Quality assurance of Li-Pb eutectic alloy as nuclear material qualification of commercial and R&; D material ingots

Production of tons of super(6Li enriched Li-Pb eutectic (LME) is a next coming years demand for Test Blanket Programmes in ITER. EU R&D FT Programme is facing the establishment of LLE procurement plan for ITER and CIEMAT is leading such effort. LME production routes together with constitutive and compositional characteristics should be established according to nuclear material QA requirements. (IAEA ISOs). LLE materiaAe) super(o) QA as; due to Li aggregation concerns have major impact on key design material properties for breeding blanket design. A case may be the value of SievertIs constant in lead-lithium which has a large impact on tritium control and on the design of auxiliary systems. The present work focus on establishing QA standard for the characterization of some key material properties: (1) accurate certification of Li title, (2) accurate certification of impurities content and (3) accurate assessment of structural homogeneity or Li-aggregation. Two different characterization techniques, DSC and ICP-MS analysis are qualified with different sampling materials origins; commercial (Stachow GmB, Germany) and R&D material from IPUL, Latvia. The proposed methodology and the experimental results obtained allows to measure the total amount of Li in the bulk alloy ingot and localized and determinate the segregation of Li (as Li in excess) generated in different parts of the ingot as a consequence of cooling thermal treatment.