R&D Project
Goal 10 R&D Projects (Selected in FY2025)Development of Autonomous Breeding Blanket for Compact Fusion Reactors
Project manager (PM)TANIGAWA HiroyasuDeputy Director, Department of Blanket Systems Research, Rokkasho Institute for Fusion Energy, National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology
Summary of the project
The fuel-breeding blanket of a fusion reactor serves three essential functions: neutron shielding, energy conversion and recovery and fuel production.
This project aims to resolve the risk that conventional breeding blanket designs cannot secure sufficient plasma volume to achieve adequate fusion power output when reactor compactness is realized.
- We aim to realize a groundbreaking breeding blanket that can achieve fusion power and stability sufficient for commercial operation even in an ITER-scale reactor, along with the potential to innovatively reduce the overall tritium inventory of the entire plant.
- We are advancing the development of an advanced blanket (patent-pending idea - undisclosed) where thermal and neutron loading on the plasma-facing surface increases autonomously enhances heat removal performance and fuel breeding capability.
- With its high versatility, we will establish this blanket design as the global standard, thereby accelerating the worldwide societal deployment of deuterium–tritium (DT) fusion.


Fig. 1. Compact fusion‑reactor design enabled by the advanced blanket
Milestone by 2034
Verification will be achieved by testing in simulated reactor environments to demonstrate that the technical challenges associated with the autonomous breeding blanket can be overcome, even under the in-vessel conditions of a DT fusion reactor.
Milestone by 2029
We aim to establish a clear prospect for the core elemental technologies essential to enabling the autonomous breeding blanket.
Performers
| Theme [1-1] | SOMAYA Yoji | National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology |
|---|---|---|
| Theme [1-2][3-5][4-6] | SODEKODA Tatsuya | IHI Corporation |
| Theme [2-1][4-5] | NOZAWA Takashi | National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology |
| Theme [2-2][5-2] | TANIGAWA Hiroyasu | National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology |
| Theme [3-1][3-4] | EBARA Shinji | The University of Tokyo |
| Theme [3-2] | YUKI Kazuhisa | Yamaguchi Tokyo University of Science |
| Theme [3-3] | YOKOMINE Takehiko | Kyoto University |
| Theme [4-1] | YOSHIDA Yusuke | Toyota Industries Corporation |
| Theme [4-2] | HINOKI Tatsuya | Kyoto University |
| Theme [4-3] | KONDO Sosuke | Tohoku University |
| Theme [4-4] | SERIZAWA Hisashi | The University of Osaka |
| Theme [5-1] | WATANABE Makoto | National Institute for Materials Science |
| Theme [6-1] | CHIKADA Takumi | Shizuoka University |
| Theme [7-1] | YAGI Juro | Kyoto University |
| Theme [7-2] | NAKAJIMA Motoki | National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology |
| Theme [8-1] | KATAYAMA Kazunari | Kyushu University |
| Theme [8-2] | OYA Yasuhisa | Shizuoka University |
| Theme [9-1] | YUSA Noritaka | Tohoku University |
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- Summary of the project (270 KB)