Reactors

The insides of nuclear fusion reactors are violent and chaotic places. A new cold-spray coating can take the heat and also trap some rogue hydrogen particles at the same time, potentially making for smaller, better plasma chambers.

Greenhouse gases and plastic waste are two of the biggest environmental problems the world faces today. A new reactor from Cambridge tackles both at once, converting CO2 and used plastic bottles into useful materials, powered entirely by sunlight.

We’re all familiar with the march of time, but why it does so is a mystery. In 2016 Australian physicist Joan Vaccaro proposed a new quantum theory of time, and now a team will test the hypothesis by searching for time dilation in a nuclear reactor.

A new reactor converts carbon monoxide into acetic acid, using tiny copper cubes as a catalyst. The device is relatively simple and can operate for long periods, allowing the unwanted waste gas to be turned into an industrially useful product.

Hitachi, in partnership with MIT, the University of Michigan, and the University of California, Berkeley are working on new reactor designs that use transuranic nuclear waste for fuel; leaving behind only short-lived radioactive elements.

What if there existed a means of nuclear power generation with which these risks were drastically reduced?

Ostara makes fertilizer from phosphorus, which it harvests from municipal raw sewage.

Researchers using computer simulations have created a mechanism whereby displaced atoms (caused by radiation) are returned to their rightful place.