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Nuclear Fusion - ICT-Wiki

Nuclear Fusion
From ICT-Wiki
Nearly all of our energy, whether stored or arriving from sun, eventually comes from nuclear fusion. This whole
universe, as we see it today, came into existence because of nuclear fusion and continues to survive on that. All the
stars including our sun continue to shine because of this simple phenomenon.
Why fusion is so interesting and useful? This may be easily understood by again considering the B.E./A graph. The
graph exhibits a sharp rise in the lighter mass region, going up from 1.1 MeV for deuteron to more than 8 MeV for
56Fe. The rise is, however, even more dramatic as it reaches a value of (28.3/4)~7.1MeV for 4He. The B.E./A
goes up from 1.1 MeV to 7.1 MeV by increasing the nucleon number by just 2. This is the power of short range
nuclear forces which leave deuteron highly unsaturated. Therefore, when 4 hydrogen nuclei (protons) fuse to make
a He nucleus, almost entire 28.3 MeV energy will be released. This is almost 7 MeV per nucleon whereas only 0.9
MeV per nucleon is released in fission. This makes fusion a very attractive option for generating power. Not only
this, the amount of radioactivity produced in fusion is very small as compared to fission.

Contents
1 Energy from Sun
2 The proton-proton cycle
3 The CNO cycle
4 Controlled Fusion Reaction
5 Reference

Energy from Sun

What then keeps us from achieving the goal of energy from fusion? The big question is how to bring the four
protons together to make a 4He nucleus? This happens in the sun on a regular basis. The protons being positively
charged, they experience intense Coulomb repulsion as we try to bring them together. This is possible in sun where
a very high temperature of about 15 to 20 million degree Kelvin is reached producing a plasma state of matter. This
corresponds to about 1keV of mean kinetic energy for the protons. This is quite insufficient to overcome the
Coulomb barrier given by

where Z1Z2 are the charges of the two fusing nuclei and R1R2 are their radii. For two protons, this is about 0.9
MeV, much larger than the thermal energy that a proton can reach inside the sun. Because of the Maxwell202.141.40.218/wiki/index.php/Nuclear_Fusion

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Boltzmann distribution of the kinetic energy and the velocity of the particles, the high-energy tail is able to provide a
small number of particles having MeV energy which can penetrate the barrier more easily. The intensity being very
small, the reaction rate is not quite low.

The proton-proton cycle

The sun is like a huge fusion reactor where thermonuclear fusion reaction goes on continuously. The basic process
involves fusion of four hydrogen nuclei into one helium nucleus. There are several paths to reach the helium nucleus
and we describe them here.
The p p I chain: The first step in the p p I chain is formation of a deuteron by the weak interaction
process:
.

This is a positive beta decay process having a very low cross-section of the order of 10 33 barn at keV energies
and 10 23 barn at MeV energies. The reaction rate is of the order of 1038 / sec in spite of the fact that there are
almost 1056 reacting protons at any given time.
The next step in the p-p cycle is the formation of a tritium:
.

The 3He thus formed reacts with another 3He giving rise to 4He:
.

The net effect of these reactions is equivalent to converting 41H into 4He, with a Q-value of 26.7 MeV. The energy
released is converted to light in the photosphere, the outer portion of sun. The neutrinos produced in the process
are completely lost as they escape without contributing to the heating in the sun.
The p p II chain: A slight variation of this reaction involves interaction of 3He with 4He and occurs for
temperatures T < 3X107K:

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The p p III chain: In yet another variation, for T > 3X107K, the reaction may proceed as follows:

The net gain in energy is the same in all the three variations of the p-p reaction.

The CNO cycle

Many stars also contain elements other than hydrogen and helium, like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen etc. A different
fusion cycle can occur in such stars called the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) cycle:

In this case also the net result is the formation of one 4He from four 1H nuclei; the 12C merely acts as a catalyst and
reappears at the end. The Q-value of the cycle is also the same. It is obvious that protons will face a higher
coulomb barrier in this case and, therefore, a higher temperature is required.
The sun radiates about

watts of power in space. One fusion event produces about 25-26 MeV of

energy. Therefore, about 1038 fusion events must be taking place every second, exhausting

hydrogen

nuclei per second. The sun contains about 1056 hydrogen nuclei (protons), which will last for almost 1010 years. In
sufficiently massive stars, the end of hydrogen fuel burning is taken over by helium burning and formation of 12C at
much higher temperatures.
Similar processes can occur for other light elements fusing with helium nuclei and forming heavier elements until
56Fe is reached. Since 56Fe lies at the top of the B.E./A curve, no more fusion can occur as it becomes
energetically unfavorable. The formation of elements heavier than Fe occurs due to other processes such neutron
capture.

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Controlled Fusion Reaction

The chain reaction of hydrogen fusion has been achieved on the earth in the form of the hydrogen bomb. However,
man has not been able to carry out the fusion chain reaction in a controlled condition like the fission chain reaction in
the fission reactors. The difficulties are enormous. One must be able to heat the fuel to very high temperatures of
about 108K (equivalent to mean kinetic energy of 10 keV) while maintaining a high density for a long enough time.
The fuel turns into a plasma state at such high temperatures. A major problem then arises. How to contain such a
hot plasma in a container! On coming into contact with the walls, the plasma will cool down and the container walls
will melt.
The confinement of plasma is a major technical issue and two approaches exist: magnetic confinement and inertial
confinement. High intensity magnetic fields are used in the magnetic confinement to keep the plasma away from the
walls of the container and maintain its high temperature. High intensity laser beams are used in the inertial
confinement to compress and heat solid pellets of fuel to achieve high density and high temperature.
A major international initiative to develop a fusion reactor has been launched and is called ITER (originally the
acronym of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). This facility, currently under construction in France,
will be the most advanced tokamak fusion reactor. The project is funded by European Union (45%), India, China,
Japan, Russia, South Korea and USA (9% each). It will be a 500 MW reactor producing this power for 1000 sec
continuously at an estimated input of 50 MW. The project is expected to produce the first plasma in 2020.

Reference
1. K.S. Krane, Introductory Nuclear Physics (Wiley India, 2011).
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