South Korean KSTAR tokamak sets new record for superheated plasma confinement

Controlled thermonuclear fusion is the dream of all mankind. But the main problem so far remains the confinement of the superheated plasma for a sufficiently long time. Engineers around the world are working on this problem.

Thus, South Korean specialists who work at the KSTAR tokamak managed to set a new world record for holding plasma heated to a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius. And now the hold time is 20 seconds.

Scientists have plans to increase the retention time to 300 seconds by 2025. The new record and plans of scientists are reported on the pages of the publication Nuclear Engineering International.

Thermonuclear reactor KSTAR

Reactor Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (or KSTAR for short) has been fully operational since 2008 and it is one of the few reactors in the world that has installed magnetic coils made entirely of superconducting materials such as triniobium stannide and niobium titanium.

Also, the temperature to which the coils are cooled is only 4 degrees Kelvin.

One of the main tasks of the KSTAR fusion reactor is to study technologies for the long-term confinement of heated plasma (hydrogen or deuterium) using a strong magnetic field.

These works are closely related to the international project for the construction of the ITER thermonuclear reactor, which is being built in France.

There is a new record

It should be noted that work on increasing the plasma confinement time at the KSTAR reactor is ongoing.

So, for example, in 2018, engineers managed to hold the plasma for 1.5 seconds. Already in 2019, the retention time was increased to 8 seconds. And on November 20, 2020, an absolute record was set. For 20 seconds, it was possible to keep the plasma heated to a temperature of 100 million Kelvin.

Next year, the KSTAR reactor plans to replace some of the electrical elements inside the chamber with tungsten ones. After the replacement, work will continue to increase the retention time and by 2025 it is planned to reach a time of 300 seconds.

In addition, South Korean scientists have plans to create their own demonstration thermonuclear reactor by 2040, which has already received the code name K-DEMO.

If you liked the material, then put your thumbs up and subscribe. Thank you for your attention!