S. van Til

4.15 – Ceramic Breeder Materials

This article reviews the research on ceramic tritium breeding materials and the development of these materials, which aims at providing the tritium required for the deuterium–tritium fuel cycle in magnetic fusion reactors. In particular, the performance of various oxides of lithium is discussed. Currently, much of the ceramic breeder research and development is focused on lithium orthosilicate and metatitanate systems in the form of pebble beds. This chapter reviews design requirements, manufacturing routes, pebble and pebble-bed thermomechanics, tritium production and release properties, neutron-irradiation behavior, chemistry, and modeling. Ongoing work is summarized and the outlook for further work, including test programs in International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), is provided.