Status of the European breeding blanket technology

This paper presents an overview of the activities within European laboratories on the development of breeding blankets for a DEMO reactor which are presently focused on the two selected blanket lines, the Water-Cooled Lithium–Lead (WCLL) blanket and the Helium-Cooled Pebble-Bed (HCPB) blanket. In particular the paper describes the design of the DEMO blanket segments and sub-systems layout, the status of the associated R&D, the preliminary design of the derived test-modules and sub-systems for testing in ITER. The outline of the near-future activities mainly focused on the development of the two EU ITER Test Modules is also discussed.