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，氚在自然界中每年仅产生 0.41 千克，半衰期为 12.6 年，极其稀有。一座 1 吉瓦的聚变反应堆预计每年需要约 100 公斤的氚，因此我们必须确定可持续的供应。幸运的是，氚可以通过吸收 D-T 反应喷出的中子而驱动锂的嬗变而产生。可持续氚循环的示范是聚变面临的主要突出工程挑战之一。当前的毯子概念是在 ITER 设计期间构思的，并使用锂陶瓷卵石或液态锂铅共晶物。固体氚增殖概念利用原硅酸锂或偏钛酸锂卵石。然而，这两种材料都存在问题；硅酸盐的抗碎强度较低，可能会导致卵石碎裂，并且人们担心钛酸盐是否能提供足够高的氚增殖比。此外，当前的固体增殖剂概念采用铍作为中子倍增剂，这是不受欢迎的，因为它相对稀有，处理起来很危险，并且通常含有难以去除的微量铀。因此，该项目将寻求为紧凑型聚变反应堆设计一种使用固体增殖材料的新型增殖毯。