Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Nuclear fusion reaction of two helium-4 nuclei produces beryllium-8, which is highly unstable, and decays back into smaller nuclei with a half-life of 8.19 × 10 −17 s, unless within that time a third alpha particle fuses with the beryllium-8 nucleus [3] to produce an excited resonance state of carbon-12, [4] called the Hoyle state, which ...
At the estimated energy levels, [28] the D–D fusion reaction may occur, producing helium-3 and a 2.45 MeV neutron. Although it makes a useful neutron generator, the apparatus is not intended for power generation since it requires far more energy than it produces.
The appeal of helium-3 fusion stems from the aneutronic nature of its reaction products. Helium-3 itself is non-radioactive. The lone high-energy by-product, the proton, can be contained by means of electric and magnetic fields. The momentum energy of this proton (created in the fusion process) will interact with the containing electromagnetic ...
Helium fusion increases the temperature, which increases the fusion rate, which further increases the temperature in a runaway reaction which quickly spans the entire core. This produces a flash of very intense helium fusion that lasts only a few minutes, [2] but during that time, produces energy at a rate comparable to the entire Milky Way ...
“Fusion, on the other hand, does not create any long-lived radioactive nuclear waste.” The waste byproduct of a fusion reaction is far less radioactive than in fission, and decays far more ...
In the cores of lower-mass main-sequence stars such as the Sun, the dominant energy production process is the proton–proton chain reaction. This creates a helium-4 nucleus through a sequence of reactions that begin with the fusion of two protons to form a deuterium nucleus (one proton plus one neutron) along with an ejected positron and ...
The proton–proton chain, also commonly referred to as the p–p chain, is one of two known sets of nuclear fusion reactions by which stars convert hydrogen to helium. It dominates in stars with masses less than or equal to that of the Sun , [ 2 ] whereas the CNO cycle , the other known reaction, is suggested by theoretical models to dominate ...
The deuterium and helium-3 reaction requires helium-3, an isotope of helium so scarce on Earth that it would have to be mined extraterrestrially or produced by other nuclear reactions. Ultimately, researchers hope to adopt the protium–boron-11 reaction, because it does not directly produce neutrons, although side reactions can.