Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has set a new record by operating a fusion reactor for 6 minutes. Researchers achieved this milestone by using tungsten coating in the WEST reactor.
For decades, researchers have been working on fusion reactors to fulfill humanity’s dream of abundant and affordable energy. Controlling fusion reactions, similar to those in the core of the Sun that provide life-sustaining energy, on Earth to generate energy sustainably, practically, and commercially is a formidable challenge. Many research teams are striving to achieve this goal of producing more energy than consumed in a reactor by harnessing the enormous energy released from the fusion of two hydrogen atoms.
One of these teams is the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) under the U.S. Department of Energy. The laboratory’s WEST tokamak reactor successfully operated for six minutes after a 1.15 gigajoule power steady-state injection. While there are reactors reaching temperatures higher than the reactor’s central electron temperature of 4 keV, a record was set in terms of duration.
Plasma Reached 50 Million °C Located at the Cadarache nuclear research center in Bouches-du-Rhône, France, WEST is operated by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission and has been collaborating with PPPL for a long time. A restructured version of the Tore Supra tokamak, the reactor named the Tungsten Environment in Steady-state Tokamak (WEST) reached a plasma temperature of 50 million °C during the six-minute operation and obtained 15% more energy with twice the plasma density.
Reactor Chamber Coated with Tungsten The most noteworthy achievement was conducting this operation with a tokamak chamber coated with tungsten. Previous versions used graphite coating, which provided better performance. However, graphite tends to absorb fuel, which is undesirable for a commercial reactor. Tungsten exhibits much less of this tendency, making it a more attractive material for practical use. Nonetheless, tungsten atoms can rapidly cool the plasma by entering it.
PPPL acknowledges that WEST is far from being a practical reactor but considers it a significant step for the laboratory’s future work on tungsten.
Delgado-Aparicio, the Head of Advanced Projects at PPPL, expressed the difficulty of their work, stating, “A tungsten wall environment is much more challenging than using carbon. It’s like trying to catch your house cat compared to trying to domesticate the wildest lion.
