A new record of thermonuclear fusion has been achieved by researchers from the US Department of Energy, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and the French Commission on Alternative and Atomic Energy in the WEST tokamak with a tungsten wall.
For 6 minutes, the reactor sustained plasma heated to 50 million °C, with an energy consumption of 1.15 gigajoules. This resulted in 15% more energy than previous attempts and a plasma density twice as high. Researchers used an X-ray detector inside the tokamak to measure the plasma parameters and other process characteristics. Extremely refractory tungsten is considered one of the most promising materials for industrial thermonuclear fusion.
"Working with a tungsten wall environment is much more challenging than using carbon [in other tokamaks]. It's like the difference between trying to pet a domestic kitten and petting a wild lion," says Luis Delgado-Aparicio, the project's lead scientist.
A tokamak is a torus-shaped thermonuclear reactor that uses magnetic fields to confine plasma, where thermonuclear fusion reactions take place. During fusion, atoms merge and form new ones, accompanied by a huge release of energy and temperatures higher than those in stars. This reaction is the opposite of nuclear fission used in conventional nuclear reactors.
The goal of industrial thermonuclear fusion is to maintain a stable reaction with higher energy generation than consumption. Fusion does not produce waste like nuclear fission and releases much more energy, making it the "holy grail" of energy. Scientists consider achieving a steady-state reaction in an experiment to be a remarkable achievement.
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