Conceptual design of the blanket tritium recovery system for the prototype fusion reactor

Kakuta, Toshiya*; Hirata, Shingo*; Mori, Seiji*; Konishi, Satoshi; Kawamura, Yoshinori; Nishi, Masataka; Ohara, Yoshihiro

Research-and-development of the supercritical water-cooled prototype fusion reactor which has cost competitiveness has been performed in Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI). It is necessary to establish immediately the design concept of the blanket tritium recovery system which collects tritium continuously and safely from the supercritical water-cooled blanket because fuel self-sufficiency is inevitable in the prototype reactor. The candidate systems are; 1) batch-processing cryogenic molecular sheave bed recovery system with cryogenic temperature operation, 2) continuous processing Pd membrane penetration recovery system with high vacuum operation. In the present study, however, the third candidate system, the hydrogen pump system with protonic conductors, was investigated. As a result of the study, it was made clear that the system with minimized energy consumption and minimized accidental tritium release could be realized by using the hydrogen pump for the blanket tritium recovery system of the prototype fusion reactor.