Record breaking: China's 'artificial sun' breaches another frontier, sustains plasma for nearly 7 minutes
China has conducted yet another nuclear fusion experiment in its pursuit of creating an 'artificial sun'. On Wednesday night, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion energy reactor created an artificial sun that sustained plasma for a whopping 403 seconds - breaking the 101-second record it had set in 2017.
According to various estimates, 300 seconds is the minimum time frame required to demonstrate steady-state operations. Keeping the figure in mind, scientists believe it is a major breakthrough.
Song Yuntao, director of the Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences told Chinese state media that the work by his team has laid a solid foundation to improve the technical and economic feasibility of fusion reactors.
“The main significance of this new breakthrough lies in its ‘high-confinement mode’, under which the temperature and density of the plasma increase significantly,” Song told Xinhua news agency.
“The record is also a big step forward for our team in terms of fundamental physics research, fusion engineering, and project operation and maintenance."
China developing next-gen 'artificial sun'
Chinese scientists have been operating EAST since 2006. The reactor has completed over 120,000 experiments so far. In 2018, breaking another record, the reactor managed to contain plasma for almost 18 minutes with the temperature reaching close to 70 million degrees Celsius. However, it was a different operation mode from the one used during Wednesday's test.
Having tasted success already, Beijing is looking to take another giant stride in the field. It has already completed the design of its next-generation artificial sun called Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) which will kick into operations by 2035.
Nuclear fusion vs fission
Nuclear fusion is considered the holy grail of energy and it is what powers our sun. It merges atomic nuclei to create massive amounts of energy, which is the opposite of the fission process used in atomic weapons and nuclear power plants, which splits them into fragments.
Moreover, unlike fission, fusion emits no greenhouse gases and carries less risk of accidents or the theft of atomic material.
By mimicking the natural reaction of the sun, scientists are hoping that the technology may help humanity harness vast amounts of energy and help battle the energy crisis.
Last year, scientists working at the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor also created an artificial sun that reached temperatures upward of 100 million degree Celsius for 30 seconds.
