Breeding blanket
TECHNICAL TERM
Lithium blanket; Fusion blanket
The tritium breeding blanket (also known as a fusion blanket, lithium blanket or simply blanket), is a key part of many proposed fusion reactor designs. It serves several purposes; one is to act as a cooling mechanism, absorbing the energy from the neutrons produced within the plasma by the nuclear fusion reaction between deuterium and tritium (D-T), another is to "breed" further tritium fuel, that would otherwise be difficult to obtain in sufficient quantities, through the reaction of neutrons with lithium in the blanket.