The plasma produced by the scientists reached a temperature of 50 million Kelvins (49.999 million degrees Celsius) and they could manage to sustain the temperature for 102 seconds, which could pave way for unlimited clean energy.
The move marks a step ahead in achieving the goal to create to an ‘artificial sun’ using nuclear fusion to produce unlimited clean energy while replacing fossil fuels.
During the experiment, scientists heated hydrogen gas at a temperature of 50 million °C, which is three times hotter than the sun, to turn it into extremely hot low-density hydrogen plasma.
The Chinese team aims to heat the plasma to roughly 100 million Kelvin (180 million degrees Fahrenheit) and sustain it for 17 minutes.
Recently, German scientists used Wendelstein 7-X fusion device at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald to produced hydrogen plasma of 80m degrees Celsius by heating the gas using a 2MW pulse of microwave. The plasma, however, was sustained only for a fraction of seconds.
In about four years, German scientists are planning to work on extending the duration of the plasma discharges to up to 30 minutes. They will also determine its ability to achieve its optimization targets at full heating power of 20MW.
Results from the EAST experiments will be used for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter), which is being developed at Cadarache, France.
Image: Scientists are planning to create artificial sun to produce unlimited clean energy while replacing fossil fuels. Photo: courtesy NASA/ Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).
