MEMBRANE INTEGRATED SYSTEM IN THE FUSION-REACTOR FUEL-CYCLE

The future fusion reactor fuel will be a mixture of deuterium and tritium. Deuterium is produced using traditional separation technology. Tritium must be produced by means of a nuclear reaction between neutrons and lithium atoms within the reactor breeder which, in this study, is supposed to be a ceramic lithiated material. The tritium produced in the breeder needs a proper extraction process to reach the required purity level. A conceptual modified version of the tritium recovery plant for the considered ceramic breeder, working with two membrane reactors, each acting as a reaction/separation unit, is studied in this work. The first considered membrane unit is a catalytic ceramic membrane reactor to remove, via oxidation, the hydrogen isotopes from the purge gas (He). The second one is a tritiated water-gas shift reaction. In the latter process unit, the effect of selective hydrogen permeation on the conversion is studied. A detailed description of the experimental equipment, of the material used and some experimental results are presented.