On the proliferation issues of a fusion fission fuel factory using a molten salt Original Research Article

The fusion fission fuel factory (FFFF) is a hybrid fusion fission reactor using a neutron source, which is in this case taken similar to the source of the Power Plant Conceptual Study – Water Cooled Lithium Lead (PPCS-A) design, for fissile material production instead of tritium self-sufficiency. As breeding blanket the first wall of the ITER design is attached to a molten salt zone, in which ThF4 and UF4 solute salts are transported by a LiF–BeF2 solvent salt. For this blanket design, the fissile material is assessed in quantity and quality for both the Th-U and the U-Pu fuel cycle. The transport of the initial D-T fusion neutrons and the reaction rates in this breeding blanket are simulated with the Monte Carlo code MCNP4c2. The isotopic evolution of the actinides is calculated with the burn-up code ORIGEN-S. For the Th-U cycle the bred material output remains below 10 g/h with a 232U impurity level of 30 ppm, while for the U-Pu cycle supergrade material is produced at a rate up to 100 g/h.