Fusion Engineering and Design 75–79 (2005) 1163–1168

Availability of lithium in the context of future

D–T fusion reactors
D. Fasel ∗ , M.Q. Tran
Centre de Recherches en Physique des Plasmas, Association Euratom-Confédération Suisse,
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Available online 6 September 2005

Abstract

A future fusion reactor will use deuterium and tritium as fuel. The former is found in abundance in seawater, while the latter
is not available naturally due to its short lifetime. Present developments in the context of fusion propose generating tritium in a
blanket based on the reaction n + 6 Li → T + He.
This paper will review the issue of the reserves and resources of lithium as the fuel for fusion energy. We describe the
available reserves and resources and their chemical forms. We analyze the present production and consumption for industrial
uses, completing this overview by referring to a life cycle analysis in the case of the lithium production from brine. The lithium
extraction from seawater is also described. Taking into account the previous data and the requirements estimated for fusion
plants, we propose scenarios for future lithium consumption, and we conclude on the lithium availability over the next centuries
dealing with the different hypothesis considered.
© 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fusion reactor; Breeder blanket; Lithium

1. Introduction many studies have shown the advantages of a fusion

Fusion is considered as an important component
in the future energy mix, proposed to satisfy both to
the energy demand increase and to the environment
constraints summarized by the sustainable develop-
ment concept. Besides other important criteria such
as those related to safety, long-term waste for which
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 21 693 3401;
reactor, it is also important to address the issue of
the availability of resources. This paper considers the
issue of long-term availability of lithium, which is one
of the most important elements required to produce
tritium.
2. General considerations

fax: +41 21 693 3751. D–T reaction, which is preferred for future ther-
E-mail address: damien.fasel@epfl.ch (D. Fasel). monuclear plants, is based on two hydrogen isotopes.

0920-3796/$ – see front matter © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2005.06.345
1164 D. Fasel, M.Q. Tran / Fusion Engineering and Design 75–79 (2005) 1163–1168

Deuterium is present in excess in seawater, while tri- 3. The lithium

tium must be generated from the fusion between a
neutron and Li. Two nuclear reactions lead to the tri- In nature, lithium is always found bound in stable
tium production: minerals or salts (refer to ref. [7] for more details).
Two natural isotopes are available in the lithium com-
6
Li + n → 4 He (2.1 MeV) + T (2.7 MeV) (a) pounds: 6 Li (natural abundance 7.42%) and 7 Li (natu-
ral abundance 92.58%).
7
Li + n → 4 He + T + n − 2.87 MeV (b) In the earth’s crust (upper 16 km), it can be found to
the mean extent of ca. 60 ppm under several forms:
The reaction with the more abundant 7 Li is endother-
mic and has a smaller cross-section for neutrons of Minerals: amblygonite, spodumene, petalite and lep-
energy up to 5 MeV [1]. idolite are the most usual forms exploited. The two
Tritium, used in the reactor, is internally generated former contain ∼7% of Li2 O, as the latter two present
in the breeding blanket. Thus, Li could be considered a lower concentration (∼4.5%). The most important
as one of the fuel for the D–T reactor. Moreover, safety mines are located in Australia.
constraints relative to the transport and manipulation of Brine: the evaporation process of salt lakes leads first
this material, as the sensitivity to political influences, to increased lithium content. Then, further enrich-
will be avoided. ment of lithium takes place if the surface of the
lake is completely dried in order to obtain a high
concentration in lithium (4–6 wt.%). The lithium is
2.1. The breeder blanket extracted under the chemical form of lithium carbon-
ate. The present most important production site is in
Details of the breeder blankets can be found in refs. Chile. In the near future, equivalent brine sources with
[2–6]. lower lithium concentration could be economically
Two families of blankets are under study: exploited.
a. The liquid metal one, using the eutectic Pb–17Li as Seawater: the mean lithium content is of 0.17 ppm.
breeder material. Up to now, only experimental processes have been
b. The solid concept, based on pebbles of ceramics tested in order to extract lithium from seawater, but the
(LiAlO2 , Li2 TiO3 or Li4 SiO4 ). production price is expected to remain too expensive
to be competitive on the present market.
Table 1 gives a summary on the data considered
for a fusion reactor. This study does not consider the 3.1. Lithium reserves and resources
breeder’s advanced concepts which are less demanding
regarding the lithium consumption. In the case of the lithium, accurate figure for both
reserves and resources are lacking. Data are proprietary
of a few private companies and consequently confiden-
Table 1
tial. The market is still too stable (due to diversified
Main parameters for each blanket type
end-of-use applications) to stimulate exploration and
Parameters Liquid Solid
research. Several sources of information [7–9], actu-
Major radius (m) 9.8 8.6 alising regularly their data, have been consulted. The
Blanket thickness (mm) 500 355
reserves estimations, in the range 4–6 Mtonnes, are
Blanket volume (m3 ) ∼1000 ∼430
quite similar. In contrary, the resources values show
Density (kg/m3 ) a large discrepancy, in the range 9.4–21 Mtonnes.1
Pb–17Li 9500
Pebbles 2000
1 Larger values for the resources can be found in the literature
Li mass ratio in Pb–17Li (%) 0.67
(Report on Technical Feasibility of Fusion Energy and Extension
Mean Li4 SiO4 concentration (%) 12.4
6 Li enrichment (%) of the Fusion Programme and Basic Supporting Research, by the
90 50
Japanese Subcommittee of the Fusion Council for Fusion Develop-
Mass of Li for a 1.5 GWe plant (tonnes) 787 174
ment Strategy (May 2000); also in “Tokamak” by J. Wesson).
 D. Fasel, M.Q. Tran / Fusion Engineering and Design 75–79 (2005) 1163–1168
In certain case, the resources evaluation from Bolivia
and China are considered, and sometimes not. In fact,
doubts subsist, both in the technical capability and
in the process viability, to recover lithium from these
brines, due to the very high magnesium to lithium ratio
(25:1 compared to a ratio 6:1 allowing the exploitation),
complicating the lithium recovery and decreasing the
process yield.
3.2. Lithium production, consumption and
economics
Presently, the main production source is brine, from
which the lithium is produced as Li2 CO3 . The larger
sites of production are located in the north of Chile,
“Salar de Acatama”. The exploitation is based on
solar pounds, where the brines are concentrated step-
by-step. These chemical plants are also producing a
lot of other by-products, like: salts, potassium, sul-
fate and boron. The production rate of such sites
is 35 ktonnes of Li2 CO3 for 2001(≡6580 tonnes of
Li).
The second method of lithium production is the
extraction from minerals. The process results in two
stages: first, the mining and the concentration of the
ore, then the ore is transformed with acid or alkali
to the final product: lithium carbonate, lithium chlo-
ride or lithium hydroxide. Actually the production of
lithium from minerals is no more economically viable,
except in the Greenbushes deposit (Australia), where
the veins of ore are 250 m thick with a high con-
centration of lithium (∼4.0% of Li2 O). The produc-
tion rate is of 101 ktonnes for 2002 (≡1874 tonnes of
Li).
The two dominant companies working in the
domain of lithium production and transformation are
Chemetall (D) and FMC (USA). During the last 5
years, the mean world annual production was about
15.5 ktonnes of lithium (in metallic form).
The lithium consumption is weakly influenced by
the demand fluctuations, as the market is shared
by independent end-uses sector. Fig. 1 presents the
lithium metal and chemicals consumption by end-
sectors according to ref. [9]. A forecast sharing for 2006
is also shown [9].
Ceramics and glass remains the more demanding
both in lithium minerals and lithium carbonate. The
developing market of the synthetic rubbers and bat-
1165
Fig. 1. Lithium consumption by end-use sectors [9].
teries will compensate the decreasing use in the Al
smelters, where other products can replace advanta-
geously the lithium. The rate of the increasing demand
of lithium will be conditioned mainly by batteries,
either used in the industry (car, space domain, etc.)
or in the domestic products, like cell phones, laptop
PC and other portable devices. The yearly demand in
lithium is in the range of 13–14 ktonnes (2001) and the
demand growth in recent years averaged 2–5% per year
[9].
The estimated market [9] for lithium metal and
chemicals is of US$ 450–500 millions in 2001, when
the market for lithium mineral is of US$ 30–40 mil-
lions. Prices remain stable and are highly dependant
of the grades of lithium purity required. The only
exception to this trend was in the mid 1990s, when
SQM starting the brines exploitation in Chile, propos-
ing Li2 CO3 at the half market price. The prices for
the main lithium compounds during the year 2000
were (in $/kg): Li2 CO3 , 4.47; LiCl, 11.00; Metal,
85.92.
3.3. Life cycle inventory for lithium production
Only, the results of a study made on LiCl by [10]
are reported here. For 1 kg of lithium metal produced:
• 696 MJ-eq of primary non-renewable energy
resources are used;
• 46 kg of CO2 are emitted during the production pro-
cess;
1166 D. Fasel, M.Q. Tran / Fusion Engineering and Design 75–79 (2005) 1163–1168
• more than half of the energy is consumed in the last
stage of production for the electrolysis of lithium
chloride;
• the direct energy uses for processing of Li2 CO3 , LiCl
and brine, as well as transports, are of minor impor-
tance;
• about 50% of emissions are due to the electricity use
for the electrolysis.
3.4. Lithium extraction from seawater
Considering a mean content of lithium in sea-
water of 0.17 ppm, the theoretical resource is of
2.3 × 1011 tonnes, which is practically equivalent to
say “without limitation”. Up to now, only studies or
experimental installation have tried to demonstrate the
possibility to extract lithium from seawater.
A reference study [11], dated 1976, based the
lithium extraction on solar pounds (as for brines), fol-
lowed by both an adsorption through an ion-exchange
bed of selective resin and an elution with HCl. Then,
the solution obtained would be concentrated by evap-
oration being proper for electrolysis, in order to obtain
metallic lithium. The major problems of such method
are:
• The need of land near the sea under optimal weather
conditions (hot, wet, not too much windy).
• The other by-products extracted along the process
require a large chemical plant, ensuring that they
could be commercialized. Finally, these require-
ments result in developing a salt production plant,
as existing in the southern countries.
• The low ratio lithium to magnesium in seawater,
compared to brines, will complicate the extraction
process, resulting in very poor yield (<0.1% to obtain
a usable concentration of 4% Li).
Finally, the energy consumption estimated to
300 MJ/kg of metallic lithium appears to be underesti-
mated, as the price evaluation of ∼100 $/kg (actualized
with an inflation rate of 5% from 1974).
Recent Japanese experiments show promising
results [12, also 9]. Here, the ion-sieve adsorbent based
on MgMn2 O4 is directly placed in the flow of seawater.
Results from a small scale experiments show a recov-
ery of 750 g of Li2 CO3 , with a purity of 99.1%, from
4200 m3 of seawater treated, which is equivalent to an
efficiency of recovery equal to 19.7%. A study has been
launched for a plant capable to produce 42 tonnes/year.
Unfortunately, no details exist on the process
energy requirements and the estimated production
price.
4. Future availability of lithium
4.1. Reactor lithium requirement
The reactions presented under Section 2 show that
the consumption of lithium is proportional to the neu-
trons issued from the fusion reaction (without a neutron
multiplier). According to the fusion power estimated, it
is possible to evaluate the lithium burn-up, considering
that all neutrons issued of the D–T reaction will react
with the 6 Li atoms of the blanket. This estimation will
maximize the lithium needs:
Pf
N= [1/s]
En
with N is the rate of neutron production over 1 s, Pf
the fusion power and En is the neutron incident energy
(14.1 MeV),
N
Q6Li = M6Li × [g/s],
NA
Q6Li is the flux of 6 Li consumption, M6Li the weight
of a mole 6 Li = 6.015 (g/mol) and NA is the Avogadro
number = 6.023 × 1023 (1/mole).
Depending on the reactor type considered (see [2]),
the annual consumption of lithium to generate 1.5 GWe
during 8000 h will be in the range of 6.3–8.9 tonnes.
The amount of Li needed per reactor will depend
on the concept of the breeder blanket itself. For the
water-cooled lithium–lead breeder blanket reactor (cf.
Table 1), the need will be 787 tonnes of lithium for a
1.5 GWe (this number does not include the process effi-
ciency for the Li enrichment). For the concept based on
solid breeder blanket cooled by helium, a power plant
of the equivalent size (1.5 GWe) will need 174 tonnes of
lithium. But, this design will impose the replacement of
breeder modules due to internal degradation. Depend-
ing both on the replacement cycle and the lithium
recycling efficiency, the advantage of such technology
could be reduced.
 D. Fasel, M.Q. Tran / Fusion Engineering and Design 75–79 (2005) 1163–1168
Fig. 2. One scenario about the lithium availability.
4.2. Scenario investigation
In this short summary, we will only present one of
the scenarios, which is the most constraining in the
point of view of the lithium consumption. The hypothe-
ses considered are the following:
• We consider only the requirement in lithium for
fusion, without including the industrial consump-
tion.
• The reactor type will be a water-cooled lithium–lead.
• The life cycle of the reactor is fixed to 30 years,
without lithium recycling capability over the used
material.
• The electrical power produced by fusion reactors
will be 1000 GWe (approximately the double of the
present fission capability), installed in 100 years.
Fig. 2 presents two curves, starting from year
2050: “C1” corresponds to the mean lithium reserve
(5 Mtonnes); “C2” is the fusion requirements sub-
tracted of the mean lithium resources (17 Mtonnes).
Noting that the case presented is pessimistic, we
observe that the reserves of Li, extracted from earth’s
crust and used for fusion only, could be depleted in
less than 250 years. Using the value of 17 Mtonnes
for resources enlarges the Li availability up to ∼600
years. Fusion reactors will surely improve their effi-
ciency and will tend to advance the concepts, which
are less demanding both in lithium burn up and in
1167
the breeder manufacturing. Moreover, recycling meth-
ods for the breeder material decommissioning will be
developed. Thus, a longer period of availability could
be ensured.
5. Conclusion
Using the data available, the Li reserves/resources
could supply fusion needs in the range of 250–600
years. Encouraging results of both recent studies and
experimental tests regarding extraction of Li from the
seawater have been obtained. The latter becomes an
attractive method and Li could, thus be considered as
an “unlimited” source of energy. As in all other fields,
with more demand on Li, both search for new reserves
and R&D regarding method of extraction (including
from seawater) will certainly be performed, leading to
a strong revision of the present data for both reserves
and resources.
Apart from the lithium availability, efforts will have
to be invested in the development of industrial plants
capable of producing the large quantity of breeder
material (lithium–lead, pebbles etc.) and the lithium
enrichment (now, only small quantity of 6 Li are pro-
duced compared to the future requirements).
Moreover, if solid breeder blanket concepts are cho-
sen, with beryllium as breeding material, a similar
study covering its availability and its large scale indus-
trial production should be performed.
1168 D. Fasel, M.Q. Tran / Fusion Engineering and Design 75–79 (2005) 1163–1168
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