Японы Хиросаки их сургуулийн технологийг ашиглан лити-6 изотопийг ялган цэвэршүүлэх шийдлийг Licube компани хөгжүүлж байна
Цөмийн нэгдлийн (fusion) эрчим хүч ирээдүйд эрчим хүчний гол эх үүсвэр болох төлөвтэй байгаа ч энэ нь түлшний хангамжийн томоохон сорилттой тулгарч байна. Ихэнх төлөвлөгдсөн станцууд дейтери болон тритийн холимогоор ажиллах боловч трити байгаль дээр маш ховор байдаг. Иймд стартапууд реактор дотроо лити ашиглан тритийг гарган авах технологийг гол шийдэл хэмээн харж байна.
Лити-6 нь нейтроныг барьж тритийг гарган авахад хамгийн үр дүнтэй боловч байгалийн литийн ердөө 7.5 хувийг эзэлдэг. Licube стартап нь керамик мембран болон цахилгаан гүйдэл ашиглан лити-6-г 99.995 хувийн цэвэршилттэйгээр ялган авах технологийг боловсруулжээ. Тус компани Сан-Франциско хотод болж буй TechCrunch Disrupt арга хэмжээний Startup Battlefield тэмцээнд оролцож байна.
Licube-ийн гүйцэтгэх захирал Ёохэй Кигүчи цөмийн нэгдлийн салбар 2040 он гэхэд 50 тэрбум ам.долларын зах зээл болно хэмээн таамаглаж байна. Хэдийгээр цөмийн нэгдлийн станцууд бүрэн ашиглалтад ороход хэдэн жилийн хугацаа шаардлагатай ч тус компани өөрийн технологийг хагас дамжуулагч, эм зүй, цөмийн задралын реактор болон сансрын салбарт ашиглахаар төлөвлөж байна. Кигүчи өмнө нь Японы Enechange компанийг үүсгэн байгуулж байсан туршлагатай бөгөөд Франц дахь ITER төслийг үзсэнийхээ дараа энэхүү стартапыг эхлүүлэх санааг олжээ.
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If fusion power pans out,and there are signs that it will, the world will need a lot more lithium.
That’s the bet behind Licube, a startup that has licensed technology from Hirosaki University in Japan, to purify lithium-6, the form of lithium that fusion plants need to make their own fuel, out of naturally occurring lithium.
The reason comes down to the fuel supply. A lot of things have to go right for fusion power to hit the grid, and one of them is the fuel. Most planned plants would run on a mix of two fuels, deuterium and tritium. Deuterium is easy to come by, but tritium is extremely rare in nature, and it’s an open secret in the fusion world that there isn’t enough of it to power every planned plant.
The proposed workaround is to make tritium on site, inside the power plant itself. A fusion reaction gives off a stream of fast-moving particles called neutrons. Startups plan to surround the reactor with a blanket of lithium, so that when a neutron strikes a lithium atom, the atom splits into helium and tritium. The tritium can then be collected, purified, and fed back into the reactor as fuel.
Not all lithium does this job equally well. It comes in two slightly different forms, lithium-6 and lithium-7, named for their weights. Lithium-6 is far better at capturing neutrons and producing tritium, but it makes up only about 7.5% of natural lithium, and the rest is the heavier lithium-7. Separating the two is difficult, and there is little capacity to do it today, so the world doesn’t have enough lithium-6 either.
Licube sees a big market in solving that problem. “If fusion comes online, it should be a $50 billion market by 2040,” Yohei Kiguchi, co-founder and CEO of Licube, told TechCrunch.
Licube is one of 20 startups that are presenting onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco as part of the Startup Battlefield pitch competition.
While fusion has the potential to capture a significant chunk of the multitrillion-dollar energy market, fusion startups are still years away from building their first power plants.
“Fusion is the biggest market in the future, but we also understand the future might be late by a few years,” Kiguchi said.
Until fusion becomes a major market, Licube plans to use the same technology to purify lithium for use in semiconductor, pharmaceutical, fission reactors, and spacecraft industries.
The core technology is based on the electrolyzer, a device that uses electrical current to drive chemical reactions. In Licube’s case, lithium is dissolved in a liquid on one side of a ceramic membrane. As electrical current flows from one side of the membrane to the other, lithium-6 moves faster. Licube can then draw off that liquid and separate the lithium-6.
The goal is to enrich the lithium to at least 99.995% lithium-6. Fusion companies can feed that highly enriched lithium into their fuel breeding systems.
Kiguchi was inspired to start Licube after visiting ITER, the experimental fusion reactor being built in the south of France. He said he was living a couple of hours’ drive away in Monaco after retiring from his previous company, Enechange, an energy-switching platform network in Japan.
“I found out that I was too young to retire,” he said. “I’m an energy guy. I want to do something bigger.”
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