State of the art of fusion material recycling and remaining issues

One of the advantages of fusion is the limited amount of long lived generated radioactive waste produced. But even if fusion produces little, if any, long term waste there are two important aspects deserving consideration: the large amounts of tritium contamination and of neutron activated materials. Recycling has been proposed as a means to keep radioactive waste levels to a minimum, after adequate decay period proper handling and treatment. Treatment includes detritiation, separation and sorting of different materials, among others. Moreover if recycling or reuse are foreseen, processes for reuse and refabrication have to be made on an industrial scale. Even if some experience on recycling exists in the nuclear fission industry , differences arise due to tritium contamination and levels of activation. This paper presents a review of the current situation and state-of-the-art recycling methods for typical materials and components of fusion plants based on current conceptual design studies. It focuses attention on R&D issues to address to be able to recycle as much material as possible in safe, economical and environmentally friendly manner. Recycling of fusion materials is a huge challenge and presents important spin-offs for the fusion industry.