Tritium Plant Integration
The tritium plant recovers, purifies, stores, and accounts for bred tritium and its helium-3 coproduct, closing the fuel loop.
The plant that makes the foundry work
A breeder is only as good as its tritium plant. The plant recovers tritium bred in the blanket, purifies it, returns fuel to the plasma, stores product, and accounts for every gram. It also recovers the helium-3 coproduct. Without an integrated plant, neutrons breed tritium that cannot be captured or sold.
Plant functions
- Recovery of tritium from the blanket and plasma exhaust
- Isotope separation and purification of the fuel stream
- Storage of tritium product and recovery of helium-3
- Accountancy: measuring and tracking inventory for product and regulation
Integration with the machine
The plant is not a bolt-on. It couples to the blanket, the vacuum and pumping systems, and the fueling system, and its design interacts with the breeding ratio lever and the neutron budget. Integration is why the fuel loop is treated as a single gate, G3, rather than as separate plant and blanket tests.
Accountancy and licensing
Tritium accountancy is central both to running a foundry and to the byproduct-material licensing basis. The plant must demonstrate that it measures and controls inventory, which is part of the G3 pass criterion and part of the safety case.
The tritium plant is a design for a machine not yet built. Its performance, recovery efficiency and accountancy, is demonstrated at first tritium, where the closed and accounted fuel loop is the proof of the foundry.