HANAU, Germany & BERGISCH GLADBACH, Germany & CARTERET, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bruker Corporation (Nasdaq: BRKR) announced that its Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies (BEST) division, and majority-owned RI Research Instruments GmbH (RI) have received multi-year contracts to supply key technology components for major fusion projects in Europe and Asia, together valued at approximately $50 million.
Though still in the research phase, magnetic confinement fusion holds promise as a clean, abundant, sustainable, efficient and safe energy source. Gigawatt fusion power may become a future key baseload technology to complement renewable, but inherently variable solar, wind and off-shore wind power, which all require very significantly more land-use.
Future fusion power plants could replace carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuel plants, as well as nuclear fission reactors that generate long-lived radioactive waste. BEST and RI have a long history of providing advanced technologies to tokamak and stellerator magnetic confinement fusion projects. Many experts expect magnetic confinement fusion to lead to viable fusion power plants several decades before inertial confinement laser ignition may some day become useable for meaningful fusion power generation for the grid.
Following successful prototype demonstration, RI signed a multi-year contract for Inner Vertical Targets (IVTs) with Fusion for Energy (F4E), the EU organization responsible for Europe’s contribution to ITER - the biggest international experiment to test the potential of fusion energy through magnetic confinement. IVTs are modules of the 54 cassettes, and part of the ITER divertor, which is designed to withstand extreme plasma heat loads.
After many years of development of novel, high-current density, metallic RRP® (rod-restack process) superconductors for high-energy physics accelerator magnets, e.g. for the high-luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, and for use in high-field NMR magnets, BEST recently received a large order for these next-generation RRP superconductors for a new tokamak fusion project in Asia. Unlike high-temperature superconductor (HTS) YBCO tapes, robust RRP® wire can now be manufactured in large-scale, industrialized processes at volumes of thousands of kms at two advanced Bruker superconductor factories in the US and in Germany.
For more information on the ITER Diverter technology: https://fusionforenergy.europa.eu/news/europe-to-start-manufacturing-a-series-of-inner-vertical-targets/
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Bruker is enabling scientists to make breakthrough discoveries and develop new applications that improve the quality of human life. Bruker’s high performance scientific instruments and high value analytical and diagnostic solutions enable scientists to explore life and materials at molecular, cellular, and microscopic levels. In close cooperation with our customers, Bruker is enabling innovation, improved productivity, and customer success in life-science molecular and cell biology research, in applied and pharma applications, in microscopy and nanoanalysis, as well as in industrial research, semiconductor metrology and cleantech applications. Bruker offers differentiated, high-value life science and diagnostics systems and solutions in preclinical imaging, clinical phenomics research, proteomics and multiomics, spatial and single-cell biology, functional structural and condensate biology, as well as in clinical microbiology and molecular diagnostics. Please visit www.bruker.com.
