Boron powder can be used to shield tokamak walls from the extreme heat of fusion, presenting a solid strategy for sustainable nuclear energy.
The technique has already shown promising results in fusion reactors around the globe, including in China, Germany, and the U.S.Preventing tungsten atoms from entering the plasma is one of the biggest challenges of modern nuclear fusion reactors , and researchers at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory may have found a solution to fix it.
“We’ve developed a new way to understand how injected boron material behaves in a fusion plasma and how it interacts with the walls of fusion reactors to keep them in good condition while they are operating,” Florian Effenberg, a staff research physicist at PPPL, said in the press release. “The boron is sprinkled into the tokamak plasma as a powder, like from a saltshaker, which is ionized at the plasma’s edge and then deposited on the tokamak’s inner walls and the exhaust region,” said Joseph Snipes, deputy head for Tokamak Experimental Science.
The technique has already shown promising results in fusion reactors around the globe, including in China, Germany, and the U.S. According to the researchers, the approach can also be used when the reactor is operational.PPPL scientists have created a sophisticated computer modeling framework to investigate the behavior of boron in fusion reactors other than conducting experiments.
Energy International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor Nuclear Nuclear Fusion Reactors Physics Plasma Process Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Reactor Tokamak Tungsten Walls
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