Study of liquid tin-lithium alloy interaction with structural materials of fusion reactor at high temperatures

Abstract

The paper presents the experimental studies to determine the corrosion compatibility of various base materials of the capillary-porous structures (CPS) with a liquid tin-lithium alloy under high temperatures. The experiments were carried out with Li-Sn alloy and the samples of vanadium, tungsten, molybdenum, tantalum, and stainless steel. These materials were selected as the candidate ones for the matrix of Li-Sn CPS prototypes. Manufacture of Li-Sn alloy and experiments were carried out at test bench VIKA. The ranges of the temperatures was: 600 °C–800 °C for stainless steel, and 850 °C–1000 °C for other metals; exposure time for every temperature step was up to 100 h.The implemented activities included manufacture of Sn-Li alloys with various lithium contents (25 at.% and 27 at.%), characterization of the samples, experiments to study compatibility of liquid tin-lithium with vanadium, tungsten, molybdenum, tantalum at temperatures of 850 °C–1000 °C, and stainless steel at temperatures of 600–800 °C. As a result of the performed activities, molybdenum and tungsten were selected as the most corrosion resistant materials in respect to Li-Sn alloys.