Recent progress on the hydrogen storage properties of ZrCo-based alloys applied in International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)

Under the development of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) system aimed at realizing the controllable fusion reaction to solve the energy crisis fundamentally, there is an urgent need to find an appropriate material for tritium handling. ZrCo alloy is considered to be a promising candidate for the storage and delivery of hydrogen isotopes due to the favorable characteristics such as low plateau pressure for absorption, high dissociation pressure at moderate temperature and better ability of trapping 3He. However, the hydrogen induced disproportionation and the slower recovery/deliverty rate of ZrCo-based alloys have limited their further application in ITER system. This review summarizes the efforts towards enhancing the hydrogen storage properties of ZrCo-based alloys including element substitution, surface modification, disproportionation mechanism investigation and the isotope effect study. Element substitution and surface modification play positive role to improve the anti-disproportionation ability and kinetic property of the alloys. However, the ZrCo-based alloys require to be further modified by more attempts such as new composition, novelty modification method or catalyst addition in order to better satisfy the application demands for tritium handling. Moreover, new insight for further understanding the inner disproportionation mechanisms of this material is needed by combining the advance characterization and theoretical analysis, which is in favor of addressing the disproportionation problem of the ZrCo-based alloys essentially.