New Plasma Confinement Discovery Holds Key to Fusion Energy

Under such conditions, ions fuse and release stored energy that can then be converted into electricity. Moving the plasma closer to the wall made high pressure inside the tokamak possible.

This self-regulated oscillation means there is a variety in adiabaticity (the performance of plasma confinement). For realization of magnetic fusion energy, global cooperation is needed, said Dr. Gong of ASIPP, who cited the EAST/DIII-D partnership as “an efficient and effective new model” for worldwide science collaborations that benefits both partners and the field of study.

For more than 50 years physicists have puzzled over a daunting mystery: Why do tokamak plasmas spiral apart when reaching a certain maximum density and halt fusion reactions?

According to the ITER, the ITER will be based on this Tokamak concept of magnetic confinement where the plasma will be contained in a vacuum vessel similar to the shape of a doughnut. “Strong magnetic fields are used to keep the plasma away from the walls; these are produced by superconducting coils surrounding the vessel, and by an electrical current driven through the plasma”, says the ITER website. The facility is a joint project of 35 nations, including the United States and China.

In magnetically confined plasmas, twofold confinement areas called magnetic islands exist. In these areas there is no temperature gradient that results where the turbulence began.

Plasma or ionized gas is confined to high temperatures when magnetic fields are used. In future fusion plasma it will be extremely important to improve the magnetic island’s confinement state. For this reason, many visions of fusion reactors try to maximize plasma beta at moderate magnetic field strengths.

Andrea Garofalo and Xianzu Gong led this team which investigated a situation known as the high-bootstrap current that improves self generated electrical current. The scenario is aimed at determining the ideal setting a tokamak for fusion energy production.

Reducing plasma distance from the wall with a bootstrap and high pressure of plasma has had a stabilizing effect. They can create a “pressure-driven” plasma flow that should be easier to control. “The chief operator said ‘You can’t do that anymore, you’re going to damage the machine, ‘ so it was a struggle to prove our theory was correct”, said Garofalo.

There are many physics and technology challenges that need to be solved, this tokamak experiments experience provides the basis to support a new path of exploration into compact, power producing reactors. Whilst rising magnetic field force offers impending ways to develop reactor performance, usual low-temperature superconductors undergo remarkable drops in current carrying capacity at high magnetic fields. The investigators are of opinion that this new discovery could lead to a major creation of sustainable energy sources. By using bootstrap current, this study could help scientists to control these islands without the injection of “flow” from outside – which is good, since that’s incredibly hard and expensive to do at existing magnetic confinement facilities, like the worldwide Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

Scientists in the joint project found a new confinement state that could lead to the improvement of fusion reactor plasma and eventually pave the way to fusion energy research in the future.

Director of Theory and Computational Science for General Atomic’s Energy and Advanced Concepts Group Philip Snyder came up with theoretical predictions that there was a state of plasma beyond H-mode. What is visible in this image are the colder regions on the outer edge of the plasma. True, the fusion process requires a lot more energy to be created than fusion but its energy output is sometimes four times greater than normal fission.