Leakage control of tritium through heat cycles of conceptual-design, laser-fusion reactor koyo-F

To reduce the tritium permeation from the primary liquid metal loop to the secondary water loop, a heat exchanger concept that incorporates small diameter tubes containing an oxidizer was proposed. An inert gas containing a small amount of oxidizer flows in the small tubes oxiding tritium that comes from the primary liquid metal coolant. The tritiated water is sent to a tritium recovery system minimizing leakage to the secondary water loop. Our evaluation results indicated that the tritium leakage through the heat exchanger was reduced to 1/10⁵ with an acceptable increase in the size of the heat exchanger.