Greenwald Limit Exceeds Twice Its Capacity; Plasma and Fusion Reaction Can Produce More Energy Than Previously Thought

Experts from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) recently modified one of the laws that served as the fundamental principle for plasma and fusion studies. For more than 30 years, these foundational formulas were associated with the works on megaprojects such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

Fusion and Plasma Research on ITER Tokamak

(Photo: ITER ORGANIZATION)
On 11 May 2022, the ITER Organization team achieved a major assembly milestone: lifting the first sub-section of the ITER plasma chamber out of tooling and lowering it into the machine well.

The European scientific group developed a novel technique that would be safer to utilize with hydrogen fuel in fusion reactor applications in the new research. This method allows for a better energy collection that also exceeds the capacity of the previous procedures on the massive infrastructure.

Fusion is among the attributes of physics that would be able to help us gather more energy in the future. This reaction occurs when two atomic nuclei collide and combine into a single material. The process emits large, powerful energy that could be observed in many aspects scattered throughout our daily environments, such as in the simplest forms like the warmth emitted by the sun.

The European megaproject called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor aims to replicate fusion processes from the sun's helium nuclei and atoms to harness and produce energy for the planet.

The main goal of the massive reactor is to create a high-temperature plasma that can be held in a fitting environment, allowing fusion to be stabilized for energy production.

On the other hand, plasma is an ionized matter similar to the state of gaseous compounds. This object contains positively charged nuclei and negatively charged electrons. The number of these molecules is denser by a million times compared to the thin air humans breathe every day.

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Plasmas could be artificially produced through fusion fuels or compounds of hydrogen atoms with temperatures ten times hotter than the sun's core. This process, which separates the electrons from the atomic nuclei, could be carried out through a round, donut-shaped structure called the 'tokamak.'

Exceeding the Greenwald Limit

EPFL Swiss Plasma Center specialist and co-author of the new research Paolo Ricci explained in a PhysOrg report that creating a plasma for fusion could be actualized through high density, high temperature, and an environment with good confinement.

The latest research shows that the ITER tokamak can operate with hydrogen volume twice the original capacity, generating more fusion energy than previous calculations.

The first theory for the activity was suggested in 1988 by physics expert Martin Greenwald. The scientist published several famous physical laws that discussed the relation between the tokamak's minor radius and the fuel density. With the initial examinations, the community was able to get ahold of the 'Greenwald limit' that, since then, had been used as one of the foundations of fusion research. The modern ITER's tokamak infrastructure was heavily based on this principle.

The authors concluded that the Greenwald limit could exceed its capacity and could raise the fuel in ITER by at least two times without any disruptions.

The study was published in the Physical Review Letters, titled "First-Principles Density Limit Scaling in Tokamaks Based on Edge Turbulent Transport and Implications for ITER."