Impurities in Beryllium

In the present papers, special attention was paid to a detailed analysis of impurities in beryllium, relevant to the tritium breeding ratio evaluation. Considering that such impurities can exist in structural beryllium grades, beryllium blocks (S-200F, Brush Wellman Inc.) used for the blanket benchmark experiments were studied with the purpose of qualification and validation. Two different methods were used for the study of impurities: an analysis of the local sample by the ICP-MS method, and an integral analysis of the beryllium assembly, using the pulsed neutron method. The latter method was proposed as the most effective way of analyzing the integral effect of impurities in beryllium on production of the tritium on the lithium-6. Generally, the inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry method is suitable for the study, however, due to the wide spectrum and range of expected impurities, and their non-uniform distributions in beryllium, the study would be quite a lengthy and laborious procedure. In such circumstances, it is useful to have a method which is able to quickly, easily and precisely evaluate the integral effect of impurities affecting evaluation of the tritium breeding ratio. (author)