Liquid Lithium to Contain Fusion Reactors

nigelc writes: "ABCNews.com reports on Liquid Metal walls for a fusion reactor, and how it may solve some of the temperature problems. Probably only of scientific interest to most of us, unless you're into some serious overclocking.""

Comments

And think again, without paranoia

[Spamalamadingdong]

Logically, a layperson would consider a liquid metal to be a very dangerous material to have around...

Like solder? It can burn you, you know. But so can a great many solid materials and vapors (even water). You do have the toxicity of lead-based solders, but they're toxic even when they're in solid form.

Lithium is gonna come in contact with water somehow, by accident (or design) and make hydrogen gas [gcsechemistry.co.uk] which is not only explosive, but turns into radioactive tritium when bombarded by the neutrons put out by ANY reactor - fission or fusion.

The lithium will breed tritium under neutron bombardment whether water is involved or not; the production of hydrogen is a chemical reaction caused by the decomposition of water, the production of tritium is a nuclear reaction caused by the neutron-induced fission of lithium-6 into helium-4 and hydrogen-3.

Lithium is a lot less active (and thus corrosive) than sodium, but it's not suitable as a coolant for fission reactors because it has this pesky tendency to capture neutrons. In a fusion reactor which needs tritium anyway, this is an advantage.

Playing around with explosive hydrogen gas near a reactor is often done deliberately and may be a hidden agenda here.

Just FYI, people play around with "explosive hydrogen gas" for lots of reasons in lots of places. You'll find people playing with hydrogen in every plant which manufactures vegetable shortening from oil, because hydrogenating the oil is part of the process to allow it to solidify at room temperature. Ditto every plant which manufactures nitrogen fertilizers (which starts with fixation via the Haber process, N2 + 3 H2 -> 2 NH3).

A little more information and a little less paranoia would serve you well.