Study on the chemical compatibility between Li2TiO3 ceramic pebbles and diverse advanced structural materials

The tritium breeder and structural materials are necessary components in the blanket to realize tritium (T) self-sustainment of nuclear fusion. The long-term exposure between tritium breeders and structural materials will cause surface corrosion in irradiation environments and then further affect the tritium release behavior. In this study, chemical compatibility between Li₂TiO₃ ceramic pebbles and advanced structural materials was studied systematically at 700 °C for 300 h under He+0.1 % H₂ environment, respectively. The color of the Li₂TiO₃ ceramic pebbles changes from white to dark grey and black. Moreover, the grain size of Li₂TiO₃ ceramic pebbles increases to more than 5 μm, and the crushing load decreased slightly. For the structural materials, the Al-rich oxide layer with about 188.7 nm of 14Cr-5Al oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) steel and Cr-Fe rich oxide layer with about 1.04 μm of 14Cr-ODS steel were observed on the cross-section. The effective diffusion coefficient of O element in Li₂TiO₃ ceramic moved into ODS steel at 700 °C was calculated to be 3.3 × 10^?16cm²/s and 1.02 × 10^?14 cm²/s. Unfortunately, when SiC ceramics were contacted with the pebbles, the crystal phase transformed into SiO₂, which severely limits its application. Therefore, these results will provide guidance for the selection of structural materials in the future.