BEIJING, KOMPAS.com – China managed to power the fusion reactor nuclear named HL-2M Tokamak which they refer to as ” sun artificial “for the first time.
The news was delivered by state media on Friday (4/12/2020), as reported AFP.
The reactor uses a strong magnetic field to fuse hot plasma and can reach temperatures in excess of 150 million degrees Celsius, according to the newspaper. People’s Daily.
That means, the heat generated by the reactor is about 10 times hotter than the sun’s core, which is about 15 million degrees Celsius.
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However, South China Morning Post (SCMP) wrote that the nickname ” artificial sun“for HL-2M Tokamak is less accurate.
The media compared that the sun continued to burn for 4.6 billion years.
Meanwhile, the Tokamak HL-2M experiment only lasted a few seconds, and it was not specified how long the reactor would be nuclear fusion is turned on.
SCMP also makes a comparison of the energy produced from the HL-2M Tokamak with nuclear fusion reactor other.
The strongest electric current that can be generated by a facility located in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China, is between 2 and 3 mega-amperes.
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Meanwhile, the UK’s larger nuclear fusion reactor, the Joint European Torus, generates an electric current of up to 7 mega-amperes. The Joint European Torus itself is even older and nearly 40 years old.
Zhong Luwu, principal scientist of the HL-2M Tokamak project from the Southwestern Institute of Physics, told China National Radio that it uses some of the most advanced technology found in China, maybe even the world.
He said, HL-2M Tokamak can withstand repeated bombardment by waste particles that can be produced by hot gas, which carries large amounts of energy.
However, Wang Yugang, a professor of nuclear physics at Peking University, said some radioactive particles generated by the fusion reaction could not be blocked by Tokamak’s HL-2M magnetic field.
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“It’s okay for short-term surgery,” said Wang, adding that no man-made material can withstand the cumulative damage from subatomic particles over years or decades.
“It took a long time to find (the right material),” added Wang.
Nonetheless, the new facility is an important step in China’s plans to commercialize nuclear fusion energy by 2050.
The success of turning on the HL-2M Tokamak also made “Panda Country” more confident in continuing to develop a nuclear fusion reactor.
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In nuclear fusion, two atoms are joined together to form larger atoms, then release large amounts of energy.
This process is in contrast to the fusion process where the nucleus is separated, releasing a large amount of energy.
Nuclear fusion is a source of energy star, but to re-create the process on Earth and keeping it from exploding into a serious challenge.
Apart from these challenges, the Chinese Government intends to continue the construction of the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) reactor as early as next year.
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The CFETR took 10 years to build and will use a very strong magnetic field to accommodate hot gas or plasma.
CFETR is intended to solve engineering problems in the construction of commercial power plants.
Problems such as keeping hot gases burning for months or years, and designing structures that are durable enough to contain them.
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