The helium bubble: Prospects for 3He-fuelled nuclear fusion

Temmerman, G. De

doi:10.1016/j.joule.2021.05.003

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…An aggressive plan proposed by initiatives attempts to actively use fusion energy a few years after ITER's first plasma, which will potentially confirm fusion's role as a part of energy production in the second half of this century. As if right now, most researchers are foreseeing the actual deployment of nuclear fusion around 2060, confirming its unignorable role in future energy development 18,51 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…At present, a potentially more promising alternative that may behoove mankind is nuclear fusion. It has a set of unique advantages and an ability to generate nearly inexhaustible, pollution-free energy, which sheds light on humanity's future 18,19 . The world's largest fusion experiment ITER anticipates the first full-scale plasma in 2025, and the testing for fusion is expected to start a decade later 20 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

2060: Civilization, Energy, and Progression of Mankind on the Kardashev Scale

Zhang

Yang

Luo

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Energy has been propelling the development of human civilization for millennia. Humanity presently stands at Type 0.7276 on the Kardashev Scale, which was proposed to quantify the relationship between energy consumption and the development of civilizations. Projecting the future energy consumption and estimating the change of its composition are critical in the context of civilization development. Here machine learning models, random forest (RF) and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), are used to simulate and predict energy consumption on a global scale and project the position of humanity on the Kardashev Scale in 2060. The result suggests that global energy consumption is expected to reach 928-940 EJ in 2060, and our civilization is expected to achieve Type 0.7474 on the Kardashev Scale. Additionally, the potential energy segmentation changes before 2060 and present the influence of the advent of nuclear fusion in this context are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

2060: Civilization, Energy, and Progression of Mankind on the Kardashev Scale

Zhang

Yang

Luo

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In principle, there are several aspects that make D 3 He with respect to DT an appealing choice: the use of a non-radioactive fuel ( 3 He instead of tritium) and the possibility to directly convert a part of the plasma energy into electricity [38][39][40]. Further, for the D 3 He reaction the development of the reactor materials is less challenging than for the DT one due to the smaller neutron damages and the absence of the breeding blanket.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Classical Thermodynamic Analysis of D-Based Nuclear Fusion Reactions: The Role of Entropy

Tosti

2023

Energies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this work, the feasibility of nuclear processes is studied via classical thermodynamics by assessing the change in entropy, a parameter that has so far been neglected in the analysis of these reactions. The contribution of the entropy to the reaction spontaneity plays a different role in the fission and fusion reactions. In particular, in fusion reactions the temperature acts as a very powerful amplifier of the entropic term (−T ΔS) that, at the temperature of tokamaks (millions Kelvin), may significantly reduce the thermodynamic spontaneity of these processes. A new approach is followed for assessing the feasibility of the D-based reactions of interest for the magnetically confined nuclear fusion through the investigation of the effect of the temperature on both kinetics and thermodynamics. The results confirm that the deuterium–tritium reaction is the most promising fusion reaction to be realized in tokamak devices. At the temperature of 1.5 × 108 K (≈13 keV), the DT reaction exhibits a large thermodynamic spontaneity (ΔG = 16.0 MeV) and its reactivity is of the order of 10−22 m3/s, a value capable of guaranteeing the tritium burning rate needed to operate the nuclear plants under tritium self-sufficiency conditions and with a net energy production. The other results show that at the tokamaks’ temperature the two branches of the DD reaction exhibit a modest spontaneity (ΔG around −2 MeV) coupled to very low reactivity values (10−24 m3/s). The temperature rise that could be aimed to increase the reactivity is however ineffective to improve the reaction feasibility since it would augment the entropic term as well, thus shifting the ΔG towards positive values. The D3He reaction is soundly spontaneous at the tokamaks’ temperature (ΔG values of −17.2 MeV) while its kinetics is close to that of the DD reactions, which are at least two orders of magnitude lower than that of the DT reaction.

show abstract

“…The controlled nuclear fusion of hydrogen isotopes, i.e., deuterium (D) and tritium (T), is promising to address the energy crisis and environmental problems by producing enormous and unlimited clean energy. − Fueling system needs to rapidly supply H-isotopes and recover unreacted H-isotopes, which require H-isotope storage materials with low equilibrium pressure and fast adsorption/desorption kinetics. At present, the practical storage materials are uranium (U) and ZrCo intermetallic alloys. − The required mass for hydrogen isotope storage bed generally ranges from a few hundred grams to several kilograms .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Honeycomb ZrCo Intermetallic for High Performance Hydrogen and Hydrogen Isotope Storage

Yuan

Liu

Tang

et al. 2023

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Hydrogen isotope storage materials are of great significance for controlled nuclear fusion, which is promising to provide unlimited clean and dense energy. Conventional storage materials of micrometer-sized polycrystalline ZrCo alloys prepared by the smelting method suffer from slow kinetics, pulverization, disproportionation, and poor cycling stability. Here, we synthesize a honeycomb-structured ZrCo composed of highly crystalline submicrometer ZrCo units using electrospray deposition and magnesiothermic reduction. Compared with conventional ones, honeycomb ZrCo does not require activation and exhibits more than 1 order of magnitude increase in kinetic property. Owing to low defects and low stress, the anti-disproportionation ability and cycling stability of honeycomb ZrCo are also obviously higher than those of conventional ZrCo. Moreover, the interfacial stress (due to hydrogenation/dehydrogenation) as a function of particle radius is established, quantitatively elucidating that small-sized ZrCo reduces stress and pulverization. This study points out a direction for the structural design of ZrCo alloy with high-performance hydrogen isotope storage.

show abstract

The helium bubble: Prospects for 3He-fuelled nuclear fusion

Cited by 7 publications

References 12 publications

2060: Civilization, Energy, and Progression of Mankind on the Kardashev Scale

2060: Civilization, Energy, and Progression of Mankind on the Kardashev Scale

Classical Thermodynamic Analysis of D-Based Nuclear Fusion Reactions: The Role of Entropy

Honeycomb ZrCo Intermetallic for High Performance Hydrogen and Hydrogen Isotope Storage

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About