Out-pile tritium release experiment from various ceramic breeder materials in KUR

Release curve of bred tritium from various ceramic breeder materials such as Li2ZrO3, Li2TiO3, and Li4SiO4 were obtained using the out-pile temperature programmed desorption method in the Kyoto University Research Reactor. A 0.4g sample of breeder particles contained in a quartz tube was irradiated for 120s at the thermal neutron flux of about 2.8x10(17) n/m(2)s in N-2 atmosphere under the temperature of 360K. Tritium release behavior was measured using an ionization chamber connected to the release tritium measurement apparatus. The sample was purged by dry N-2, N-2 with hydrogen of various partial pressure, or humidified N-2 gas. The temperature of the sample bed was changed linearly from room temperature to 1073K with the rising rate of 5K/min. Characteristics of tritium release behavior obtained for various ceramic breeder materials under various purge gas conditions are compared in this paper.