Lithium fusion

Protium Lithium fusion would produce charged particles (90% of the energy in helium ions) for direct conversion to electricity, but higher temperatures and pressure would need to be achieved. 

Calaway, W. F. "Electrochemical Extraction of Itydrogen From Molten LiF-LiCl-LiBr and its Application to Liquid-Lithium Fusion Reactor Blanket Processing" Nucl. Tech., 1978, 39, 63. 

J.H. Park and TP. Kassner, CaO Insulator and Be Intermetallic Coatings on V-Base Alloys for Liquid Lithium Fusion Blanket Applications, Presented for 16th IEEE/ NPSS Symposium on Eusion Engineering (SOLE 95), Champaign, Illinois, 5, 1995. 

Tortorelli, P. F., "Deposition Behavior of Ferrous Alloys in Molten Lead-Lithium, Fusion Engineering and Design, Vol. 14, 1991, pp. 335-345. 

Ammonium and Lithium Fluoroborates. Ammonia reacts with fluoroboric acid to produce ammonium fluoroborate (53). An alternative method is the fusion of ammonium bifluoride and boric acid (54) ... 

Tritium is produced in heavy-water-moderated reactors and sometimes must be separated isotopicaHy from hydrogen and deuterium for disposal. Ultimately, the tritium could be used as fuel in thermonuclear reactors (see Fusionenergy). Nuclear fusion reactions that involve tritium occur at the lowest known temperatures for such reactions. One possible reaction using deuterium produces neutrons that can be used to react with a lithium blanket to breed more tritium. 

Deuterium is abundant in and easily separated from water. There is enough deuterium on earth to provide power for geological time scales. In contrast, tritium is not available in nature, but can be produced from n+ lithium reactions (see Lithium and lithium compounds). Natural Hthium is exhaustible, but sufficient tritium can be provided from it until fusion energy production is efficient enough to involve only D-D reactions ... 

Fusion Reactors. The development of fusion reactors requires a material exhibiting high temperature mechanical strength, resistance to radiation-induced swelling and embrittlement, and compatibUity with hydrogen, lithium and various coolants. One aUoy system that shows promise in this appHcation, as weU as for steam-turbine blades and other appHcations in nonoxidizing atmospheres, is based on the composition (Fe,Co,Ni)2V (30). 

The commercial ores, beryl and bertrandite, are usually decomposed by fusion using sodium carbonate. The melt is dissolved in a mixture of sulfuric and hydrofluoric acids and the solution is evaporated to strong fumes to drive off siUcon tetrafluoride, diluted, then analy2ed by atomic absorption or plasma emission spectrometry. If sodium or siUcon are also to be determined, the ore may be fused with a mixture of lithium metaborate and lithium tetraborate, and the melt dissolved in nitric and hydrofluoric acids (17). 

The confinement region in which nuclear fusion proceeds is surrounded by a blanket in which the neutrons produced by the fusion reaction are captured to produce tritium. Because of its favorable cross section for neutron capture, lithium is the favored blanket material. Various lithium blanket... 

In this experiment, advantage is made of the fact that lithium-ammonia reduction usually proceeds to give trans-fused Decalins 4). Thus, hydrogenation of A -octal one-2 over palladium catalyst gives essentially cw-2-decalone as the product, whereas the lithium-ammonia reduction of the octalone gives the trans ring fusion. 

Deuterium occurs naturally, mixed m with plain hydrogen in the tiny proportion of 0.015 percent in other words, plain hydrogen is the more common isotope by a factor of 6,600. Tritium for fusion energy can be created from another nuclear process involving the interaction of the neutron (in the equation above) with lithium ... 

In recent years there has been a continued interest in the use of alkali metals, notably sodium and lithium, as heat exchange media in nuclear reactors and fusion systems respectively and as chemical reactants in fuel cells. This interest is reflected in the proceedings of several major conferences which are referenced in the bibliography (see p. 2.109). 

One fusion reaction currently under study is a two-step process involving deuterium and lithium as the basic starting materials ... 

Fusions with (a) sodium carbonate or fusion mixture, (b) borax and lithium metaborate, (c) alkali bifluorides, and (d) alkali hydrogensulphates (slight attack in the last case above 700 °C, which is diminished by the addition of ammonium sulphate). 

Substances which are insoluble or only partially soluble in acids are brought into solution by fusion with the appropriate reagent. The most commonly used fusion reagents, or fluxes as they are called, are anhydrous sodium carbonate, either alone or, less frequently, mixed with potassium nitrate or sodium peroxide potassium pyrosulphate, or sodium pyrosulphate sodium peroxide sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. Anhydrous lithium metaborate has found favour as a flux, especially for materials containing silica 12 when the resulting fused mass is dissolved in dilute acids, no separation of silica takes place as it does when a sodium carbonate melt is similarly treated. Other advantages claimed for lithium metaborate are the following. 

Fusions with lithium metaborate are usually quicker (15 minutes will often suffice), and can be performed at a lower temperature than with other fluxes. 

The loss of platinum from the crucible is less during a lithium metaborate fusion than with a sodium carbonate fusion. 

For the preparation of samples for X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, lithium metaborate is the preferred flux because lithium does not give rise to interfering X-ray emissions. The fusion may be carried out in platinum crucibles or in crucibles made from specially prepared graphite these graphite crucibles can also be used for the vacuum fusion of metal samples for the analysis of occluded gases. 

Fusions with lithium metaborate, 112 with sodium carbonate, 113 with sodium hydroxide, 113... 

C22-0020. One proposal for controlled fusion involves using an accelerator to propel deuterons into a lithium target, inducing the following reactions ... 

C22-0065. How much energy will be released if 1.50 g of deuterons and 1.50 g of lithium-6 undergo fusion in a hydrogen bomb (Consult reactions and energies given in the text.)... 

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