Chemcon 2013 66 th Annual Session of Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers Hosted at Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai 400 019 27-30 December 2013 1 Kinetic Study of Solid State Reaction for the Synthesis of Lithium Titanate by Using TG-DTA N. S. Ghuge*, D. Mandal Materials Section, Chemical Engineering Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai-85 E-mail addresses: gnagesh@barc.gov.in, dmandal@barc.gov.in Abstract: Lithium titanate (Li 2 TiO 3 ) is a promising tritium producing material for the fusion reactors. Solid state reaction process developed by Mandal et al. is one of the important and promising processes for the synthesis and fabrication of pebbles of solid breeder materials e.g., lithium titanate (Li 2 TiO 3 ) and also for the large scale synthesis and production of the pebbles of the same. The present paper discusses about the experiments of TG-DTA, carried out at different heating rates and different particle sizes of raw materials. The results show that the reactions involved in the synthesis of lithium titanate follows diffusion mechanism. The kinetic parameters for different TG-DTA runs were estimated by using Coats-Redfern method. It was observed that the particle size of reactants plays an important role on the rate of reaction and titanium dioxide is also catalyzed the decomposition of lithium carbonate. Keywords: Solid State Reaction, Lithium Titanate, Thermo Gravimetry-Differential Thermal Analysis (TG-DTA), Fusion Reactor 1.0 Introduction Lithium titanate (Li 2 TiO 3 ) is considered as one of the promising ceramic breeding material for the Test Blanket Module (TBM) of ITER type reactor and for the future fusion reactors [1, 2]. This is due its high lithium content; which gives higher tritium production rate, high tritium release rate (i.e., low retention time), high thermal and chemical stability, high mechanical stability under irradiation, high thermal conductivity etc. Mandal et al. [3, 4] developed the solid state reaction process for the synthesis and fabrication of pebbles of ceramic solid breeder materials viz., lithium titanate. The process consists of unit operations: grinding, mixing, classification, calcinations, extrusion, spherodization and sintering. The calcinations is one of the most important step to get single phase lithium titanate. The study of solid state reaction kinetics is useful for selection and design of large scale system. The kinetics of gas-liquid and liquid-liquid is mainly controlled by mixing (i.e. hydrodynamic of fluid flow), but the kinetics of solid-solid reaction depends upon on the characteristics of reactant particles viz., size, morphology, crystal structure etc. Brzozowski et al. [5] studied kinetics of barium carbonate and titanium dioxide reaction by TG- DTA technique. They found that the reaction rate is depends upon decomposition and diffusion rate of barium carbonate. Mishra et al. [6] studied reaction of strontium carbonate and ruthenium oxide by TG-DTA technique with different purge gas. The reaction rate is higher in presence oxygen. Celis et al. [7] studied decomposition of different oxalates and compared conversion of reaction. Yu et al. [8] studied kinetics of solid state reaction for synthesis lithium bis-(oxalaoto)-borate by TG-DTA technique. The step reactions involved in synthesis is indentified and also activation energy for overall reaction is calculated. Mishra et al. [9] studied kinetics solid state reactions between tellurium oxide and the oxides of zirconium and hafnium at different heating rate by TG-DTA and XRD method and reported temperature of reaction. Hsin Lu et al. [10] studied reaction mechanism and kinetics of strontium silicate formation by TG-DTA and XRD method. The applicable solid state reaction model and activation energy for reaction is predicted. Amar Khawam et al. [11] reviewed applicable models and mechanism of solid state reaction. Pratap et al. [12] have given different methods of kinetic analysis from TG-DTA data (Non isothermal data). This paper presents an overview of theories and models of solid state reaction and reaction kinetics of the synthesis of lithium titanate (Li 2 TiO 3 ). The kinetic parameters of solid state reaction of lithium carbonate and titanium dioxide for synthesis of lithium titanate were calculated from TG-DTA data. The effect of particle size on reaction rate was also studied.