New solution for fusion reactor

Physicists have claimed to have solved a common problem in fusion reactors - a solution considered as a clean, cheap, safe, and almost limitless source of energy for the future.

Plasma glows inside a test fusion reactor. Photo of Princeton County Physics Laboratory .

US researchers say they have found a way to stop metal-wall erosion in the reactor - an important step to improving the efficiency of the furnace.

In fusion reactions, atomic nuclei merge heavier particles to release energy, as opposed to fission (the technique used in nuclear power plants and atomic bombs today). People bombard the nucleus into smaller units.

In a fusion furnace, particles collide to form an electrically charged plasma, compressed inside a donut-shaped chamber called a tokamak, by strong magnetic coils.

Last year, a group of countries signed a joint treaty to build the International Laboratory Fusion Tire (ITER) in southern France to create a trial before launching a commercially viable design. However, many experts shook their heads at ITER's challenges.

First of all, there are ELMs - sudden flows or vortals at the outermost edges of the plasma that cause the inside of the reactor to be corroded. This innermost wall is an expensive metal casing that can absorb plasma-induced neurons. If it is corroded, people will have to replace it more often.

Particles shot out also greatly affect the activity of the plasma, reducing the amount of energy that it can release.

A team led by Todd Evans, from General Atomics, California, believes ELMs can be intelligently controlled.

They found that when special coils were placed inside the reactor chamber, the magnetic field from the resonator generated from the coil produced disturbances from the "chaos" at the edge of the plasma block, blocking the formation of streams. eddy.

ITER is a joint product of EU, USA, Japan, Russia, China, India and Korea. If ITER succeeds, a commercial reactor prototype will be built and if it can function properly, fusion technology will spread around the world, as with current fission technology.

T. An