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The tokamak is a torus (doughnut)-shaped fusion device that confines plasma using magnetic fields, allowing scientists to manipulate superheated material and trigger fusion reactions. A breakthrough was recently made at the WEST reactor, operated by the French Commission for Alternative Energy and Atomic Energy (CEA).

WEST received 1.15 gigajoules of energy and maintained a plasma at approximately 50 million degrees Celsius six minutes for a record time. And although this is not the highest temperature that scientists have reached, in this case they say: achieved a plasma more energetic and dense than ever before.

This recording became possible after the work of scientists. coated the inside of the tokamak with tungsten — a metal with an extremely high melting point. Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory used an X-ray detector inside the tokamak to measure the properties of the plasma and the conditions that make it possible.

These are great results. Thanks to this tungsten wall, we reached a stable state despite difficult conditions,
– says CEA scientist and head of the International Coordination Group on Long-Term Exploitation Issues Xavier Litodon.

Nuclear fusion occurs when atoms come together, reducing their total number and releasing tremendous amounts of energy. It should not be confused with nuclear fission, which is the reverse process in which atoms split to produce energy. While nuclear fission creates nuclear waste, fusion is seen as a potential savior in energy research: an environmentally friendly process optimized to produce more energy than is needed to power the reaction itself. This will provide us with potentially unlimited, clean and cheap energy.

Earlier this year, the Korea Thermonuclear Energy Institute installed a tungsten steerer in the KSTAR tokamak, replacing the device’s carbon steerer. Such a diverter doubled the reactor’s heat flow limit, according to the Korean National Science and Technology Research Council. The new KSTAR router allowed the institute team to withstand high ion temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius for longer periods of time.

The tungsten-walled medium is much harder than the carbonaceous one. Scientist Luis Delgado-Aparicio compares these two options to “catching a kitten at home and trying to tame a wild lion.”