Tritation of benzoic acid by <SUP>6</SUP>Li(n,α)<SUP>3</SUP>H reaction with enriched lithium-6

Lithium benzoate containing 95 atom% lithium-6 (abbreviation: enriched) was tritiated by neutron irradiation in a pile. The degree of tritium incorporation to the benzene ring was 6.9 to 7.6 times that for the benzoate of natural isotopic abundance (abbreviation: natural abundance) according to the sample size, i.e., the geometries of irradiation samples were compared under the same thermal neutron fluence. The computed self-shielding effect for incident neutrons was negligible in the irradiation of the latter benzoate, while in the case of the former one rather large effects were observed in thick samples used in the present experiment. The tritium distribution in the benzene ring showed a slight ortho orientation in the irradiation of enriched ⁶Li compound, but was almost uniform in the other compounds. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.