Management of tritiated coolant in the European water-cooled Pb-17Li blanket for demo

The Water-Cooled Lithium-Lead (WCLL) blanket is one of the two European concepts to be further developed in view of a DEMO reactor. It uses martensitic steel as structural material, the liquid alloy lithium-lead (Pb-17Li) as breeder and neutron multiplier, and light water at typical PWR conditions as coolant. The tritium management for this blanket type relies on three measures: permeation barriers between breeder and coolant, tritium extraction from the breeder, and tritium extraction from the cooling water. This paper shows that all three measures are strictly related and together reduce the requirements for each of them. (authors)