tritium

The nuclear fusion It promises us clean and practically unlimited energy, but it has been stuck for decades by an obstacle that is difficult to overcome: fuel. The reactors tokamakthe most frequent in experimental projects, work fusing deuterium and tritiumtwo isotopes of hydrogen that when combined release a helium nucleus and a neutron that is ejected with an energy of about 14 MeV (megaelectronvolts). The problem is that the tritium It is an extraordinarily rare isotope on Earth. It is only formed naturally in the atmosphere due to the interaction of cosmic raysand in tiny quantities. In this scenario, for nuclear fusion to have a future as a real energy source, scientists need to find an efficient strategy that allows them to produce tritium in an artificial and sustainable way. This is the context in which the latest research carried out by the Cleveland Clinic, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, IBM’s TJ Watson Research Center and Michigan State University, all in the US, is drawing a lot of attention. And for the first time a team of scientists has used a quantum computer to identify the molecular configurations of the material that acts as a tritium “breeding blanket” within a nuclear fusion reactor. FLiBe: the molten salt that can save fusion The material identified by this quantum machine is called FLiBe, and it is a molten salt composed of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride. Inside a reactor tokamak The neutrons released by the fusion plasma impact this molten salt that covers the internal walls of the vacuum chamber, and it is this process that is responsible for producing tritium. Finding the optimal FLiBe configuration is the key to making fuel production viable on an industrial scale. This approach allows you to rule out less promising options in advance, saving time and money. A quick note before moving forward: the technique used by these researchers is known as quantum computing focused on supercomputing, and it is the same as Cleveland Clinic has previously used to simulate protein configurations of thousands of atoms. Applying it now to the chemistry of fusion materials is a novelty. The result of this strategy has been the identification of nine different molecular configurations of the FLiBe material, each with its own electronic structure, atomic behavior and molecular bond strength. Tom Beck, a computational chemist at Oak Ridge Laboratory, has explained that quantum computers are essential tools for accelerating the discovery and design cycles necessary to produce enough tritium to fuel fusion reactors. However, it is important that we temper our expectations. The nine configurations are, for now, simulations, and still have to be validated in the laboratory before making the leap to a real reactor. What this approach does allow is to rule out in advance the least promising optionssaving time and money on experiments that might otherwise go nowhere. IBM researcher Jerry Chow has added These results reinforce the idea that quantum computing is already a practical tool capable of solving problems that have eluded chemists and engineers for years. For now, nuclear fusion still does not have a closed solution to its fuel problem. However, for the first time a quantum computer has put concrete candidate materials on the table with which to begin solving this enormous challenge. Image | Fusion for Energy (F4E) More information | Science Alert In Xataka | The start-up of the largest nuclear fusion reactor on the planet is delayed by a decade. These are the reasons for the ITER gap