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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
T. Matsuzaki, K. Nagamine, K. Ishida, M. Kato, H. Sugai, M. Tanase, G.H. Eaton
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 993-997
Purification and Chemical Process | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22733
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An in-situ tritium-deuterium gas-purification system has been constructed to produce a high-purity D-T target gas for muon catalyzed fusion experiments at the RIKEN-RAL Muon Facility. At the experiment site, the system enables us to purify the D-T target gas by removing 3He component, to adjust the D/T gas mixing ratio and to measure the hydrogen isotope components. The system is specially designed to handle the D-T gas with a negative pressure, and the maximum tritium inventory of 56 TBq (1500 Ci) is operated. The employed combination of a palladium filter and a cryotrap has demonstrated as an efficient device to purify hydrogen gas with a negative pressure. We have completed a series of muon catalyzed d-t fusion experiments at various tritium concentrations, including an experiment with a non-equilibrium D2-T2 target condition. The muon catalyzed t-t fusion process has also been studied using the tritium gas supplied free of 3He by the system.
