华中科技

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and its British counterpart, the University of Liverpool, have made a breakthrough in the field of controlled nuclear fusion, developing a material that can effectively produce high-purity deuterium, the reporter learned from the university on 7th day.The results were recently published in the international academic journal Science.

According to Dr. Ding Lifeng from the Chemistry Department of Xi 'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, controlled nuclear fusion is a kind of green energy, but how to find a stable controlled fusion fuel is still a challenging topic.

Deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, is a potential controlled fusion fuel, but it is found in very low concentrations in nature." Normally, high purity and high concentration deuterium is obtained by separating the 'hydrogen-deuterium' gas mixture, but the current technology to achieve this separation is energy-intensive, inefficient and expensive." Ding Lifeng said.

A Sino-British team led by Andrew Cooper, a member of the Royal Society and a professor at the University of Liverpool, has designed a new material that effectively separates deuterium gas from the gas mixture through a process known as "dynamic quantum screening".

Ding Lifeng and his doctoral student Yang Siyuan made important contributions to the theoretical modeling of the separation process. Unlike experimental chemistry which relies on bottles and jars of reagents, computational chemistry relies on high-powered supercomputers, which use computer models to study the molecular process of hydrogen-deuterium separation to figure out what makes the material so good.

"It is a hybrid porous organic cage material that can select deuterium molecules from the gas mixture and adsorb them in large quantities, making it a cost-effective solution." Ding Lifeng said, "The molecular model will help determine the direction of subsequent experiments to develop better separation materials."

In addition to being used as a fuel for controlled fusion, deuterium is also widely used in other scientific research, including non-radioactive isotope tracking, neutron scattering and pharmaceutical applications.

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, located in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, was founded in 2006 by Xi’an Jiaotong University and the University of Liverpool, UK.