Major breakthrough! A new world record for the "artificial sun"

◎ Science and Technology Daily intern reporter Zhang Jiaxin

According to the European Fusion Research and Development Innovation Alliance (EUROfusion), the British Atomic Energy Agency (UKAEA) and the International Thermonuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor (ITER) jointly held a press conference on the 9th, European scientists have achieved major success in producing energy through fusion plasma - the world's largest nuclear fusion reactor, the European Union Ring Reactor (JET), has produced a stable plasma with an energy output of 59 megajoules. This is the world's first experiment on deuterium-tritium nuclear fusion since 1997.

Nuclear fusion reactor: INSIDE OF JET with superimposed plasma. Source: UK Atomic Energy Authority

JET produced a plasma with about 22 megajoules of fusion energy in 1997, setting the world energy record at the time. The new experiment broke that record, with fusion reactions in JET releasing a total of 59 megajoules of energy in the form of neutrons during the 5-second phase of plasma discharge — in terms of power units, JET achieved an average power output of more than 11 MW in 5 seconds. In the 1997 record, the average power in 5 seconds was 4.4 megawatts.

Nuclear fusion power generation, also known as the "artificial sun", is designed to mimic the nuclear fusion that occurs on the sun. Nuclear fusion is the fusion of two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, into a helium atom, a process that releases a lot of energy. The only unit in the world that can operate with this hybrid fuel is JET. Because tritium is a very rare raw material that requires special treatment, the team typically uses hydrogen or deuterium for plasma experiments, the last of which was in 1997.

In order to transition to the International Large-Scale Fusion Experiment (ITER) program, the researchers conducted a tritium-tritium-hybrid fuel fusion experiment. At the same time, in order to make the JET experiment as close as possible to future thermonuclear fusion reactor conditions, they covered the plasma container wall with a mixture of beryllium and tungsten instead of carbon, because metal tungsten is more corrosion resistant than carbon and does not bind too much to fuel like carbon. The experiment produced a record level of fusion energy at a temperature 10 times higher than the sun's core temperature.

The ITER facility, which is currently under construction in Cadaraci in southern France, is expected to use a mixture of deuterium and tritium fuels and is planned to produce 10 times the energy output (fusion gain). The goal of producing net energy, i.e. producing twice as much energy as it would be required to heat the plasma, was not possible until the Kadarach ITER facility went live. Therefore, this experiment is a world record set under ITER-like conditions.

Professor Sibil Günter, Scientific Director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany, said: "JET's latest experiment is an important step towards the ultimate goal of ITER. ”

Source: Science and Technology Daily

Editor: Wang Yu

Review: Julie

Final Judge: He Yi