Tritium breeding is crucial for achieving self-sustaining D-T fusion devices. ARC-class tokamaks, whose conceptual design was originally developed at MIT PSFC and is now under development at CFS, exploit a molten salt Liquid Immersion Blanket to breed tritium. We are working to bridge the scientific and technological gaps for tritium breeding in molten salt with LIBRA (Liquid Immersion Blanket: Robust Accountancy) by taking a staged approach, starting with small scale experiments (BABY) and progressing to larger scales (LIBRA). LIBRA will be the first project demonstrating reproducible and scalable tritium breeding in molten salts with a robust tritium accountancy system and D-T neutrons.
The challenging environment of a fusion reactor requires integrated modeling and experiments to validate conceptual designs, such as molten salt Liquid Immersion Blankets (LIBs). To date, no one has demonstrated tritium breeding in molten salts with a fusion neutron source at scales relevant for commercial fusion energy. The ambitious goal of LIBRA is to achieve a tritium breeding ratio greater than one, demonstrating the capability of LIB to breed enough tritium, and de-risking the path to a fusion power plant. Additional research objectives include: characterizing thermophysical properties of molten salts; characterizing fusion neutron sources, and detectors; studying tritium transport in molten salt; developing and testing tritium accountancy systems; establishing manufacturing capabilities for fusion-relevant materials; investigating safety and handling techniques for hazardous materials.
