Review of Reactivity Experiments for Lithium Ternary Alloys

Abstract

Lithium is often the preferred choice as breeder and coolant in fusion blankets as it offers high tritium breeding, excellent heat transfer and corrosion properties, and most importantly, it has very high tritium solubility and results in very low levels of tritium permeation throughout the facility infrastructure. However, lithium metal vigorously reacts with air and water and exacerbates plant safety concerns. Consequently, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is attempting to develop a lithium-based alloy—most likely a ternary alloy—which maintains the beneficial properties of lithium (e.g. high tritium breeding and solubility) while reducing overall flammability concerns for use in the blanket of an inertial fusion energy (IFE) power plant. The LLNL concept employs inertial confinement fusion (ICF) through the use of lasers aimed at an indirect-driven target composed of deuterium-tritium fuel. The fusion driver/target design implements the same physics currently experimented at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The plant uses lithium in both the primary coolant and blanket; therefore, lithium related hazards are of primary concern. Reducing chemical reactivity is the primary motivation for the development of new lithium alloys, and it is therefore important to come up with proper ways to conduct experiments that can physically study this phenomenon. Thismore » paper will start to explore this area by outlining relevant past experiments conducted with lithium/air reactions and lithium/water reactions. Looking at what was done in the past will then give us a general idea of how we can setup our own experiments to test a variety of lithium alloys.« less