China's artificial sun made a new world record by achieving a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for a period of 101 seconds, a key step toward the test running of a fusion reactor.
This big achievement was announced by Gong Xianzu, in charge of the milestone experiment conducted in Hefei, the capital of east china's Anhui Province.
The plasma temperature at the experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), or the Chinese "artificial sun," also reached up to 160 million degrees Celsius, lasting for 20 seconds.
The ultimate goal of EAST, "the artificial sun" is to create nuclear fusion like the real Sun, using deuterium found abundant in the sea to provide a steady stream of clean energy.
According to an estimate, the quantity of deuterium present in one liter of seawater can produce, through fusion reaction, the amount of energy equivalent to 300 liters of gasoline.
A number of 300 scientists and engineers are working to support the operation of the experiment facility, operating the different systems including a vacuum system, RF wave system, laser scattering system, and microwave system.
The institute started preparation and upgrading work for the experiment about a year ago.
The director of ASIPP Song Yuntao said, "It's a huge achievement in China's physics and engineering fields. The experiment's success lays the foundation for China to build its own nuclear fusion energy station."
As compared to fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, which are a threat to the environment, raw materials required for the "artificial sun" are clean and have no carbon emissions. Therefore, fusion energy is considered the ideal "ultimate energy" with the potential to help China lead the world to realize carbon neutrality.
By setting this world record, China has proved that Fusion energy, which is one of the greatest frontiers of today's physics, requires not only top scientific research ability but also massive experimental instruments.
China started the operation of Tokamak in 2006, Since then, the EAST has been an open test platform for Chinese and international scientists to conduct fusion-related experiments.
What is an 'artificial sun'?
In The core of the Sun, the continuous process that produces energy in form of heat and light is called "nuclear fusion". Fusion energy is considered to be an "ultimate energy" due to its inherent safety and abundant resources in the universe.
Scientists worldwide have been working to achieve controlled nuclear fusion reaction for decades, and the reactor made for this purpose is known as the "artificial sun."
The experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), or the Chinese "artificial sun," achieved a continuous high-temperature plasma operation for 1,056 seconds in December 2021, which was the longest duration of its kind in the world, this was a world record at that time, according to a report by Xinhua News Agency.
According to the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the ultimate goal of EAST is to create nuclear fusion, using deuterium abound in the sea to provide a steady stream of clean energy.
EAST Future Plans.
The Chinese scientists fired up their fusion reactor of the HL-2M Tokamak and now plan to crank the heat up to 150million degrees, which is about ten times hotter than the real sun.
According to state-run news outlet the Global Times, it will allow scientists to conduct further revolutionary research and ultimately enable it for the commercial use of the energy produced.
This reactor is called an "artificial sun" because it mimics the nuclear fusion reaction that powers the real sun - which uses hydrogen and deuterium gases as fuel.
The Chinese-made artificial sun could potentially end the world's reliance on fossil fuels and as a result, control global warming.
The deputy director of the Center of Fusion Science, Zhong Wulyu, said in his statement to the media that they have so far formed the largest scale and highest capability parameters of a magnetic confinement fusion experiment device in the country.
The Real Sun vs The Artificial Sun
Chinese scientists are using a pioneering structure and control mode that can increase the plasma current capacity to more than 2.5 million amperes. This increase in the plasma current capacity boosts the plasma ion temperature, which they hope will hit a whopping 150 million degrees.
The real sun hits temperatures of around 15 million degrees at its core.
It means that the nuclear fusion reactor can routinely generate a current of over 1 million amperes.
The success of experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST) means that mankind is one step closer to being sustained by an artificial sun in the future.
How do Fusion Reactors work
In Fusion reactors, the hydrogen is heated up to extreme levels to convert into plasma, a state so hot even atoms can't exist, and smashing protons together to form helium nuclei.
It is the same process that happens at the center of every star including our sun - and also in Hydrogen-bombs.
In Fusion reaction four times more energy is released by the weight of fuel than nuclear fission, and four million times more energy than burning fossil fuels.
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