3D printing of ceramic cellular structures for potential nuclear fusion application

A flexible and integrated design and manufacturing process based on photopolymerization DLP 3D printing technology is proposed to fabricate tritium breeder units that can be used in fusion reactors. Defect-free cellular structures of lithium-enriched Li4SiO4 is manufactured for the first time that can be used to replace the traditional pebble beds configuration to overcome problems resulted from stress concentration and difficulty in packing fraction improvement. As-received large Li4SiO4 powder which is highly sensitive to air and ambient environment is protected and processed in inert glove box for the use in the preparation and optimization of stable photopolymerizable resin-based ceramic slurry suitable for DLP 3D printing. Appropriate debinding and sintering treatments applied result in homogeneous shrinkage and preserved features of the cellular structures, showing benefits for dimension control. The intact structures possess high phase purity and suitable and tailorable effective 'packing fraction' for breeding application. Mechanical tests and the obtained results compared with existing works further confirm that the cellular parts prepared in this work have advantageous performance. The unique advantage of flexible control in design and manufacturing of 3D printing may pave a promising way for greater possibilities to engineer novel tailored high-performance tritium breeder structures used in nuclear fusion technology.