South Korea’s artificial sun sets new record, burns at 100 million degrees for 20 seconds

In a bid to make nuclear fusion reactions a reality, South Korea’s magnetic fusion device, The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research, or KSTAR, has set a new world record, reaching an ion temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius for a record 20 seconds. Interestingly the core of the Sun burns at only 15 million degree Celsius.

The project is the brainchild of Korea Institute of Fusion Energy along with Seoul National University and Columbia University in the US and the milestone was reached on November 24.

According to Phys.Org, the team was successful in the continuous operation of plasma for 20 seconds with an ion-temperature higher than 100 million degree, which is one of the crucial conditions of nuclear fusion in the 2020 KSTAR Plasma Campaign.

Scientists obtained a plasma from hydrogen, composed of hot ions that exceeded the 100 million degrees temperature for the fusion process.

Si-Woo Yoon, Director, KSTAR Research Center said, “The technologies required for long operations of 100 million plasma are the key to the realisation of fusion energy, and KSTAR’s success in maintaining the plasma of high temperature for 20 seconds will be a major turning point in the race to secure technologies for the long-term operation of high-performance plasma, a critical component of a commercial nuclear fusion reactor in the future.”

KFE has performed well over 20,000 plasma jolts since 2008. In its 2018 experiment , the KSTAR reached the plasma ion temperature of 100 million degrees for the first time but for around 15 seconds. These fusion device such as the KSTAR, are used to understand fusion reactions that occur inside the Sun. The goal of KFE is to sustain fusion ignition for 300 seconds with ion temperature of over 100 million degree Celsius by the year 2025.