South Korean fusion reactor KSTAR sets new world record and holds plasma for 30 seconds

Research groups around the world have been working on the creation of a fully functional thermonuclear reactor for many years. Most scientists are developing a fusion reactor in the form of a tokamak.

So in the Korean Institute of Thermonuclear Energy they are working on their version of the reactor, and it is on this the installation specialists managed to set a new world record for the confinement of superheated plasma for 30 seconds.

Fusion reactors - mankind's long-term dream of endless and clean energy

The very essence of a thermonuclear reactor is to recreate the processes that take place in the bowels of stars such as the Sun. After all, it is there that a plasma is created under high pressure and ultrahigh temperature, in which a collision of hydrogen nuclei occurs. As a result of this process, helium is formed, and an enormous amount of energy is also released.

It is this process that scientists are trying to recreate in devices such as tokamak. So in experimental reactors, scientists heat up the plasma to millions of degrees Celsius and try to use super-powerful magnets to hold it for a long time in order to start the process of fusion of nuclei and release at the same time a large energy numbers.

So our today's hero, the KSTAR reactor was built in 2007, and already in 2008 the reactor created the first plasma. And eight years later, a world record was set at KSTAR, as scientists managed to hold plasma heated to 50 million degrees Celsius in the reactor for 70 seconds.

But the main task of scientists is to warm up the plasma to a temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius, and now in In 2018, South Korean specialists received such a temperature in the reactor, although they were able to keep it only 1.5 seconds.

The following year, the bar was raised to 8 seconds at a similar temperature, and in 2020, the same specialists were able to hold the super hot plasma for 20 seconds.

And now, according to the publication Business Korea, scientists took another step forward and were able to hold superheated plasma for 30 seconds, which is a new world record. This increase was made possible by more efficient equipment settings.

Scientists also report that their goal is to keep the plasma heated to 100 million degrees for 300 seconds. And according to the plan, this milestone should succumb to scientists in 2026, when the power source will be modernized and at the expense of the use of a tungsten divertor, which will prevent an increase in the temperature of the inner surface of the walls protective chamber.

Well, we will follow the new successes of scientists, and we hope soon we will hear that scientists finally created a full-fledged thermonuclear reactor, and mankind is now provided with a clean and endless energy.

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