In-pile behaviour of some lithium titanates to medium lithium burnups

Lithium titanate is one of the candidate materials for tritium breeding blankets in fusion devices. The Helium Cooled Pebble-Bed (HCPB) blanket concept foresees the breeder ceramic shaped as pebbles with typical diameters in the range of 0.2 to 1.5 mm. Ceramics presently considered as candidates are Li 4 SiO 4 , Li 2 TiO 3 and Li 2 ZrO 3 . In the framework of the European Blanket Project several lithium ceramics are being irradiated in the High Flux Reactor (HFR) in Petten, with in-situ extraction of tritium. Results from three experiments on lithium titanate from the EXOTIC-8 series are reported.