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Nuclear fusion: in Korea 100 million degrees maintained for 30 seconds stably. The solution is getting closer and closer

A nuclear fusion reaction lasted 30 seconds at temperatures above 100 million degrees Celsius during an experiment in Korea. Although the duration and temperature alone are not a record, achieving the simultaneous heat and stability of the reaction brings us much closer to building a functioning fusion reactor. Now the problem becomes engineering, that is, purely technical.

Most scientists agree that fusion energy is still decades away, but advances in understanding and results keep coming. An experiment conducted in 2021 created a reaction strong enough to be self-sufficient, conceptual designs are being developed for a commercial reactor, and work continues on the large, very expensive, ITER experimental fusion reactor in France.

Now Yong-Su Na of Seoul National University in South Korea and his colleagues have been able to create a fusion reaction at the extremely high temperatures that will be needed for a viable reactor and to keep the hot, ionized state of the matter being stable for 30 seconds. creates inside the device.

The fusion lasted 30 seconds not because it could not continue, but simply because of the limitations of the structure, as it was feared that the carbon surfaces would not be able to hold any further. These will soon be replaced with tungsten others, more resistant and with which it is hoped that we will be able to continue the controlled fusion much longer.

The control of the so-called plasma is essential. If it touches the reactor walls, it cools rapidly, choking the reaction and causing significant damage to the chamber that contains it. Researchers routinely use magnetic fields of various shapes to contain plasma: some use an edge transport barrier (ETB), which sculpts the plasma with a clean cut in pressure near the reactor wall, a state that prevents heat from escaping. and plasma. Others use an internal transport barrier (ITB) which creates a higher pressure near the center of the plasma. An interesting fact discovered in the experiment is that it was discovered that it is not so much the density that affects the stability of the plasma, but rather the fast ions in the heart of the plasma itself and their control with the so-called fast-ion-regulated enhancement (FIRE ).

Little Korea succeeds where the powerful EU does not dare to go …


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Article Nuclear fusion: in Korea 100 million degrees maintained for 30 seconds stably. The solution is getting closer and closer comes from ScenariEconomici.it .


This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/fusione-nucleare-in-corea-mantenuti-i-100-milioni-di-gradi-per-30-secondi-stabilmente-la-soluzione-e-sempre-piu-vicina/ on Thu, 08 Sep 2022 08:00:53 +0000.