The preliminary design of Russia’s proposed tokamak with reactor technologies (TRT) nuclear fusion reactor has been completed by JSC NIIEFA which is the primary nuclear fusion research organization in Russia.
     The project is part of the federal KP RTTN project to develop technologies for controlled nuclear fusion and innovative plasma technologies. It is being carried out by specialists at JSC NIIEFA for Rosatom’s Department of Scientific and Technical Programs and Projects,
     Rosatom describes the TRT as a “tokamak with a long discharge pulse, a strong magnetic field and an electromagnetic system made of a high-temperature superconductor … the construction of the TRT is an important stage in the development of controlled thermonuclear fusion and the creation of a nuclear power reactor in Russia – an environmentally friendly source of energy with virtually inexhaustible fuel resources”.
     The draft design details the fundamental design solutions and a general idea of the structure, dimensions and operating principles for the TRT as well as the technical requirements for the external systems of the tokamak including the power supply, cryogenic cooling, water cooling, vacuum pumping and maintaining operating pressure. The TRT is intended to play a key role in Russia’s plan to develop future nuclear fusion and/or fusion-fission hybrid power reactors.
     Alexey Konstantinov is Deputy Director and Chief Designer of NTC Sintez. He said, “The preliminary design of a tokamak with reactor technologies developed at JSC NIIEFA is a major milestone … acceptance of the preliminary design marks the start of further work on the creation of the TRT both at JSC NIIEFA and at other research centers, institutes, and enterprises … the results of the work performed provide the opportunity to move on to the next stage – the development of the technical design of the TRT.”
     Sergey Gertsog is the Director General of NIIEFA. He said, “The implementation of such a project will provide a virtually unlimited source of clean and safe energy and significantly reduce dependence on fossil fuels, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Possession of such technologies will raise the country to a new level of technological development and attract investment in research and development, which will contribute to the development of related industries, such as materials science, cryogenic technology and supercomputers, and the creation of new jobs.”
     The preliminary design work for the TRT started in 2022 and depends, among other things, on experience and knowledge gained from the multinational ITER project to build a fusion plant in southern France. Rosatom comments that “at the same time, a large number of new technologies that do not exist anywhere else in the world will be tested for the first time at TRT”. A published concept paper describes the project as being “developed to facilitate fast and economically sound transition to the pure fusion reactor as well as to the fusion neutron source for the hybrid fusion-fission system”. The goal is to build the TRT by 2030.

Rosatom
 

      As global energy rises, both public institutions and private companies have increased their efforts toward nuclear fusion. Acceleron Fusion is a start-up working on muon-catalyzed fusion energy. The fusion energy firm has recently secured twenty-four million dollars in funding to develop a revolutionary approach to clean energy production. The funding follows a major technical milestone that was achieved by Acceleron in October.
     The company successfully operated its experimental fusion reactor with highly compressed deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel for twenty-eight continuous hours, following over one hundred hours of testing with deuterium. This achievement signals significant progress toward demonstrating the viability of muon-catalyzed fusion as a clean and abundant energy source.
     Acceleron Fusion is working on a radically different reactor design from many other companies working on fusion energy. The company is not using the extremely high temperatures that are common in fusion experiments. Instead, Acceleron is working on a method that uses much lower temperatures. Their new method utilizes particles called muons.
     Muons are similar to electrons, but they are about two hundred times heavier. They are produced when protons and neutrons collide. This creates particles called pions which then decay into muons. Muons can be generated artificially by firing an ion beam from a particle accelerator into a target which is typically made of carbon or some metal.
     When a beam of muons is directed at a highly compressed pellet of deuterium and tritium, the muons facilitate fusion reactions at temperatures much lower than those required in traditional fusion reactors.
     Traditional fusion approaches, such as magnetic confinement and inertial confinement, require enormous heat to create plasma. This plasma must then be contained and compressed with powerful magnets or lasers, which are complex and energy-intensive.
     Acceleron’s technology bypasses these requirements by operating below one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit.  Operating at this cooler temperature potentially offers significant advantages in efficiency and safety.
     According to a company in a press release, “Traditional fusion machines require extreme temperatures of one hundred and eighty million degrees Fahrenheit. Acceleron’s technology uses muons to achieve fusion reactions at temperatures below two thousand degrees Fahrenheit.”
     However, muon-catalyzed fusion presents a number of unique challenges. Particle accelerators which are used to generate muons, consume a lot of energy.
     The company added that “In the mid-1980s, several groups worldwide demonstrated more than one hundred fusion reactions per muon, raising the possibility that the process could be used to generate energy. However, calculations done at the time concluded that it would take more energy to power the muon source than could be released by the fusion.”
     In order to achieve net energy gain, each muon must catalyze many fusion reactions. Furthermore, muons are short-lived, and they decay in just two and two tenths microseconds. About one percent of the time, they stick to other particles produced during fusion and become unusable.
     The press release added that “Acceleron is developing an intense, high-efficiency muon source to produce beams of muons using significantly less energy than current facilities, and a high-density fusion cell to allow each of these muons to catalyze larger numbers of fusion reactions.”
     To increase the number of fusion reactions per muon, Acceleron compresses the fuel in a diamond anvil to pressures between ten thousand and one hundred thousand pounds per square inch. This is far beyond the pressures that they used in previous experiments.
     Acceleron Fusion is not the only company working on nuclear fusion energy research. A number of other companies across the world have been testing several different approaches, including magnetic confinement fusion, inertial confinement fusion, and even other variations of muon-catalyzed fusion. However, according to experts, it might take many more years before fusion power becomes a reliable source of energy.

Acceleron