Molten Salt Solutions has signed strategic supply agreements with Type One Energy and Gauss Fusion to provide enriched lithium for their respective fusion energy programs. The Santa Fe-based company is developing a scalable lithium enrichment process and says initial kilogram-scale deliveries for testing could begin as early as 2027, with the potential to scale to several hundred tons as the companies move toward pilot plant deployment.
Fusion power plants operating on deuterium-tritium fuel can utilize lithium-6 to breed tritium. No commercial-scale supply of enriched lithium currently exists for fusion power plants, and Molten Salt Solutions estimates that fusion deployment over the coming decades will require thousands of tons annually.
Existing lithium isotope enrichment relies on the COLEX process which uses mercury. COLEXrequires thousands of separate processing stages and large industrial infrastructure. Molten Salt Solutions has developed an alternative solvent exchange process that streamlines many separation steps into a single integrated system, which the company says enables more scalable production at the volumes fusion will eventually need.
The company was founded by chemists with backgrounds in nuclear materials and isotope chemistry, including scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, and is backed by Future Ventures and True Ventures. It previously received DOE INFUSE funding to develop fusion-grade lithium material.
Daniel Clark, Director of Nuclear and Fuel Cycle Engineering at Type One Energy, said: "Enriched lithium is a key resource for enabling a closed D-T fusion fuel cycle and large-scale lithium enrichment is one of the anticipated bottlenecks for the deployment of fusion energy systems. Type One Energy is excited to be working with Molten Salt Solutions to pioneer a scalable approach to this industry-wide supply chain challenge."
Dr. Frederick Bordry, CTO at Gauss Fusion, said: "Reliable access to enriched lithium will be a decisive factor in scaling fusion from experimental systems to commercial deployment. The work being done by Molten Salt Solutions to establish these capabilities at an early stage is a critical step toward building the industrial ecosystem required to deliver fusion energy at scale."
Molten Salt Solutions produces enriched lithium isotopes and related materials for fusion and next-generation fission reactors.
Type One Energy is a U.S.-based fusion company developing stellarator fusion power plants. The company is a participant in the DOE's Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program.
Gauss Fusion is a German fusion company developing tokamak-based fusion power plants and is focused on the industrialization of fusion energy in Europe.
Source: Molten Salt Solutions via PR Newswire