The production of hot-pressed pellets of lithium metasilicate to a given density/grain size specification

Lithium metasilicate, a potential fusion breeder material may be prepared by calcining a mixture of lithium carbonate and silica. The reaction-kinetics have been studied and it has been shown that, in flowind CO2 at temperatures above 6200C, a phase-pure metasilicate product is formed and furthermore the particle size of the product is determined by the particle size of the original silica. Controlled density pellets of the metasilicate have been made by hot pressing in the range 600-9000C