Lithium pellet production (LiPP): A device for the production of small spheres of lithium
- Center for Plasma Material Interactions, Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801 (United States)
- Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 (United States)
With lithium as a fusion material gaining popularity, a method for producing lithium pellets relatively quickly has been developed for NSTX. The Lithium Pellet Production device is based on an injector with a sub-millimeter diameter orifice and relies on a jet of liquid lithium breaking apart into small spheres via the Plateau-Rayleigh instability. A prototype device is presented in this paper and for a pressure difference of {Delta}P= 5 Torr, spheres with diameters between 0.91 < D < 1.37 mm have been produced with an average diameter of D= 1.14 mm, which agrees with the developed theory. Successive tests performed at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory with Wood's metal have confirmed the dependence of sphere diameter on pressure difference as predicted.
- OSTI ID:
- 22118648
- Journal Information:
- Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 84, Issue 6; Other Information: (c) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0034-6748
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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