Part of a four-month experiment campaign, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) has achieved a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit).
Developed by Hefei Institutes of Physical Science and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASHIPS) as a means to advance nuclear fusion technology, the reactor dubbed “artificial sun” was able to reach a temperature hotter than the core of the Sun. For comparison, the core temperature of the sun ranges around 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit).
Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more nuclei combine, creating a single heavy nucleus that releases an enormous amount of energy. This process is what the Sun uses to produce light and energy.
According to current theory, temperatures of 100 million Celsius and immense pressure is needed to achieve nuclear fusion. By creating a tokamak reactor that creates plasma and confining it using superconducting magnets, the conditions inside the reactor were able to reach the necessary temperature for nuclear fusion.
The ultimate goal for CASHIPS is to create a nuclear fusion power reactor as it provides an abundance of energy, doesn’t emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, doesn’t produce any nuclear waste, lacks any enriched materials that may be used in a nuclear weapon, and has no risk of a major meltdown.
The Hefei Institute has described nuclear fusion as “an important technological basis for mankind’s development of clean nuclear energy.”
To learn more about EAST, click the link below.
http://english.hf.cas.cn/new/news/rn/201811/t20181113_201186.html
