ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2026
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
January 2026
Latest News
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.
W.E.K. Broeckx, K. Dylst, A. Bornea, M. Zamfirache
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 2 | March 2015 | Pages 278-281
Proceedings of TRITIUM 2013 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-T10
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
SCK.CEN 's VISIONI has the capability to expose candidate plasma facing materials to tritium _ deuterium plasmas at ITER first wall conditions. To protect operators against exposure to a tritiated atmosphere VISIONI must be placed in a secondary confinement. The current Tritium lab at SCK.CEN has a walk-in process cell which can be used to enclose the plasma chamber and diagnostics of the VISIONI setup, which have a limited tritium inventory. This allows easy accessibility to the setup in a well-ventilated environment. Routine operations should be conducted from outside the process cell and maintenance operations can be conducted from within the process cell with proper protections. The tritium storage and supply can be enclosed in a glove box with a dedicated air detritiation system which is activated during an experiment or in case of an incident. The detritiation system will oxidize tritium and capture it on molecular sieves. By using this confinement approach it is possible to expose materials to a tritiated plasma while maintaining good accessibility of the VISIONI setup. This paper describes the proposed confinement system and compares it to the most common approach where the entire system is enclosed into one large glovebox.