Critical Success to Reach Infinite Energy

Although nuclear fusion is seen as a great solution to the high energy demand that humanity needs, it is not yet able to enter our lives. As the scientific world continues to work at full speed to make this energy method possible, a big announcement came today.

While very large facilities and systems were needed to achieve nuclear fusion, scientists in Germany have made a discovery that will succeed in overcoming this need. From the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) Scientists could be pioneers to confine plasmas at millions of degrees to a small space.

Fusion reactors can be of smaller volume:

According to the research published in Physical Review Letters, the ITER experimental reactor under construction in France,’ASDEX Upgrade‘, will enable to produce energy in the most advanced way in the fusion power plant, thanks to the tokamak experiment. Moreover, this energy will be obtained in a much lower cost and much more compact system.

Before going into details, it is useful to know the existing fusion reactors. Today’s nuclear fusion reactors and power plants operate thanks to huge plasma chambers called ‘tokamak’. Plasma reaching 100 million degrees Celsiusis trapped in a magnetic field inside the walls inside this chamber. In this way, the plasma does not interact with the walls and, in simple terms, the walls do not melt or get damaged.

The newly developed system actually continues to follow the logic of tokamak. But it does include significant changes in the structure of the trapped plasma. Plasma the lowest point (point X) at least 25 centimeters between the ‘deflector’ and the critical function of the buckle. He managed to reduce it by 5 centimeters.

This feat was made possible thanks to the so-called “X point radiator”. X point radiator discovered about 10 years agooccurs in specially shaped magnetic cages when the amount of nitrogen added to the plasma exceeds a certain value.

This phenomenon resulted in the formation of a small, dense volume that diffuses particularly strongly in the UV range. This event can be seen as a ring-shaped glowing plasma inside the tokamak, It can emit both visible light and UV radiation.

It was also discovered that the X point radiator reduces the distance between the X point and the deflector. Professor of Physics at IPP, Dr. Tilmann Lunt shared his discoveries as follows:

“We accidentally brought the plasma edge much closer to the deflector than we wanted. We were very surprised that ASDEX Upgrade handled this without any problems.”

What will this discovery do?

• The deflectors inside the tokamaks can be designed much smaller.
• The volume of the vacuum area inside the tokamak will be reduced as the plasma will be closer to the deflector.
• Plasma volume if vacuum field volume of existing tokamaks is combined with X point radiator can be increased almost twice. Therefore, the fusion energy output will also increase.

It is stated that many experiments still need to be carried out to understand that the effect of the X-point radiator is certain. The ASDEX Upgrade that made the event possible is scheduled to be integrated into the Garching tokamak in 2024.