Tritium management and safety issues in ITER and DEMO breeding blankets

Highlights: • Different aspects of tritium management in breeder blankets were reviewed. • Safe and reliable tritium management faces unique technological challenges. • Tritium recovery efficiency in tritium extraction system (TES) is a vital issue. • Tritium tracking accuracy needs to be demonstrated for the whole fuel cycle. • Improved or new processes for TES and CPS are needed in case of DEMO. -- Abstract: Safe, reliable and efficient tritium management in the breeder blanket faces unique technological challenges. Beside the tritium recovery efficiency in the tritium extraction and coolant purification systems, the tritium tracking accuracy between the inner and outer fuel cycle shall also be demonstrated. Furthermore, it is self-evident that safe handling and confinement of tritium need to be stringently assured to evolve fusion as a reliable technique. The present paper gives an overview of tritium management in breeder blankets. After a short introduction into the tritium fuel cycle and blanket basics, open tritium issues are discussed, thereby focusing on tritium extraction from blanket, coolant detritiation and tritium analytics and accountancy, necessary for accurate and reliable processing as well as for book-keeping