Liquid Immersion Blanket: Robust Accountancy (LIBRA)

Default ARPA-E Project Image

Program:
OPEN 2021
Award:
$3,062,320
Location:
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Status:
ACTIVE
Project Term:
04/11/2022 - 04/10/2024
Website:

Technology Description:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Idaho National Laboratory, with its Safety and Tritium Applied Research Facility, propose a critical-path tritium-breeding experiment for LIB technology. The technological development for LIBs requires high temperatures, hazardous material handling and access to D-T fusion neutron sources. The Liquid Immersion Blanket: Robust Accountancy (LIBRA) experiment will investigate tritium-breeding capabilities under these extreme conditions. It will examine a simple molten-FLiBe-salt approach to tritium-breeding for fusion power plants and show this is possible with 70% lower-cost LIB technology than state-of-the-art breeding blankets.

Potential Impact:

The LIBRA team will demonstrate unprecedented tritium-breeding ratios possible with 70% lower cost LIB technology.

Security:

LIBRA offers the energy market a representative T-breeding test stand that provides T containment and real-time accountancy.

Environment:

Successful LIBRA development would dramatically accelerate tritium-breeding and the deployment rate of fusion power.

Economy:

LIBRA's success would enable a LIB prototype demonstration and create a new technology-to-market pathway to tritium-breeding for fusion power plants at substantially lower cost than conventional blankets.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. Ahmed Diallo
Project Contact:
Kevin Woller
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
kbwoller@mit.edu

Partners

Idaho National Laboratory

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Release Date:
02/11/2021