UK research company awarded £170,000 for nuclear fusion technology
Fusion research company Tokamak Solutions has secured £170,000 of equity investment to complete the design of its fusion neutron source - a super compact tokamak that could offer a viable way of cleaning up nuclear waste. The company also announced a €110,000 contract from ITER, a next generation international fusion energy researcher, to advise on diagnostics for measuring neutron emission and fusion power.
The Tokamak Solutions team, located at Culham, Oxfordshire, based its technology on the concept of 'fusion for neutrons' research undertaken by Dr Mikhail Gryaznevich and Alan Sykes over 20 years ago. "The fusion process produces an abundance of neutrons and by using the spherical tokamak this can be done very efficiently," said Sykes, technical director at Tokamak. "This means that a fusion neutron source, with a wide variety of applications, can be realised on a much smaller scale than a fusion energy source of the ITER type."
According to Sykes, applications for the patent pending technology range from the clean up of nuclear waste to the production of medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as cancer. In the longer term, Sykes believes the technology could become part of a zero carbon method for large scale hydrogen production. The full round of investment came from Sir Martin and Lady Audrey Wood, the Rainbow Seed Fund, Oxford Instruments and Oxford Early Investments network.
