Description of need
In the 2023 Fusion Fuel Cycle & Blanket Roadmap Workshop, the Nuclear fusion community was unanimous about the need for more facilities that can handle tritium, for example to test the performance of tritium permeation barriers, or Durable tritium-compatible vacuum pumps, or for Understanding materials degradation in a deuterium-tritium fusion environment.
Problem severity (1-10)
8 - the fusion industry can’t really move forward without these
Who has this need
Nuclear fusion industry
Total addressable market (TAM)
Solutions today, and their shortcomings
- Colin from Kyoto Fusioneering and I talked about the UNITY facilities, and the pros and cons of deuterium testing as a proxy for tritium testing. Colin’s perspective is that deuterium is a good proxy for tritium for materials / components testing, but definitely not for isotope separation. Also, atomic substitution and decay effects can’t be accurately captured with deuterium.
- Existing companies like Torion Plasma Corporation
- Remi Delaporte-Mathurin is proposing the building of a new tritium facility at PSFC