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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
August 2025
Latest News
Student workforce opportunities at SRS are focus of agreement
Department of Energy contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions and Florida International University’s Applied Research Center have agreed to expand workforce opportunities for students at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Thomas F. Fuerst, Matthew D. Eklund, John A. Leland, Adriaan A. Riet, Chase N. Taylor
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 79 | Number 8 | November 2023 | Pages 1224-1234
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2196237
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tritium breeding is a critical component of any self-sustaining future fusion reactor. The liquid-metal eutectic PbLi is of particular interest as a tritium breeder material due to its favorable thermophysical and neutronic properties. One of the several remaining challenges facing PbLi breeder blankets is the need to design and validate a highly efficient tritium extraction system. The vacuum permeator is a promising extraction concept that utilizes tritium permeation through a highly permeable metal membrane. The Tritium Extraction eXperiment (TEX) is a forced-convection PbLi loop constructed to investigate tritium extraction from PbLi with vacuum permeators. Accurate thermal-hydraulic and tritium transport models are required to establish appropriate test matrices, predict experiment outcomes, and analyze data. However, the hydrogen transport properties of PbLi and permeator materials have large uncertainties. A database is collected and a parametric analysis is conducted on the effect of hydrogen transport material properties, including diffusivity of H in PbLi and the permeator, solubility of H in PbLi and the permeator, and the permeator surface recombination constant, on the expected tritium extraction efficiency for a vacuum permeator installed in TEX. Herein, we observe that the solubility of H in PbLi and the permeator and the recombination constant of the permeator have the largest effect on extraction efficiency.