Experimental study on beryllium-7 production via sequential reactions in lithium-containing compounds irradiated by 14 MeV neutrons

Except for 3 H and 14 C. no radioactive nuclide is produced by neutron-induced reactions with lithium in lithium-containing materials such as Li 2 O and Li 2 CO 3 . However, when the lithium-containing materials are irradiated by 14 MeV neutrons, radioactive 7 Be is produced by sequential charged particle reactions (SCPR). In this study, we measured effective Be production cross-sections in several lithium-containing samples at 14 MeV: the cross-sections are in the order of μb. Estimation of the effective cross-sections is attempted, and the estimated values agreed well with the experimental data. It was shown that the 7 Be activity in a unit volume of lithium-containing materials in D-T fusion reactors can exceed total activity of the same unit volume of the SiC structural material in a certain cooling time. Consequently, a careful consideration of the 7 Be production by SCPR is required to assess radioactive inventories in lithium-containing D-T fusion blanket materials.