Chinese ‘Artificial Sun’ Sets World Record :Researcher
Hefei, Dec 31: The experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), or the Chinese “artificial sun,” has achieved a continuous high-temperature plasma operation for 1,056 seconds in the latest experiment, the longest time of operation of its kind in the world.
The breakthrough was announced on Friday by Gong Xianzu, a researcher at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), who is in charge of the experiment conducted in Hefei.
“We achieved a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds in an experiment in the first half of 2021. This time, steady-state plasma operation was sustained for 1,056 seconds at a temperature close to 70 million degrees Celsius, laying a solid scientific and experimental foundation toward the running of a fusion reactor,” said Gong.
The ultimate goal of EAST, located at ASIPP in Hefei, is to create nuclear fusion like the Sun, using deuterium abound in the sea to provide a steady stream of clean energy.
As opposed to fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, which are in danger of being exhausted and pose a threat to the environment, raw materials required for the “artificial sun” are almost unlimited on earth. Therefore, fusion energy is considered the ideal “ultimate energy” for the future of humanity.
