Recovering Tritium From The Blanket
Tritium bred in the lithium blanket must be extracted efficiently and returned to the plasma for the fuel cycle to close.
From breeding to recovery
Breeding tritium is only half the task; the bred tritium must then be extracted from the blanket and fed back to the plasma. Recovery systems collect tritium from the blanket material and its coolant or purge stream, purify it, and route it to the fuel supply. High recovery efficiency is essential to maintaining self-sufficiency.
Why efficiency governs self-sufficiency
Every tritium atom that is bred but not recovered is a loss against the breeding ratio. A design may breed above unity locally yet fail to be self-sufficient if recovery and retention losses are high. This is why the program distinguishes local breeding from net delivered breeding and treats recovery as a first-order requirement.
- Bred tritium is extracted from blanket material and purge streams
- Recovered tritium is purified before returning to the plasma
- Recovery losses count directly against the breeding ratio
- Local breeding and net breeding are tracked separately
Honest gate
Demonstrating high-efficiency recovery at scale is open engineering; the breeder remains a design and simulation study. See tritium self-sufficiency and the breeding-ratio lever.
Recovery is where self-sufficiency is won or lost
Breeding tritium is necessary but not sufficient; the bred atoms must actually be extracted and returned, or they count for nothing. Recovery efficiency therefore sits at the heart of self-sufficiency, and it is the main reason local breeding can look better than net delivered breeding. A blanket that breeds well but recovers poorly can still fall short of closing the cycle.