According to Interesting Engineering, scientists in China have developed a new kind of metal that could help unlock one of the cleanest and most powerful energy sources on Earth: nuclear fusion.
The new alloy, called CHSN01, is being hailed as a breakthrough because it can handle extreme conditions inside next-generation fusion reactors, which are places where ordinary materials would quickly crack or fail due to cold temperature and stress.
Fusion is the process that powers the sun, where atoms are forced together to release huge amounts of energy. Unlike today’s nuclear fission plants, fusion doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste and uses abundant fuels such as hydrogen.
Nuclear fusion releases about 4 million times more energy than coal, oil, or gas, and fusion doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste, according to the International Energy Forum. If harnessed on Earth, it could provide virtually unlimited clean energy, which could eventually lead to lower energy costs, lower household electricity bills, and eliminate the need for polluting dirty fuels.
One of the main challenges for nuclear fusion has been building machines strong enough to withstand fusion’s immense forces, and experts previously described the rapid development of these materials as “absolutely impossible.”
Superconducting magnets, which confine the super-hot plasma where fusion takes place, must endure repeated stress at temperatures close to absolute zero. For decades, engineers relied on stainless steels that capped how strong and compact reactors could be, but CHSN01 can change that.
After 12 years of development, Chinese researchers created this “super steel” that is 40% stronger than that used in the world’s largest fusion project. It can withstand powerful magnetic fields while lasting through the lifetime of a working fusion machine, approximately 60,000 start-and-stop cycles.
In fact, project physicist Li Liafeng said the new material was “ready for industry, not just the lab.”
This material could make fusion reactors smaller, cheaper, and faster, and help reactors produce more energy than they consume.
The new material is already being used in China’s Burning-Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak (BEST), which is expected to produce 40-200 megawatts of power later this decade. Beyond fusion, this alloy could also improve MRI scanners, trains, and quantum computers, where materials face the same stressors.
While fusion is still years away from powering homes and cities, this advance demonstrates that innovative materials can make a greener, more powerful future possible.
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