AbstractAlthough lithium ceramic materials such as Li2O, LiAlO2, Li2ZrO3 and Li4SiO4 are considered as breeding materials in the blanket of a D-T fusion reactor, the release behavior of the bred tritium in these solid breeder materials is not yet fully understood. Most results of in situ tritium release experiments are analyzed assuming that the overall release process of tritium is mainly controlled with tritium diffusion in the crystal grain of a solid breeder material. However, the diffusivities by various authors for solid breeder materials do not agree with each other. An insufficient estimation of the surface reactions, the effect due to irradiation defects or the system effect may be the reason. Effects of diffusion of tritium in the grain, absorption of water in the bulk of grain, and adsorption of water on the surface of grain, together with two types of isotope exchange reaction on the tritium inventory in the steady-state condition, are discussed in this study. Comparisons of tritium inventory estimated in this study with data obtained in several in-situ experiments are also performed, and good agreement is obtained when the existence of some water vapor is assumed in the purge gas.
Tritium inventory and permeation in the ITER breeding blanket