The new process will soon enable cheaper fusion reactors

Considered the holy grail of energy production: nuclear fusion. If it were possible to simulate the sun on Earth and fuse hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei on a large scale, almost all of today’s energy problems would be solved in one fell swoop. Just one gram of fuel can generate 90,000 kilowatt-hours of energy in a power plant – the heat of combustion of about 11 tons of coal. But this requires extreme conditions. Temperatures of several million degrees Celsius and high pressures as well as sophisticated hot plasma control technology are required. Until now, all of this has only been possible on an experimental scale — and without any significant energy return.

The new process makes it possible to build cheaper and smaller nuclear fusion reactors

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) have developed a way to dramatically reduce the distance between the hot plasma and the vessel wall – from 25 to less than 5 centimeters. This could enable smaller and cheaper fusion reactors to be built for power generation, they report in the journal.
Physical review letters
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“We specifically use the so-called point X emitter for this purpose — a phenomenon that we discovered about a decade ago in experiments,” says IPP researcher Matthias Bernert, according to a statement from the institute. It is the peculiarity of fusion plasmas confined in a magnetic field. Nitrogen is added to remove a large portion of the thermal energy from the plasma. This converts thermal radiation into ultraviolet light. When this pollution exceeds a certain level, a point X emitter occurs. Then a small, dense volume is formed, which radiates especially strongly in the ultraviolet range. “The added impurities give us somewhat weaker plasma properties, but if we place the point X emitter in a targeted manner by varying the nitrogen input, we can perform the experiments at higher energy levels without damaging the system,” Bernert explains. Global Climate Index from FOCUS online Earth – ADAC Helicopters are now providing patients with frying fats

Fusion strength can increase with a new process

Since the plasma moves close to the transducer – a particularly heat-resistant device that ensures heat is removed from the plasma – the vacuum vessel can be used optimally. According to the research group, preliminary calculations showed that if the container is shaped as fine as possible, the volume of the plasma can be roughly doubled – with the same dimensions. This will also increase the achievable fusion strength. But scientists need to verify this first in other experiments.