Researchers from Astral Systems, a company based in the U.K. at the University of Bristol, successfully bred tritium using their own reactor, as reported by Interesting Engineering.
Although nuclear fission is currently the source of all nuclear energy, scientists are making significant strides in developing energy from nuclear fusion — a notoriously difficult task that has an energy output four times higher than that of fission, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Fusion occurs when two nuclei smash together and form a denser nucleus, releasing energy, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Tritium, an isotope of hydrogen, is a rarer source of fusion fuel, per the DOE.
Talmon Firestone, Astral Systems CEO, told Interesting Engineering: "There's a global race to find new ways to develop more tritium than what exists in today's world — a huge barrier is bringing fusion energy to reality."
For this reason, scientists worldwide have been researching the production and scalability of tritium for years.
So, how did Astral Systems accomplish this feat? Researchers used a little thing called "multi-state fusion technology," which makes this type of fusion fuel both scalable and cheaper to produce.
According to the company's website, the technology produces two simultaneous fusion reactions, allowing the reactor to make more fuel than researchers put in.
In a warming world polluted by fossil fuels, clean energy like this is needed more than ever. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Climate Portal reports that fusion energy creates up to 100 times more energy than fossil fuels, while releasing zero pollution into the atmosphere.
Scientists everywhere are racing to develop this practically limitless form of energy. Last month, Texas researchers designed a more efficient fusion reactor. And last year, a U.K. company aimed to use fusion tech to power thousands of homes.
"We're now pushing to quickly optimise our system to further enhance our tritium breeding capability," Tom Scott, a professor at the University of Bristol, told Interesting Engineering. "This landmark moment clearly demonstrates a potential path to scalable tritium production in the future …"
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