Breeding-Blanket Architecture

The breeding blanket surrounds the plasma, captures 14 MeV neutrons, and converts them into tritium and helium-3, the machine's products.

The productive layer

The breeding blanket is what makes Hyperion a foundry. It is the layered region between the first wall and the shield that captures fusion neutrons and uses them to breed tritium from lithium, generate helium-3, and provide neutron irradiation services. For the breeder, the blanket is not an afterthought; it is the point of the machine.

How breeding works

A 14 MeV neutron entering the blanket can be multiplied, one incoming neutron producing more than one through reactions in a multiplier material, and then captured by lithium to produce tritium and helium. Multiplying before capture is how the tritium breeding ratio can exceed one: more tritium bred than the plasma burns. The blanket's layering of multiplier, breeder, coolant, and reflector is arranged to maximize useful capture while managing heat.

The self-sufficiency question

Hyperion treats the tritium breeding ratio as a design lever across values of 1.1, 1.5, and 1.8. At the aspiration of 1.8 there is an open reconciliation: idealized breeding calculations must be squared with realistic blanket coverage, penetrations for ports and heating, and losses. Tritium self-sufficiency is therefore not yet proven and is stated as an open question the first-of-a-kind machine is built to resolve.

• Captures 14 MeV neutrons to breed tritium and helium-3
• Multiplier plus lithium breeder enables ratio above one
• Self-sufficiency at target ratio 1.8 is an open reconciliation

This page describes a design and simulation study, not a built machine. Construction begins Q2 2027; first-of-a-kind first tritium is targeted near 2030.