China announced the success of maintaining the operation of Tokamak EAST for 1066 seconds (17.7 minutes), making it the longest "man-made sun" that has been maintained. It surpassed the record of 1056 seconds set by Tokamak EAST in 2022.
A tokamak is a torus-shaped machine that uses magnetic force to maintain plasma at a temperature of up to 120 million °C. Temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun (15 million °C) are required to perform the nuclear fusion process. The deuterium and tritium isotopes combined through nuclear fusion will only produce helium and neutrons. No radioactive waste will be produced like the nuclear fission process in current nuclear reactors
One gram of deuterium and tritium fuel can release the same power as burning 11 tons of coal. World fusion is humanity's hope for a safer, non-polluting and almost limitless energy source.
Information from Tokamak EAST will be used to support the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, which will be the world's largest tokamak. It is expected to be completed by 2035 in France. The ITER project is an international effort involving the European Union, the UK, Switzerland, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States.