Fusión brecha como la de China “sol artificial” alcances 100 millones de grados
El dia de la limpieza, limitless energy from nuclear fusion has taken another step closer thanks to China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (ESTE). Durante un experimento de cuatro meses, la “Chinese artificial sun” alcanzó una temperatura central del plasma de más 100 million degrees Celsius – that’s more than six times hotter than the interior of the Sun – and a heating power of 10 MW, enabling the study of various aspects of practical nuclear fusion in the process.
China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (ESTE) achieved an electron temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius in its core plasma(Crédito: IPP)
Beginning operations in 2006, the Chinese designed and developed EAST is located at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASHIPS) and is billed as an open test facility for conducting steady-state operations and ITER-related physics research by both Chinese and international scientists. Y, like many other fusion experiments, the ultimate goal is to produce a practical nuclear fusion power reactor.
EAST is a tokamak reactor, which consists of a metal torus or doughnut that is exhausted to a hard vacuum and then injected with hydrogen atoms. These atoms are then heated by a number of different methods to create a plasma that is then compressed using a series of powerful superconducting magnets.
Finalmente, the plasma becomes so hot and so compressed that the conditions inside the reactor mimic those found inside the Sun, causing the hydrogen atoms to fuse, releasing tremendous amounts of energy. The hope is that eventually a reactor can be built where the fusion reaction is self-sustaining, and the reactor generates more energy than it consumes.
EAST produced its breakthrough temperatures and densities for around 10 seconds by combining four different heating methods to create the plasma and spark the fusion process. En este caso, the methods were lower hybrid wave heating (oscillating the ions and electrons in the plasma), electron cyclotron wave heating (using a static magnetic field and a high-frequency electromagnetic field), ion calefacción resonancia ciclotrón (acelerar iones en un ciclotrón), y haz neutral calefacción ion (la inyección de un haz de partículas neutras acelerados en el plasma).
sin embargo, el propósito no era sólo de calado del metro, pero también estudiar cómo mantener la estabilidad y el equilibrio de plasma, cómo confinar y transportarlo, y cómo la pared plasma interactúa con partículas energéticas. Adicionalmente, ESTE es utilizado como demostrador de cómo utilizar la calefacción de onda dominante de radiofrecuencia, mantener un alto nivel de confinamiento de plasma con un alto grado de pureza, maintain magnetohydrodynamic stability, and how to exhaust heat using an water-cooled tungsten divertor.
CASHIPS says EAST is being used to explore how to maintain electron temperatures of over 100 million degrees over long periods to further knowledge and aid the development of advanced reactors like the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) being built in France, the Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR), and the proposed DEMO (DEMOnstration Power Station). Achieving temperatures in excess of 100 millones de grados centígrados - aunque sólo sea por unos 10 segundos - demuestra que es posible llegar a las temperaturas requeridas para la fusión nuclear.
Fuente: newatlas.com, por David Szondy
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