India’s first fusion power company sets road map for a nuclear reactor, Pg11

Key Highlights:

• Pranos Fusion, a Bengaluru-based startup, aims to finalize the blueprint for PRANIK, India's first privately-built nuclear fusion reactor, by 2027.
• The company has developed PRAGYA, a smaller tokamak, to test plasma control and superconducting magnets.
• PRANIK will be a larger tokamak designed to heat plasma to millions of degrees to fuse hydrogen atoms and produce energy.
• Nuclear fusion offers advantages over fission, such as not requiring radioactive materials like uranium and lacking the risk of runaway chain reactions.
• Pranos Fusion has secured $7.2 million in funding from investors including Ankur Capital and pi Ventures.

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Detailed Insights:

• Pranos Fusion is leading India's private sector efforts in developing advanced nuclear fusion technology for energy production.
• The tokamak design is crucial for fusion, using powerful magnetic fields to contain superheated plasma away from reactor walls.
• Fusion reactions typically involve combining deuterium and tritium, isotopes of hydrogen, to form helium and release energy.
• India has abundant reserves of deuterium, making it a viable fuel source for future fusion reactors.
• The use of compact machines and High-Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets is expected to significantly reduce the cost of fusion reactors.
• While electricity generation from fusion is still a future prospect, its potential for clean and safe energy is a major driver for research.

Scientific/Technical Concepts Involved:

• Tokamak: A toroidal device that uses strong magnetic fields to confine plasma at extremely high temperatures for nuclear fusion.
• Nuclear Fusion: The process where two light atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, releasing a substantial amount of energy.
• Nuclear Fission: The process where the nucleus of a heavy atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei, releasing energy.
• Deuterium: A stable isotope of hydrogen containing one proton and one neutron, serving as a primary fuel for fusion reactions.