As work continues on the installation of world's first fully-integrated fuel cycle, public-private-partnership FFC shares details on underlying model and design philosophy.
CHALK RIVER, ON, June 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Fusion Fuel Cycles Inc. (FFC), a joint venture between Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and Kyoto Fusioneering, is pleased to announce that it has recently published two foundational papers for the company: "The Fusion Fuel Cycle Simulator - towards integrated dynamic process simulation of fusion fuel cycles" and "Conceptual Design of UNITY-2, the Fuel Cycle Test Facility for Fusion Pilot Plants."
The fuel cycle is an essential part of any proposed commercial fusion power plant design - breeding, capturing, extracting, and recycling the precious tritium required for fusion reactions to take place is the only way to achieve fusion's promise of limitless clean energy. FFC's mission is to close this technology gap for fusion developers and believes that these papers represent a key milestone in accomplishing that mission.
An accurate, reliable model is an indispensable tool for designing complex integrated systems. In the case of fusion fuel cycles, the performance of individual sub-systems is often reliant on the status of the other components, making the problem inherently dynamic. FFC's solution was to develop a new model to meet their design needs: The Fusion Fuel Cycle Simulator (FFCSim). "FFCSim is a new, modular and flexible tool for fusion fuel cycle simulation and design. It can be exploited for dynamic, physics-based and closed-loop simulations of holistic fuel cycle layouts with a particular emphasis on managing tritium streams and inventories." Notes Dr. Christian Day - FFC's Chief Technology Officer. "We were particularly concerned with the need for testing and comparing different fuel cycle configurations to find the most efficient combinations for our customers' use cases. For that reason, we used a modular design for the tool to enable quantitative prediction of individual unit performance."
FFC is also making progress in the realm of physical equipment. Design and construction efforts are underway on the "Unique Integrated Testing Facility" (UNITY-2), the world's first fully-integrated fusion fuel cycle system to be built in at the Chalk River site, managed by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories' (CNL). With commissioning planned to begin in 2026, the team have recently published a paper describing the facility and its systems in detail. Dr. Sam Suppiah - Chief Scientific Officer of FFC emphasized the importance of this project: "FFC recognized that meeting the needs of the rapidly advancing private fusion industry would require a much more aggressive development of fuel cycle technology. For that reason, we are pushing hard to commission UNITY-2 as soon as possible to provide industry, academia, and publicly funded fusion programs with the data and testing capabilities they need to bring this promising clean-energy technology to market. I encourage anyone interested to read this paper and to reach out to our team as we plan the first few years of our testing program."
To view the papers, please visit the following links:
Link to FFCSim paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2025.115145
Link to UNITY-2 paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15361055.2025.2481362
About FFC
FFC is a joint venture between two of the world's leading fusion service providers - Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and Kyoto Fusioneering (KF). Founded in 2024, FFC combines over 70 years of tritium research and management expertise with the nimble, customer-focused approach of a start-up.?
At Fusion Fuel Cycles Inc. (FFC), we provide end-to-end solutions to delivering a performance-driven fuel cycle. From design to full operations, our fuel cycle systems are designed to boost fuel efficiency, reduce tritium inventory, and maximize heat transfer for power conversion-enabling safe, high-performance, and cost-effective fusion energy systems.
FFC is committed to support the development of the fusion ecosystem and is gladly engaged in consultations that pertain to our areas of expertise such as tritium management, handling and operational experience.
For more information on FFC's activities, please visit www.ffc.inc
FFC Contact: Denys Elliot, Business Development Lead, 1-613-639-2201, info@ffc.inc
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