The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) selected three research projects involving Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) scientists for funding through its Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) program, supporting partnerships with private companies and universities to address challenges in fusion energy development. Established in 2019, the ultimate goal of the research funded by INFUSE is to bring energy from fusion to the power grid.
"Whether we're studying how heat moves through a fusion system, how materials interact with plasma or how to keep plasma stable, the fundamental challenge is the same: understanding all of the complex processes involved well enough to control them," said Erik Gilson, INFUSE deputy director and head of discovery plasma science at PPPL. "The partnerships fostered by INFUSE bring together the scientific expertise of national laboratories and universities with the practical engineering challenges facing fusion companies to bring commercial fusion energy closer to reality."
A total of 28 INFUSE awards were granted. This year, PPPL projects will pair Lab researchers with three fusion companies:
- Hantao Ji, Elena Belova, Jongsoo Yoo and Peiyun Shi from PPPL will work with Stephen Eric Clark from Helion Energy to study how well the plasmas used in Helion's fusion machines hold heat, stay stable and last. The team will use PPPL's Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiments, which studies how magnetic field lines break and reconnect, as a part of their work, and a PPPL code called HYM which models experiments using high performance computers.
- Andrei Khodak and Han Zhang from PPPL will collaborate with Carli Smith and others from Kyoto Fusioneering on simulations of how strong magnetic fields affect the flow of liquid metals and heat in the walls that surround a fusion reactor.
- Shurik Yatom and Yevgeny Raitses from PPPL will work with Risham Parmar and others from Thea Energy to study how vaporized boron can act as a protective heat shield for the inner walls of fusion reactors.
About INFUSE:
INFUSE solicited proposals from the fusion industry and selected projects for one-year awards. The projects, ranging between $100,000 and $500,000 each, were selected through a competitive peer review process managed by the INFUSE leadership team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and PPPL. Following competitive peer review, DOE selected the INFUSE teams for awards.
