TSX:AVL - Post Discussion
Post by
mdsharif532 on Dec 14, 2022 12:13am
Tritium produced ........ by neutron activation of lithium-6
What is needed for a fusion reactor? Fusion reactors generally need a large startup tritium supply because the right conditions for fusion only occur in the hottest part of the plasma of ionized gases. That means very little of the tritium in the doughnut-shaped reactor vessel, or tokamak, gets burned Lithium
Tritium is most often produced in nuclear reactors by neutron activation of lithium-6. The release and diffusion of tritium and helium produced by the fission of lithium can take place within ceramics referred to as breeder ceramics. The production of tritium from lithium-6 in such breeder ceramics is possible with neutrons of any energy, though the cross section is higher when the incident neutrons have lower energy, reaching more than 900 barns for thermal neutrons. This is an exothermic reaction, yielding 4.8 MeV.[9] In comparison, the fusion of deuterium with tritium releases about 17.6 MeV of energy. For applications in proposed fusion energy reactors, such as ITER, pebbles consisting of lithium bearing ceramics including Li2TiO3 and Li4SiO4, are being developed for tritium breeding within a helium-cooled pebble bed, also known as a breeder blanket.[10]
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High-energy neutrons can also produce tritium from lithium-7 in an endothermic (net heat consuming) reaction, consuming 2.466 MeV. This was discovered when the 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test produced an unexpectedly high yield.[11]
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