Chinese scientists have announced a major breakthrough in ‘artificial sun' technology in the pursuit of creating energy through fusion.
The Institute of Plasma Physics at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced that two core superconducting magnets for fusion reactors have passed full acceptance and full working condition tests, with all core technologies 100 percent domestically developed.
The artificial sun is a man-made fusion facility that reproduces the sun's nuclear fusion reactions to develop clean, carbon-free and nearly inexhaustible fusion energy.
The toroidal field magnet, the globe's largest fusion reactor superconducting magnet weighing 582 tons, outperforms its ITER counterpart in southern France by 1.3 times in volume and three times in energy storage. It is used to prevent plasma from hitting the inner walls of the vacuum vessel.
Another critical component, the high-temperature superconducting central solenoid coil, also hit world-leading technical benchmarks. Acting like a spark plug and regulator for fusion plasma, it induces and drives the plasma current to ignite fusion reactions and heat fuel to super-high temperatures, while dynamically adjusting the plasma configuration to keep it stable.
Chinese scientists have been researching the components for six years, during which they have resolved global-level bottlenecks, including superconducting materials, precision manufacturing and radiation resistance, securing 47 patents and rolling out 14 industrial standards across the whole industrial chain.
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