Researchers at the University of Malta are contributing to the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). This €20 billion nuclear fusion reactor, known as a tokamak, is being constructed in Cadarache, France and will be the world’s largest machine of its kind.

The European Union, the United States, Russia, China, India, Japan and South Korea have all joined forces to build this international experimental magnetic confinement machine to prove the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy based on the same principle that powers the sun and stars.

ITER is designed to produce net energy and maintain fusion reactions for long periods of time. It will be the first fusion device to test the integrated technologies, materials and physics regimes necessary to build power plants for the commercial production of fusion-based electricity.

ITER is designed to make the long-awaited transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to full-scale electricity-producing fusion power stations.  

Through a collaboration set up with the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen Switzerland, Karl Buhagiar, Nicholas Sammut (deputy dean Faculty of ICT) and Andrew Sammut (dean Faculty of Engineering) worked on the measurement and characterisation of the core main elements of the machine. 

Nuclear fusion reactions are very challenging to confine sustainably due to the extremely high temperatures involved. However, they release three times as much energy as current fission reactors and their fuels are abundant.

They also produce 100 times less radioactive waste that is not long lived. The design of tokamaks is also such that it would be impossible to undergo large-scale runaway chain reactions. If this technology is harnessed, fusion reactors would be able to produce reliable electricity with virtually zero pollution.