Gettering of nitrogen in liquid lithium

Controlling the concentration of nitrogen at the minimum level is one of the concerns for the establishment of liquid lithium blanket system since nitrogen prevents recovery of tritium by the formation of nitrides on the tritium getter surface. In this study, the nitrogen gettering performance of Fe–Ti alloy was investigated by measurement of the nitrogen concentration in liquid lithium, in which Fe–5 at.% Ti or Fe–10 at.% Ti getter was immersed. Moreover, the existence state of nitrogen in the getter material was verified by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and electron probe microanalyser (EPMA). From the result, the gettering effect of Fe–Ti alloy was confirmed although the effect was short-term, similar with V–Ti alloy. It was indicated that nitrogen gettering by Ti-containing alloy was prevented mainly by the localized formation of TiN in the surface region.