A fusion reactor requires plasma pre-heating before the rate of deuterium-tritium fusion reactions becomes significant. In ITER, radiofrequency (RF) heating of He ions, additionally puffed into the plasma, is one of the main options considered for increasing bulk ion temperature during the ramp-up phase of the pulse. In this paper, we propose an alternative scenario for bulk ion heating with RF waves, which requires no extra. He puff and profits from the presence of intrinsic Beryllium impurities in the plasma. The discussed method to heat Be impurities in D-T plasmas is shown to provide an even larger fraction of fuel ion heating.

The authors are grateful to the anonymous referee for his/her valuable suggestion to clarify the effect of extra impurity species. This work has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium and has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014-2018 under grant agreement No 633053. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission.

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