Bob Yirka is a writer for Phys.org.
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The team at China's tokamak facility was able to hold 120-million-degree Celsius plasma for 1,056 seconds. They noted in their announcement to the press that their achievement was a new record.
The work is dedicated to the development of fusion as a power source that could replace coal-fired power plants and other renewable resource plants as well. The idea is to mimic the sun, which produces light and heat through fusion. When heated to high temperatures, vibrating atoms become excited. The atoms in the sun are hydrogen. The two hydrogen atoms are lighter than the helium element. Light and heat are released from the sun as a result of the difference in mass. Scientists have been working for many years to replicate the process. In such facilities, small numbers of atoms are heated to very high temperatures using microwaves, and are kept from being burned by holding them in place with magnets and lining the perimeter with materials that can sustain very high temperatures, such as carbon.
In the tokamak, tritium and deuterium atoms are heated to very high temperatures and begin to break apart. It is just one part of the process. fusion reactions are self-sustaining, as is the case with the sun, for a facility to produce energy on a continuous basis. The teams at tokamak facilities have been working on long reaction scenarios.
The team noted in their announcement that their results show they are moving in the right direction. They held a sample of plasma for 101 seconds. They state that their reactor has been designed to copy the fusion process in the sun as closely as possible, and that they refer to their facility as an "artificial sun."
The Science X Network will be launched in 2022.
The Chinese tokamak facility achieved 120-million-degree C for 1,056 seconds.
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