Tritium breeding

The process by which a deuterium-tritium fusion plant would make its own tritium fuel, since tritium barely exists in nature and a power plant would burn it far faster than outside supply could provide. The standard design is a breeding blanket: a layer containing lithium surrounding the plasma, in which neutrons from the fusion reactions strike lithium nuclei and produce tritium. Success is measured by the tritium breeding ratio, tritium made divided by tritium burned, which must exceed 1 with margin for losses. No fusion device has yet run with a breeding blanket, so none has bred its own fuel. Published breeding ratios are almost always modelled; the few measurements come from small mock-ups placed near neutron sources, which measure tritium made in a sample, not a whole-plant ratio. ITER plans to test breeding blanket modules in its plasma.

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concept:tritium-breeding

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