Center for Plasma Material Interactions

The Case for Liquid LithiumDavid N. Ruzic

FESAC public comment, August 7, 2007, Princeton NJ

If you can’t explain it simply,

you don’t understand it well enough. --- Albert Einstein

Center for Plasma Material Interactions

Why is the plasma in a tokamak cooler by the wall?

• Cold molecules return from the wall and cool the plasma

• If there were no recycling, there would be nothing to cool the plasma

Temp.

radius

Temp.

radius

Non-Zero Recycling Zero Recycling

Center for Plasma Material Interactions

What does Zero-Recycling do for us?

• It allows a much greater portion of the plasma volume to actually make energy

Temp.

radius

Temp.

radius

Non-Zero Recycling Zero Recycling

Fusing Plasma

Fusing plasma

Center for Plasma Material Interactions

• Volume of the device = Cost of device

Power, too expensive to build

Power, too cheap to meter

Center for Plasma Material Interactions

Liquid Lithium• Provides zero-recycling surfaces

• High power handling (flowing metal)

• Lowest Z possible one-third of sputtered flux even starts as ions!

• Tritium inventory control and reprocessing coincident with heat removal

• Helium pumping may be possible

• Long lifetime of plasma-facing components Infinite erosion survivability Easy disruption recovery

The future is bright --- silvery, shiny, lithium bright !