arxiv.org: a pre-print source, this is not peer-reviewed yet. So, until other papers refer to this paper, it has low significance in the literature. The paper has references to other papers and to previous corpus of knowledge on the subject, which is good. However, this paper is based on simulations only.

Crucially, the scheme identified here does not negatively impact electricity production, and is also compatible with the challenging tritium breeding requirements of fusion power plant design because (n, 2n) reactions of 198Hg drive both transmutation and neutron multiplication

Monte Carlo transport calculations show that neutrons produced in a tokamak power plant can convert the abundant isotope 198Hg to stable 197Au via the (n,2n) channel, yielding several tonnes of gold per plant-year without compromising the tritium breeding ratio.

The decommissioned blanket material would increase in value, and the Mercury-198 in the blanket doesn't majorly impact its effectiveness in transmuting lithium to tritium.

The "worst" gold isotope half-life is less than a year, so only a modest cool-down is needed for the output:

197Au to be Class 7 when activity concentration is > 2700 pCi/g, which is reached after 13.7 years for the initial concentration listed.

An even more stringent constraint can be applied for any gold that will be regularly handled by the general population. As a highly conservative requirement, we can stipulate that this gold must be less radioactive than a banana. Due to 40K content, bananas have an activity of ∼ 3520 pCi/kg, or about 420 pCi for a single banana. To meet this requirement, a troy ounce of gold with the initial isotope mix shown in Table 2 must sit for about 17.7 years to be below a banana equivalent level of activity.

What strikes me here with this paper is the suggested liquid blanket, so this would be a kin of D-T Fusion MSR. We now have two proposed technologies behind being able handle hot radioactive liquids.