Development of wet process with substitution reaction for the mass production of Li2TiO3 pebbles

Recently, lithium titanate (Li2TiO3) has attracted the attention of many researchers from the point of good tritium recovery at low temperature, chemical stability, etc. As the shape of Li2TiO3, a small pebble was selected as the Japanese design for a fusion reactor blanket. On the other hand, as the fabrication method of Li2TiO3 pebbles, the wet process is the most advantageous from the viewpoint of mass production, etc. In this study, fabrication of small Li2TiO3 pebbles less than ∅0.5 mm was performed by the wet process with substitution reaction, and the characteristics of Li2TiO3 pebbles fabricated by this process were evaluated. From the results of the fabrication tests, excellent prospects were obtained concerning mass production of Li2TiO3 pebbles with the target density (80–85% T.D.) and target diameter (less than ∅0.5 mm).