Flowing liquid lithium for the purpose of reducing tritium inventory levels in fusion energy reactors

A concern for fusion energy production reactors is tritium inventory resident in vacuum vessel enclosures during and after D-T operations. An immediate issue is the radiological safety associated with large quantities of tritium at risk. Additionally, there is an economic concern associated with the cost of tritium, having a current value in excess of $30 K/gram. Lithium has safely been deployed in fusion research reactors with good success. Our concept builds upon existing work, exploiting the ability of lithium to flow in toroidal and poloidal directions. In our deployment configuration, Li is used to bind with tritium deposited on main surfaces within the reactor vacuum vessel and ancillary internal components. Lithium can be used to wet appropriate surfaces within the vacuum vessel for the purpose of removing surface tritium from internal reactor structures, thus making it available for reuse as fuel.