How Does The Arc Reactor Work ?
Hi friends, today as I have said I am going to tell you about :-
HOW DOES THE ARC REACTOR WORK ?
I have told you that arc reactor is a device to harness the nuclear energy. High temperature and pressure is needed for the fusion of two hydrogen nucleus (mainly deuterium and tritium).
Deutrium and tritium are the isotopes of hydrogen. In short, these are the different types of hydrogen.
There are three types of hydrogen :-
1) Protium
2) Deuterium
3) Tritium
For fusion high temperature and pressure is needed, So to get this high temperature scientists use electromagnetism for achieving this heat and pressure.
The above image shows the fusion reactor. As you can see there are big coils around the hydrogen container in this coils high voltage is passed through the coil which heats the hydrogen gas, at 100 000 kelvin the hydrogen gas gets converted to plasma.
Plasma is the fourth state of matter, I will tell you about plasma in my next post.
And soon the nuclear fuses together releasing a trmendous amount of energy.
But the problem is that till now no container can stand a chance in this high temperature. So the plasma is not allowed to come in contact with the container because the container can cool the very hot plasma before any fusion happens.
Therefore to overcome this problem we use electromagnetism. Hence, the coil not only heats the hydrogen but also avoids the contact of plasma and the container.
And this is how the arc reactor works, as I have said that we don't use this technology at the present because a high voltage energy is used to heat it and to avoid the contact of the plasma and the container. And hence the input of energy is more than the output.
Scientist are unable to create it in a small size.
I will soon tell you why do we need high temperature for fusion. And also about how arc reactors work in depth.
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