The inner deuterium/tritium fuel cycle of ITER

Beyond the initial hydrogen phase of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) the Tritium Plant is essential for the operation of the machine as tritium will be produced from D-D reactions. The inner deuterium/tritium fuel cycle of the Tritium Plant comprises the Tokamak Exhaust Processing (TEP) system, the Storage and Delivery System (SDS) including the Long Term Storage (LTS), the Isotope Separation System (ISS) and the Analytical System (ANS) as major subsystems. Besides the supply of the deuterium and tritium fuel and other gases to the tokamak and the recovery of tritium from all off-gases of the machine the inner fuel cycle has quite a number of additional duties. Incoming and outgoing tritium shipments need to be handled, tritium accountancy is an essential requirement and tritiated streams from sources other than the tokamak need to be processed. Not only in view of the control of effluents and releases, but also for economic incentives as much tritium as possible needs to be recovered for reuse from all off-gases and waste streams within the Tritium Plant of ITER. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.