The experiment was brief, failed or two minutes, but that lasted 102 seconds were enough to make a team of Chinese scientists in the authors of the longest “artificial sun” that has been on Earth.
Although the “star” they created was short-lived, he was a breakthrough in the long run to make one of the greatest scientific challenges of the XXI century to imitate the stars and to ensure that nuclear fusion to be a viable energy source.
The Institute of Physical Science of the Chinese city of Hefei (East) held last January 28 that experiment, although the Academy of Sciences of China which depends took several days disclose the feat in a statement.
Using the thermonuclear fusion reactor EAST (acronym for Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak), researchers raised the temperature of the hydrogen to 50 million degrees Celsius, tripling the core Sol.
After the temperature rise, hydrogen gas flow plasma, the fourth state of matter (next to solid, liquid and gas), in which the particles move at such speed and collide so strongly that electrons are separated from the nuclei of atoms forming a set ionized.
The novelty of the Chinese experiment, however, is not in such a high temperature, since in December a team from the Max Planck German Institute reached 80 million degrees in a similar test, but over time they got to keep it.
While German scientists, and before them other Europeans, Japanese and Americans, considered a success reaching the thermal peak and that they vanish in a split second, the Chinese They endured for a full minute and 42 seconds.
That could control it so long evolution demonstrates a technique about which most experts are still far away: the arrival of nuclear fusion reactors capable of emulating the process that takes place in the sun naturally.
Fusion is a chemical reaction that is the union of two atoms to form a larger one releasing a huge amount of energy in the process, even more than in fission that takes place in nuclear power plants, where large atoms break down into smaller particles.
Getting a stable and controlled nuclear fusion is, for its potential as a source of clean and obtained from an almost inexhaustible resource, one of the great ambitions of the international scientific community energy.
United States, European Union, China, Russia, Japan, India and South Korea have formed an unlikely alliance to explore the feasibility of fusion of hydrogen for energy generation ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), which is built in the south of France.
The Chinese EAST is a kind of small-scale version of ITER and his latest experiment data will be made available to international partners involved in this project, as announced by the Academy Science China.
The biggest obstacle to the merger to be viable as a source of energy, according to experts, is the plasma confinement for a sufficiently long time at a discreet volume and hence the importance find the Institute of Physics Science Hefei, which has gone further than anyone else in that regard.
The Academy of Sciences of China defined its result as a “landmark” and acknowledged that, to achieve this, they had to overcome many physical and engineering problems.
“It is accomplished by heating a plasma confined by a magnetic superconducting”, ie, the plasma was retained inside the reactor through a system of powerful magnets, he told Efe Li Ge, a researcher at the Institute of Physics Science Hefei.
Rather than generating energy, the idea of Chinese scientists was to focus on the prerequisite: lengthen the time during which you can work with the plasma at extreme temperatures.
His next goal is to reach 100 million degrees and preserve for 1,000 seconds (16 minutes and 40 seconds).
Before reaching that point, the China Academy of Sciences warns that “there are many scientific and technical challenges still” and Li believes that the thermonuclear reactor will have to be “updated” .
The demonstrations suggest that the race for playing a Sun on Earth may expect years, probably decades ahead, but do not hide that efforts to control the fusion nuclear reactors within 102 seconds and get them less.
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