From South Korea, new results have been achieved towards "clean" nuclear energy thanks to the development of totamak
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himFrom South Korea new results achieved towards "clean" nuclear energy
We already told you about the "artificial sun" made in Korea last year: the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) continues to break records and surpass itself. In December of last year it had broken all records, keeping the temperature of 20 million degrees for 100 seconds: now the record just broken is that of 30 seconds in which the plant maintained a fixed temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius.
What is Tokamak?
tokamak is a Russian word for a donut-shaped machine in which hydrogen is in the state of matter called plasma and is kept away from the inner walls by creating a strong magnetic field. In this “donut” it is possible to make a so-called process take place controlled thermonuclear fusion, in which nuclei of atoms merge, releasing a large amount of energy that could potentially be used as electricity, but without the risks and production of waste typical of nuclear fission plants.
Why this milestone is so important
The Korean tokamak is not the only machine of this kind in the world: think for example that the Chinese Academy of Sciences, driven by a great spirit of competitiveness towards Korea, announced last June that the experiments conducted on its tokamak led to cutting the 101-second record in maintaining solar temperature. But what's the point of breaking these records?
As we have said, these machines represent a potentially unlimited energy resource and a valid alternative to polluting fossil sources such as coal or methane. We know that inside the Sun particular conditions of gravity and high temperatures give simple elements (such as hydrogen) the energy necessary to overcome the repulsion of their nuclei and to fuse together into larger atoms: the result of this fusion gives life to incredible amounts of heat. The gravity of the Earth is not that of the Sun, and the tokamaks represent a kind of bubble, in which the ideal conditions for nuclear fusion that occurs in the nucleus of stars, but on Earth.
However, it is necessary that the plasma remains hot long enough to allow nuclear fusion and, consequently, the production of energy. The goal of the Korean KSTAR is to maintain a "stellar" temperature for at least 300 seconds by 2025.
Read our articles on nuclear fusion.
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Fonte: ScienceAlert
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