A few weeks after the launch of the main unit from the Chinese space station and the landing of the Tianwen-1 probe on Mars, China surprised us with a new scientific achievement, which is generating heat 8 times greater than the heat of the sun's core, through a reactor. Tokamak is an advanced experimental superconductor designed specifically for developing nuclear fusion technology.

On Friday, May 28, China's artificial sun (the name for a nuclear fusion reactor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) reached 120 million degrees Celsius (216 million degrees Fahrenheit) and lasted for 101 seconds.

China broke the previous record achieved by South Korea by generating a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius that lasted 20 seconds, while the Chinese reactor was able to reach a temperature of 160 million degrees Celsius that lasted for the same period.

The Chinese reactor is similar in design to a hollow cake (French)

8 times the heart of the sun

China's scientific achievement is illustrated when we recall that the same hollowed-out reactor kept hydrogen heated up in the plasma state in 2017.

But the temperature was only 50 million degrees Celsius.

In 2018, the reactor succeeded in reaching the temperature of hydrogen gas to 100 million degrees;

But this heat only lasted 10 seconds.

When the temperature reaches the point at which fusion occurs, the substance is in a state of plasma, a special state of the starting material in which atoms or molecules form an ionic gas.

With this achievement, the Chinese reactor has reached a temperature equivalent to 8 times the temperature in the core of the sun, which is equal to 15 million degrees Celsius, with a longer period of 101 seconds.

Photo of China's 'artificial sun' nuclear fusion reactor (Getty Images)

This is considered a scientific precedent with which humanity becomes one step closer to achieving a goal that scientists have long sought;

That is, harnessing the energy of nuclear fusion to obtain a sustainable and cheap source of clean energy.

For some, the energy generated by nuclear fusion is the ideal source of clean energy.

The experimental facility, which contains the advanced superconducting Tokamak Experimental Reactor, employs more than 300 scientists and engineers. The device is a giant hollow metal tube containing a series of magnetic coils that are used to create superheated trajectories of circulating hydrogen plasma. around the core of the tube.

Nuclear fusion: hopes and challengesتحدي

Scientists seek to mimic the sun and stars in harnessing nuclear fusion that fuses hydrogen atoms to form larger, heavier elements like helium.

While the sun depends on gravity to fuse atoms and mix them together;

Scientists on Earth are resorting to other methods, such as using an extremely strong magnetic field, as in the "Tokamak" reactor, to create enough heat to fuse the nuclei of atoms.

Research indicates that the amount of deuterium (a stable form of hydrogen containing one proton and one neutron) in one liter of seawater is able to generate the energy equivalent of 300 liters of gasoline through nuclear fusion energy.

Engineers at work at China's nuclear fusion reactor (Xinhua News Agency)

The challenge for scientists was to keep the plasma for a long time in a medium hot enough for fusion to occur, and this medium would have to be hotter than the Sun;

Because the strong gravity of the sun melts the nuclei of atoms and fuses them with each other, something that we cannot simulate or replicate on planet Earth.

However, nuclear fusion technology is still elusive to scientists at the present time and beset with great difficulties, and it seems that the dream of creating an artificial sun that provides us with clean energy on Earth will remain a dream for scientists for several decades to come.

Although nuclear fusion promises broad prospects in generating clean energy;

Harnessing and controlling it remains a challenge;

Scientists have not yet reached the point where a fusion reactor generates more energy than it consumes;

This makes it completely economically unviable, but some experts say we are getting close to that.

The energy produced by fusing atoms is much greater than the energy produced by nuclear fission, which is the technology used to produce nuclear energy.

By comparison;

Nuclear fusion does not leave any greenhouse gases or radioactive nuclear fuels and dangerous residues that threaten human health for thousands of years, as well as the high costs of maintaining them.

Schematic diagram of the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor site)

International Experimental Thermonuclear Reactor

China is not the only country that spends huge efforts and money on developing nuclear fusion technologies, and in addition to its individual efforts;

It is also a partner in the construction and development of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is the largest reactor in the world for nuclear fusion operations, and it is a reactor that participates in the construction, financing and management of the major countries of the world, namely the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States of America, in addition to the United Kingdom and Switzerland, through the European Atomic Energy Community. Euratom, which includes 35 countries.

The reactor extends over an area of ​​42 hectares in southern France, an area equivalent to 60 football fields.

Nuclear fusion is the desired future of a post-carbon society, and scientists are spared no effort to move to proven clean energy technologies to ensure access to such a future, and despite billions of dollars spent on nuclear fusion experiments, technology is still an elusive goal.