How much fuel can we add to the fire while still maintaining control? Metaphorically speaking, that's the question one team at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has been asking themselves lately.
Now, they believe they have the answer for one particular scenario. It's all a part of the Lab's work to bring energy from fusion to the power grid.
Building upon recent findings showing the promise of coating the inner surface of the vessel containing a fusion plasma in liquid lithium, the researchers have determined the maximum density of uncharged or neutral particles at the edge of a plasma before the edge of the plasma cools off and certain instabilities become unpredictable.
Knowing the maximum density for neutral particles at the edge of a fusion plasma is important because it gives the researchers a sense of how and how much to fuel the fusion reaction.
The research, which is featured in a new paper in Nuclear Fusion, includes observations, numerical simulations and analysis from their experiments inside a fusion plasma vessel called the Lithium Tokamak Experiment-Beta (LTX-β).
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