Low-cost fabrication of Li2TiO3 tritium breeding ceramic pebbles via low-temperature solid-state precursor method

Lithium metatitanate (Li₂TiO₃) ceramic pebbles were fabricated from the powder synthesised via low-temperature solid-state precursor method. Solid H₂TiO₃ and LiOH·H₂O react chemically during ball milling process to form a nano-sized precursor powder. Pure β-Li₂TiO₃ powder can be obtained by calcining the precursor powder at 500 °C, which is half the temperature of conventional solid-state method. The synthesis process is simple and low-cost, which would be more available to achieve batch production among all feasible techniques. The low-temperature calcination will effectively avoid hard particle aggregates and poor sinterability caused by high-temperature heat treatment, which is conducive to prepare ceramics with good properties. The results show that the powder exhibits high sinterability with small particle size of 19 nm. The Li₂TiO₃ ceramic pebbles sintered at 800 °C have small grain size (470 nm), high relative density (83%) and good crush load (45 N), which has great potential as tritium breeding materials for fusion reactors.