New design could finally help to bring fusion power closer to reality

Re:New design could finally help to bring fusion power close... by throwaway_yy2Di on Monday August 10, 2015 @05:59PM (#10037717)

Here's the paper (no paywall):

http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.3540

Interesting that the liquid blanket is the same as in the molten-salt thorium reactors (lithium beryllium fluoride (FLiBe)).

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Re:New design could finally help to bring fusion power close... by ethbro on Monday August 10, 2015 @06:46PM (#10037972)

Iananp, but wouldn't that be for the same reasons? E.g. in both case you're trying to absorb energetic neutrons?

(Upon research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLiBe#Coolant) Apparently it has properties that make it both a great coolant & a neutron moderator. Neat!

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Re:New design could finally help to bring fusion power close... by throwaway_yy2Di on Monday August 10, 2015 @06:59PM (#10038022)

They actually have nearly opposite goals. The fusion blanket is supposed to transmute lithium to tritium [0] (create more fusion fuel), so it has capture as many neutrons as possible. The fission-reactor coolant is supposed to be transparent -- to capture as few neutrons as possible. Both of them need isotopic separation of lithium to be practical. But in opposite directions. ARC's FLiBe needs to be Li-6 enriched, and MSR needs to be Li-6 depleted.

The MSRE fuel used 99.993% Li-7 (your link), and the ARC blanket is 90% Li-6 (arXiv paper).

[0] https://www.iter.org/mach/tritiumbreeding

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