Seoul: South Korea and U.S. researchers have made progress in securing a key technology essential for the commercialization of fusion energy, the science ministry said Wednesday. The Korea Institute of Fusion Energy and the U.S.-based Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory discovered ways to control core plasma more stably with boron powder, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the researchers found that injecting boron powder reduces tungsten impurities released from the inner walls of a fusion reactor. Tungsten is considered one of the next-generation materials for nuclear fusion facilities due to its high durability against heat. Concerns, however, remain as tungsten impurities can have an adverse impact on a reactor's stability and performance.
The researchers conducted experiments using South Korea's tokamak-type nuclear fusion reactor, the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), which was built in 2007. "By utilizing domestic infrastructure, such as KSTAR, we plan to continue collecting research results that could lead to the acquisition of key technologies necessary for accelerating the realization of nuclear fusion energy and related research," the ministry said.