Most of the methods we currently use to produce energy are polluting and limited.
Nuclear fusion seeks to replicate the reaction that makes the Sun and other stars shine, fusing two atoms to release huge amounts of energy.
This method, considered the Holy Grail of clean energy climate solutions, has the potential to provide unlimited energy without carbon pollution, but mastering this process is still a challenge.
Currently, the most common way of obtaining fusion energy involves a reactor, inside which hydrogen variants are heated to extraordinarily high temperatures to create a plasma.
These high-temperature, high-density plasmas, in which reactions can take place over long periods of time, are crucial to the future of nuclear fusion reactors. However, maintaining these high temperatures has not been easy to achieve due to the unstable nature of this physical state.
Now, Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research, or KSTAR, has managed to maintain a temperature of 100 million°C (seven times the temperature at the core of the Sun) for 48 seconds - managing to keep the plasma hot in high confinement mode (also known as H-mode) for 102 seconds.
The reactor managed to reach this limit for the first time in 2018, but only for 1.5 seconds. A year later, it managed to maintain the temperature for 8 seconds, rising to 20 seconds in 2020. The last record was set in 2021, when the plasma was maintained for half a minute.
The next target is to reach 300 seconds of plasma burning by the end of 2026.
According to the team's press release, the scientists managed to extend the time by adjusting the entire process, including the use of tungsten instead of carbon in the "diverters", which extract heat and impurities produced by the fusion reaction.
Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research
This and the next advances will be a very important contribution to the development of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in the south of France, known as ITER, the world's largest tokamak whose ultimate goal is to prove the viability of fusion.
KSTAR's work "will be of great help in ensuring the expected performance of ITER's operation on time and in advancing the commercialization of fusion energy," said Si-Woo Yoon, director of the KSTAR center's research center, quoted by IFL Science.
Dr. Alfredo Carpineti
