Abstract An exergetic analysis of the sulfur/iodine cycle according to General Atomic shows that the drying of hydrogen iodide with phosphoric acid is an important weakness of the flowsheet. This is caused by the high amount of required electrical energy for the reconcentration of the phosphoric acid. A preliminary flowsheet is presented, which needs very low amounts of electrical energy and works without any extraction agent. In this proposal the direct dissociation of HI and the liquid-liquid separation of HI/H2O mixtures with high HI contents are taken into account. A rough energy balance leads to a thermal efficiency of about 50%.