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Fusion energy: Progress, partnerships, and the path to deployment
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
N. Bekris, E. Hutter, J. Rodolausse
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 1009-1013
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-A22736
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB) Breeder Test Blanket concept of ITER will comprise 3 He circuits for the heat extraction, the coolant purification and the tritium removal generated by nuclear reactions in the lithium orthosilicate. Tritium production in the orthosilicate will inevitably also produce some tritiated water which should be removed from the helium purge gas stream before the extraction of tritium (mainly HT) by passing it through a liquid nitrogen cooled molecular sieve bed. To minimise the amount of adsorbed water in the molecular sieve beds a cryogenic cold trap (CT) will be included in the tritium extraction system (TES). The expected water concentration in this gas stream is of the order of 10 ppm by volume.A cold trap in a technical scale (1/6 of the ITER operating conditions) with design features meeting the requirements for water vapour trapping, i.e. variable cool-down rates and low velocity of the working gas, was used to investigate the water removal efficiency. In this paper we describe the first results obtained with small He throughputs as well as recent results obtained for medium and high He flow rates containing water vapour ranging from 10 to 16 ppmv.