# Would $^3_2\mathrm{He}$ and $^3_1\mathrm{H}$-based fusion require different fusion reactors?

At school I have learned that there are two very similar fusion reactions, which physicists (and science fiction authors) hope can be used as an energy source:

$$^2_1\mathrm{H}+^3_1\mathrm{H} \rightarrow ^4_2\mathrm{He}+^1_0\mathrm{n} + (17.589\,\mathrm{MeV})$$

and

$$^2_1\mathrm{H}+^3_2\mathrm{He} \rightarrow ^4_2\mathrm{He}+^1_0\mathrm{p} + (18.353\,\mathrm{MeV})$$

Does the fact that the reaction which requires helium-3 produce protons instead of neutron, imply that entirely different fusion reactors would need to be build, to make the different fusions reactions happen, or would a facility built to fuse tritium with deuterium work perfectly fine if you instead gave it helium-3 and deuterium?

• That was fastly accepted. Nevermind. I wanted to look at reaction rates to learn a bit of something and I did. There are two very important factors - Coulomb barrier - it is 2x higher for 3He reaction. Then there is an astrophysical S factor (kind of reaction probabity) and it is huge for d+t (14MeVb) and huge for 3He+3He (5MeVb) and d+3He (10MeVb). If there in no surpise in S factor, then one must go from 760 milion Kelvin to 8 bilion Kelniv temperature to maintain same reaction rates. Then- magnetic field will have different problem to confine higher velocities. Basically. – jaromrax Apr 12 '17 at 14:35