Lithium orthosilicate as nuclear fusion breeder material: Optimization of the drip casting production technology

The production of nuclear fusion energy, in the future DEMOnstration power plant (DEMO), is based on tritium self-sufficiency, achievable exploiting neutron-lithium reaction occurring in the breeding blanket modules. To fulfil the plant design conditions ceramic materials containing lithium are suggested. A lot of research efforts focused on the past years on the investigation and selection of the most suitable breeding material. In this study, the lithium orthosilicate, in pebble form, produced at room temperature at the University of Pisa was investigated and characterized from a thermo-mechanical point of view. The pebbles were produced by a drip casting forming technique, starting from an aqueous suspension of a Li4SiO4 precursor obtained by hydrolytic sol–gel method, and dropping it into a calcium chloride/lithium acetate solution. A high temperature thermal treatment was applied to green pebbles to synthesize Li4SiO4 and densify the structure. Thermal analysis and static uniaxial compression tests, without radial constraints, were carried out on different types of pebbles produced varying the composition of the precursor suspension by means of cellulose fiber additions. Results show the influence of the cellulose content on morphological and physical properties of the obtained pebbles. Li4SiO4 pebbles with a density of 88 % and a crush load of about 30 N were obtained when the suspension was modified by adding 15 wt% of cellulose fibers to the sol–gel precursor powders.