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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
A. Shrivastava, M. Makwana, P. Chaudhuri, E. Rajendrakumar
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 65 | Number 2 | March-April 2014 | Pages 319-324
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-658
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In fusion DEMO reactors, the blanket requires lithium-containing ceramics as the tritium breeder material. Lithium metatitanate (Li2TiO3) is being considered as a promising tritium breeding material for thermonuclear fusion reactors because of its reasonable lithium atom density, prominent tritium release rate at low temperatures, low activation characteristics, low thermal expansion coefficient, high thermal conductivity, etc. Li2TiO3 will be used in the Indian Lead-Lithium–Cooled Ceramic Breeder concept to be tested in ITER. Li2TiO3 powder has been synthesized by the solution-combustion technique using a less expensive precursor of titanium, i.e., titanium dioxide (TiO2), at Institute for Plasma Research. Titanium oxynitrate [TiO(NO3)2] and lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) with citric acid fuel are used as the raw materials. The combustion reaction was carried out at citrate-to-metal ratios of 0.8 to 1.5, as well as for various pH values ranging from 1 to 5. Citric acid was used as a fuel material for the reaction. Calcination of the powder was carried out at 600°C. The powders were characterized for phase purity, grain size, and surface area using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area analyzer. Finally, Li2TiO3 pebbles were prepared by extrusion followed by spheronization with a diameter range from 1 to 1.5 mm. The details of the powder systemization, pebble formation, and their various characterizations are discussed in this paper.