Astral Systems, a private nuclear fusion company based in the UK, announced that it has succeeded in producing tritium for the first time in its own reactor. This experimental study, conducted in collaboration with a university, has overcome a significant obstacle on the path to developing fusion energy.
A new era in tritium production
The experiment, conducted in partnership with the University of Bristol, was completed during the 55-hour Deuterium-Deuterium (DD) fusion irradiation campaign in March. During this process, it was announced that tritium was produced and detected in real time in the experimental lithium blanket in Astral Systems’ multi-state fusion reactors.
Tritium is known as one of the basic fuels used in fusion reactions. However, the production of this isotope, which is rarely found in nature, is seen as one of the biggest technical obstacles in the implementation of fusion energy technology.
Astral Systems CEO and co-founder Talmon Firestone stated that the amount of tritium available in the world is quite limited and overcoming this situation is of great importance for the commercial viability of fusion. Firestone stated that this development shows that tritium production technologies, which were previously only theoretical, can now be implemented in practice.
At the heart of the technology developed by Astral Systems is the approach called “Multi-State Fusion” (MSF). The company states that this system is more efficient, low-cost and high-performance than traditional fusion reactors.
The reactor design is based on a 25-year engineering process and 15-year work history. In the MSF system, fusion reactions can be initiated simultaneously in both plasma and solid state environments. This bidirectional approach allows two different fusion reactions to be triggered with the same energy input.
An important innovation in the reactor core is the “Lattice Confinement Fusion” (LCF) method. This technique was first discovered by NASA in 2020. With this technology, Astral Systems can perform fusion in a fuel environment that is 400 million times denser than plasma.
In addition, thanks to the electron-shadowing environment in the core, the energy required to overcome the Coulomb barrier, which is the electrostatic repulsion force between particles, is reduced. This allows fusion to occur at much lower temperatures and in compact sizes.
Astral Systems’ ability to produce tritium in its reactors is of great importance in terms of fusion energy reaching a self-sufficient fuel cycle. The fact that the developed system produces more fuel than it consumes paves the way for a sustainable fusion energy infrastructure in the long term.
The company states that this technology is not limited to energy production, but can also be used in many different areas such as medical isotope production, nuclear waste conversion, space applications and fusion-fission hybrid power systems.
According to Astral Systems’ statement, the targeted fusion rate is to exceed 10 trillion DT reactions per second. It is stated that if this goal is achieved, the company will be effective in a very wide range of technology areas.
On the university side, the team led by Bristol University faculty member Prof. Tom Scott stated that this development is a critical turning point in terms of scalability of tritium production. The team, supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Agency, announced that work has been accelerated to optimize the system.
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