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Titanium and palladium foils enable lower-temperature fusion, study says

The materials-driven approach aims to reduce the extreme heat burden that has made many fusion experiments energy-inefficient and hard on reactor components.

Reported · Written up by our desk · Energy Transition

OilPrice reports that researchers at UC Davis and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory unveiled a materials-focused advance aimed at making nuclear fusion more practical by changing what fusion reactors are made of.

According to the outlet, the work centers on materials-driven fusion, an approach designed to maximize efficiency and lower the temperature needed for fusion to occur reliably. The researchers compare the concept to catalysts, which speed up chemical reactions by enabling specific processes under gentler conditions.

In a paper published this month in Nature Communications, the team describes how metallic foils made of titanium and palladium can facilitate deuterium-deuterium nuclear fusion reactions at far greater frequencies and at lower temperatures than is typically possible, OilPrice adds.

The outlet also notes that ultra-high heats used in many fusion experiments require large energy inputs, which has helped keep most fusion reactions net-negative in energy terms, while the conditions are also damaging to materials, making commercial viability difficult.

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