2024-04-05 18:43:55
The KSTAR Tokamak, a fusion reactor located in South Korea, achieved a new H-mode record by maintaining a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for more than 100 seconds.
Interesting Engineering writes about this.
Physicists at the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy announced that the KSTAR fusion reactor for the first time reached a plasma temperature 7 times higher than the temperature in the solar core. This new record was set in recently completed experiments.
Physicists report that the tokamak fusion reactor, also known as the “artificial sun”, managed to maintain a stable plasma temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for 48 seconds. However, in H mode (the stable state of plasma most efficiently maintained), this same temperature was maintained for more than 100 seconds.
For comparison, the temperature of the plasma in the Sun’s core is 15 million degrees Celsius, so physicists were able to achieve the temperature of a stably confined plasma. Physicists are using the KSTAR reactor in an attempt to solve a key problem: achieving a future source of clean and limitless energy using nuclear fusion.
According to South Korean scientists, it is necessary to develop technology that can maintain high temperature and plasma density over long periods of time, which will allow achieving the most efficient thermonuclear fusion.
Thanks to improvements and upgrades made to the KSTAR reactor, new records have been achieved. In particular, tungsten diverters were installed, important components located at the bottom of the reactor. They play a key role in cleaning the reactor from exhaust gases and impurities.
Earlier, Cursor wrote that Chinese scientists achieved a new record by launching a thermonuclear reactor that continued to operate for 17 minutes at a temperature exceeding the temperature of five Suns.
2024-04-05 18:43:55