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com)

Challenges of fusing nuclei

The main challenge of achieving fusion on Earth, as described by Steve
Cowley in the video, can be examined by looking at the fusion equation
again.

1 2
1 11H + 1 12H → → 32 23He

The hydrogen nucleus contains one proton and the deuterium nucleus one proton
plus one neutron. Both of these nuclei are positively charged and will therefore
repel each other. As we discovered in Week 1, it is the strong force that holds
nuclei together and it is certainly capable of overcoming the electrostatic repulsion
but only acts at extremely short range. To get the strong force to pull the nuclei
together you need to get the nuclei very close. This is no mean feat as the nuclei
are trying to push themselves apart!

If the nuclei are going fast enough they will be able to overcome the repulsion to
get close enough for the strong force to allow fusion. The intense temperatures
and pressures at the centre of stars make these speeds achievable but suitable
conditions cannot be easily recreated on Earth.

The fuels used are generally deuterium (hydrogen-2) and tritium (hydrogen-3) –
these each have neutrons in their nuclei that contribute to the attraction of strong
force but not to the repulsion. Tritium and deuterium fuse to give Helium-4 and one
neutron, as shown in the picture above. In order to enable nuclei to fuse, a plasma
is used. A plasma is a gas that has had a significant proportion of its atoms
ionised so that the positively charged nuclei and negatively charged electrons are
dissociated from one another. In order to produce a plasma the gas needs to be
extremely hot – over 100 million degrees Celsius!

The Joint European Torus (JET) uses magnetic fields to confine the enormously
hot fuel, called a plasma. The fields are within a large donut shaped device called
a tokamak or torus.

Another approach is to use lasers to produce pulses of X-rays, fired at a small fuel
pellet of tritium or deuterium. The pulses squeeze the pellet causing it to implode
and briefly undergo fusion. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) project uses this
approach and you will learn more about this later.

In the next step, test yourself on what you’ve learned about fusion.

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