Chapter 389 Superconductivity
"Yes, I am more optimistic about the future development of stellarators than tokamaks!" Although the development of stellarator technology is much more difficult than tokamaks, and unlike tokamaks, there is now a lot of experience to rely on. It is almost just a concept and needs to be started from scratch. But in direct proportion, there will be greater potential for future application development and technology upgrades.
Although the current international mainstream of controlled nuclear fusion is Tokamak, according to the information Wu Tong has learned, the Tokamak device has already reached a bottleneck in terms of time. It is still measured in seconds, and the progress is quite difficult. There is almost no hope of success!
The current record for the longest discharge is held by Huazhong University of Science and Technology's "EAST" of 102 seconds, which almost marks the ceiling of the "discharge time" of the tokamak device technology route. Any attempt to increase this record by one second will require a high price.
The future prospects of controlled nuclear fusion are undoubtedly very bright. However, just like the darkness before dawn, this darkness is too long!
The ITER project is not optimistic so far. The annual expenditure is over the target by billions. However, the progress of the project has not been remarkable. Governments of various countries, including those across the sea, have gradually lost their patience.
"We have similar views. I am also interested in stellarators!" Lu Xiao nodded affirmatively. Even if Wu Tong couldn't see it, he had also considered stellarators. Otherwise, he wouldn't have thought of stellarators immediately after Wu Tong's comments. Of course, he had previously understood stellarators more as a supplement to the imagination of engine fighters.
"Controlled nuclear fusion is a systematic issue. Tokamaks and stellarators, magnetic confinement and inertial confinement... To accomplish all of this, we still have to return to the progress of materials and engineering. Stellarator devices are a little better than tokamaks.
Thanks to the design concept of the stellarator device, we don't need to use an ohmic transformer to start the plasma current like the tokamak device, nor do we need to consider the problems of distorted membrane, magnetic surface tearing, resistive wall membrane, etc.!"
"This transfers the difficulty to engineering and materials!" Lu Xiao said with a smile. However, at the same time, if they go the route of stellarator devices, this is also their strong point, especially Wu Tong's strong point!
"We need a larger electromagnetic field to complete the magnetic confinement of plasma, and we also need to effectively control the magnetic field. Therefore, we need a material that can achieve superconductivity at room temperature, or at least under less extreme conditions, so that we can create a larger controllable magnetic field to confine plasma!"
Plasma confinement is a technology that limits plasma to a certain area and prevents it from flying away.
The particles in the plasma have kinetic energy, they will move around and disperse, and some particles can even bombard the walls of the vacuum chamber, causing the loss of plasma particles and their energy.
Particles hitting the wall of the vacuum chamber and the material thereon will sputter into the plasma region, causing the plasma energy to be lost in the form of radiation, resulting in a decrease in the temperature of the plasma.
In order to reduce the number of plasma particles and energy loss, the "field" energy transfer interaction can be used to confine the plasma. The field can be a magnetic field, an electric field, or a gravitational field.
Thermonuclear fusion reactions in the sun and other stars rely on gravitational fields to confine plasma. These stars have large masses and strong gravity, which is enough to confine plasma together and carry out thermonuclear reactions.
However, it is impossible to confine the high-temperature plasma on Earth and make it undergo thermonuclear reaction by relying on weak gravity. Other confinement methods must be used.
The main methods of confining plasma in thermonuclear fusion research are magnetic confinement and inertial confinement. Tokamak devices and stellarator devices both use magnetic confinement to reduce the loss of plasma particles and energy.
In controlled nuclear fusion, the temperature of the plasma starts at billions of units during the fusion reaction. Therefore, they need a larger and more controllable magnetic field to achieve the fusion reaction and confine the plasma to make it controllable. This is also one of the important core points of the entire controlled nuclear fusion.
"Water coolers, plasma confinement, superconducting materials, and wall materials that can withstand billions of temperatures of fusion reactions... these are all technical fields that we must break through!" Wu Tong pointed out one by one. To build a stellarator device, they need to overcome those difficulties. They are taking a pioneering path. Currently, both the international community and China cannot give them much experience, especially now that the tokamak has reached its ceiling.
"Water cooler design, plasma confinement, I have started to study it in the past two days, I have some experience in this area!" Lu Xiao picked up the area he was good at and took it over. He made a preliminary design, and then he and Wu Tong optimized it in the end, making sure to overcome these two major difficulties!
"Superconducting materials and reactor wall materials, these are up to you!" "The materials sector has always been Wu Tong's forte! He couldn't help but sigh: "If we can have room-temperature superconducting materials, not only can we control nuclear fusion, but other energy problems can also be easily solved!"
Thermal power plants can be built anywhere, but green power plants that use renewable energy must be carefully sited, because strong winds can only be found on the plateau, long stretches of sunlight can only be found in the desert, and controlled nuclear fusion is still being tackled... Therefore, one of the biggest challenges in the transition to green energy is how to transport electricity from remote areas to cities across hundreds of kilometers.
The most advanced superconducting cables can transmit electrical energy for thousands of kilometers with only a few percent loss. But the trouble is that the cables must be immersed in liquid nitrogen at 77K (about -196℃) all the time. Therefore, if such cables are to be installed, pumps and cooling equipment must be installed every kilometer or so, which greatly increases the cost and complexity of the superconducting cable solution.
Superconductors that can work at room temperature and pressure will make the dream of global electricity supply come true.
Room-temperature superconductivity has always been the most difficult problem in the pursuit of superconductivity. It is a topic that many superconductivity researchers have been troubled and heartbroken about.
Wu Tong wrote room-temperature superconductivity on a notebook. This is a challenge that must be overcome! If they can achieve a breakthrough in room-temperature superconductivity materials and magnetic field confinement, they will definitely be able to break through the current difficulties and truly bring controlled nuclear fusion into the research and development process. This is the first thing that must be overcome. At the same time, they must also make preparations for both hands, how to better utilize superconducting materials and improve the strength of artificial magnetic fields from an engineering perspective!
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