Fuel retention in carbon materials under ITER-relevant mixed species plasma conditions

• Samples of CFC NB41 and fine-grain graphite ATJ have been exposed to PISCES plasmas containing (i) pure deuterium, (ii) deuterium and beryllium, (iii) deuterium, beryllium and helium, and (iv) deuterium, beryllium and argon. Thermal desorption spectrometry (TDS) and nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) have been used to measure the amount and distribution of retained deuterium in the samples. For the case of pure deuterium plasma, parametric studies of deuterium retention in NB41 have been done with variations of the incident deuterium fluence (Phi = 1 x 10(25)-5 x 10(26) m(-2)), ion energy (E-i = 20-120 eV) and sample surface temperature (T-s = 370-820 K). It has been found, that for T-s = 470K the retention scales as Phi(0.35). For T-s = 820K the retention saturates at a level of similar to 10(21) Dm(-2). The retention increases with E-i and drops with higher T-s. At T-s = 720 K, the beryllium seeding results in a building of a protective beryllium carbide layer, which appears to prevent the in-bulk diffusion of deuterium, thus reducing the retention. Admixture of Ar and, in the case of low E-i, He leads to a significant reduction of the retention.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Fusion, plasma och rymdfysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Fusion, Plasma and Space Physics (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Subatomär fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Subatomic Physics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

DEUTERIUM RETENTION

GRAPHITE

HYDROGEN

BERYLLIUM

Plasma physics

Plasmafysik

Ion physics

Ion Physics

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)