Method of measurement of residual tritium in irradiated lithium ceramics

This paper presents the results of methodological experiments to determine residual tritium in lithium ceramic pebbles irradiated under different conditions using the liquid scintillation method. The studied sample was lithium ceramic based on lithium metatitanate Li 2 TiO 3 . Three groups of lithium ceramic samples were selected that were irradiated in the core of the WWR-K reactor to a thermal neutron fluence of 3×10 19 cm −2 . The first group consisted of lithium ceramic samples irradiated under high-temperature conditions (~620 °C). The second and third groups consisted of lithium ceramic samples irradiated at low temperatures (~60 °C). The difference between the third group and the second was that TDS studies were carried out with the samples of the third group to determine the remaining tritium under exposure to high temperatures up to 900 °C. As a result, values of the specific tritium activity of samples of irradiated lithium ceramics of different compositions and enrichments were obtained. The features of each research method were used, and the influence of irradiation conditions on the kinetics of tritium release from ceramics was determined.