Thomas Whitehead

Part II Student

Department of Materials
University of Oxford
Parks Road
Oxford OX1 3PH
UK

Email: partII.student@materials.ox.ac.uk

Project Description

For nuclear fusion to be a commercial reality, reactors must be self-sufficient in tritium. The likely route for tritium production is through the capture of a fusion neutron by a 6Li atom which produces a tritium atom. Liquid breeding use large volumes of flowing liquid Li or Li-Pb alloys to produce tritium, but has the major disadvantage of the corrosive nature of liquid Li. Currently a range of steels, Zr, W and V alloys have been proposed as structural components, but few corrosion tests have been completed. This project will perform liquid lithium corrosion on alloys of interest to our collaborators in the fusion industry. Alloys could include novel refractories or steels. Samples will be examined using optical and scanning electron microscopy, EBSD and EDX. The aim will be to understand what corrosion products are produced and investigate the effect of different microstructures on corrosion resistance. This understanding will then help inform the engineers designing STEP of the best materials to select.