Development of advanced blanket materials for a solid breeder blanket of a fusion reactor

The design of an advanced solid breeding blanket in a DEMO reactor requires a tritium breeder and a neutron multiplier that can withstand high temperatures and high neutron fluences, and the development of such advanced blanket materials has been carried out by collaboration between JAERI, universities and industries in Japan. The Li2TiO3 pebble fabricated by a wet process is a reference material as a tritium breeder, but its stability at high temperatures has to be improved for its application in a DEMO blanket. One of these improved materials, TiO2-doped Li2TiO3 pebbles, was successfully fabricated and studied. For the advanced neutron multiplier, beryllides that have a high melting point and good chemical stability have been studied. Some characterization of Be12Ti was conducted, and it became clear that it had lower swelling and tritium inventory than beryllium metal. Pebble fabrication study for Be12Ti was also performed and Be12Ti pebbles were successfully fabricated. These activities have shown that there is a bright prospect in realizing a DEMO blanket by the application of TiO2-doped Li2TiO3 and beryllides.