The Chinese Academy of Sciences broke the record for the most fusions in a single day.
The tokomak reactor has a roiling loop of superheated plasma that can last 1,056 seconds.
The previous record was set by the Tore Supra tokamak in France.
This breakthrough by the EAST reactor is a significant advancement in fusion experimentation.
Nuclear fusion would change the world, but it's incredibly difficult to do. It involves replicating the processes that take place in the heart of a star, where high pressure and temperature squeeze atomic nuclei together so tightly that they form new elements.
In main sequence stars, the hydrogen and helium are the same. The excess mass of the four hydrogen nuclei that make it is reflected as heat and light.
Scientists are trying to harness the same process here on Earth that generated a tremendous amount of energy. There is a significant challenge in creating the heat and pressure that we find in the heart of a star, and there are different technologies to address them.
A tokamak has a donut-shaped shape in which the hot material is confined. It's a problem if you keep superheated plasma for longer time frames since it's chaotic and prone to instabilities.
EAST reported a temperature record of 160 million degrees Celsius, which was sustained for 20 seconds, making up for the lower pressure in the tokamak.
EAST broke the time record on December 30th, just a few days after it narrowly missed its goal of achieving 1,000 seconds.
fusion has a long way to go. Longer the time of confinement of the fusion generator is an important step forward in making self-sustaining fusion a reality.
