Development of a new solid tritium breeder blanket

新型固体氚增殖毯的研制

• 批准号: 2908923
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2027
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2027 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2908923
• 关键词: Development; new; solid; tritium; breeder

A future power station will employ the fusion of deuterium and tritium, as it requires the lowest temperature to achieve ignition. Deuterium is abundant; however, tritium is only generated in nature at a rate of 0.41 kg per year and has a 12.6 year half-life making it extremely rare. With a 1 GW fusion reactor expected to require ~100 kg of tritium annually, it is essential that we identify a sustainable supply. Fortunately, tritium can be bred from the transmutation of lithium driven by absorption of the neutron ejected by the D-T reaction. Demonstration of a sustainable tritium cycle is one of the major outstanding engineering challenges facing fusion. Current blanket concepts were conceived during the design of ITER and use either Li ceramic pebbles or a liquid lithium lead eutectic. The solid tritium-breeding concepts utilise either lithium orthosilicate or lithium metatitanate pebbles. Both materials have issues, however; the silicate has a low crush strength, which could result in pebble fragmentation, and there is concern about whether the titanate offers a sufficiently high tritium breeding ratio. Further, current solid breeder concepts employ beryllium as a neutron multiplier, which is undesirable as it is relatively rare, hazardous to handle, and typically contains trace quantities of uranium that are hard to remove. Therefore, this project will look to design a new breeder blanket for a compact fusion reactor, that uses a solid breeder material.

未来的发电站将采用氘和氚的聚变，因为它需要最低的温度来实现点火。氘含量丰富;然而，氚在自然界中仅以每年0.41千克的速率产生，并且具有12.6年的半衰期，使得其极其罕见。由于一个1吉瓦的聚变反应堆预计每年需要约100公斤的氚，我们必须确定一个可持续的供应。幸运的是，氚可以从锂的嬗变中产生，锂的嬗变是通过吸收由D-T反应射出的中子来驱动的。可持续氚循环的论证是聚变所面临的主要突出工程挑战之一。目前的包层概念是在ITER设计期间构想的，使用锂陶瓷卵石或液态锂铅共晶。固体氚增殖概念利用原硅酸锂或偏钛酸锂卵石。然而，这两种材料都有问题;硅酸盐的抗碎强度较低，这可能导致卵石破碎，并且人们担心钛酸盐是否提供足够高的氚增殖率。此外，目前的固体增殖反应堆概念采用铍作为中子倍增器，这是不期望的，因为它相对稀有，处理起来危险，并且通常含有难以去除的痕量铀。因此，该项目将寻求为紧凑型聚变反应堆设计一种新的增殖包层，该包层使用固体增殖材料。