Determination of tritium in Li–Pb alloy irradiated by thermal neutrons with quantitatively analyzing the byproduct 4He

The mass of the tritium produced in 6Li(n,α)T reaction was obtained by quantitatively analyzing the byproduct 4He with mass spectrometer. The self-expending seal method was employed to quantitatively prepare the Li–Pb alloy targets in room temperature. They were irradiated for 2 h in two rabbit irradiation channels in Xi’an pulsed reactor and measured after cooling 15 days. A sample purifying unit was set up to get rid of the hydrogen isotopes to remarkably reduce the interference to helium isotopes when measuring. And the sample disposal platform including purifying unit was testified with simulative gas and nature atmosphere. The targets were melted at 700 °C to release most of the 4He atoms which were measured by adding dilution gas 3He. And it was testified that 4He had released completely by repetitiously melting the targets. This approach had solved the problem that the tritium couldn’t be accurately determined by directly analyzing it because of non-complete releasing from lithium alloy.