion caused to the target nozzle may produce fluid perturbations affecting to different aspects: fluid-dynamics, cavitation, and thermo-mechanics.The ICS extracts a fraction of the liquid from the DONES main lithium loop to be purified in dedicated traps, to maintain impurities below permissible levels to achieve the required safety and operational conditions.The validation of the ICS at a relevant circuit size will be performed in a new experimental facility called LITEC (The LIthium TEchnologies CIEMAT loop). It consists of a forced circulation lithium circuit. An electromagnetic pump provides a wide operational range for testing all the purification systems envisioned in the ICS. It has four test sections, where trap prototypes will be installed. An injection system also foresees the possibility of introducing impurities to simulate realistic IFMIF-DONES conditions. Finally, a specific branch will monitor online and offline the impurities.LITEC will contribute significantly to clarifying key aspects of the design and operation of IFMIF-DONES lithium systems and will be a reference facility for research activities in lithium technologies. In this work, its engineering design, operational parameters, and characteristics are presented.