Performance of high-temperature gas-cooled reactor as a tritium production device for fusion reactors

The performance of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor as a tritium production device is examined. A gas turbine high-temperature reactor of 300 MWe nominal capacity (GTHTR300) is assumed as the calculation target of a typical gas-cooled reactor, and using the continuous-energy Monte Carlo transport code MVP-BURN, burn-up simulations for the 3-dimensional entire-core region of GTHTR300 were carried out considering its unique double heterogeneity structure. It is shown that gas-cooled reactors with thermal output power of 3 GW in all can produce 5–8 kg of tritium in a year.

► The performance of a gas-cooled reactor as a tritium production device was studied.
► Gas-cooled reactors with 3 GWt output can produce 5–8 kg of tritium in a year.
► Use of Li2O compound is efficient compared with Li4SiO4 or Li2TiO3 one.
► Amount of tritium produced can be increased by reducing the enrichment of 235U.