ENN achieves first commercial hydrogen-boron fusion on its own device

Beijing – In a major advancement for commercial fusion energy, ENN Group's "Xuanlong-50U" device has successfully achieved hydrogen-boron fusion. This marks the first time a commercial fusion company has realized hydrogen-boron fusion on its own device, and also the first time a magnetic confinement fusion device in China has achieved clean, neutron-free fusion using advanced fuels (hydrogen-boron and deuterium-helium-3).

Key Advantages and Technical Challenges

Hydrogen-boron fusion offers significant commercial advantages, including:

• Neutron-free operation
• Abundant and accessible fuel supply
• Low cost

Its reaction product is helium (alpha particles). However, compared to deuterium-tritium fusion, hydrogen-boron fusion requires higher reaction temperatures and a higher triple product, making the reaction conditions more demanding.

Experimental Achievement

The ENN fusion team achieved a hydrogen-boron fusion reaction rate exceeding 10⁸ per second by synergizing high-energy neutral beam injection with radiofrequency waves. This approach significantly increased the proportion of non-thermal equilibrium fast protons at the first resonance peak of the hydrogen-boron reaction.

The result indicates that ENN's hydrogen-boron fusion has entered the burning plasma-related experimental stage, representing a major breakthrough in China's multi-path fusion energy development.

Expert Validation

More than ten leading fusion experts from research institutions and universities across multiple countries convened a special symposium to review the experimental results. The experts unanimously concluded that the experiment achieved effective and repeatable measurements of proton energy spectra and hydrogen-boron fusion reaction products (alpha particles) in a spherical torus device. The detection methods were deemed reliable and capable of supporting hydrogen-boron fusion reaction verification. The achievement was recognized as a milestone breakthrough in the innovative exploration of spherical torus hydrogen-boron fusion, with significant value for global scientific research on magnetically confined hydrogen-boron reactions.

Commercialization Roadmap

ENN has outlined a three-step strategy for commercializing hydrogen-boron fusion:

1. Step 1 – Achieve hydrogen-boron fusion by the end of 2026. (This goal has now been achieved ahead of schedule.)
2. Step 2 – Light the first hydrogen-boron fusion lamp by 2030. The next-generation spherical torus device, "Helong-2," which will carry this mission, is already under full construction and is expected to be completed by the end of 2027.
3. Step 3 – Achieve steady-state, high-power power generation by 2035, entering the demonstration reactor phase.

Global Context

Currently, global controlled nuclear fusion development follows multiple parallel paths, primarily divided into two major directions: magnetic confinement and inertial confinement. Hydrogen-boron fusion, as an advanced branch of the magnetic confinement route with strong commercial potential, presents enormous technical challenges and represents an important frontier exploration direction in the fusion strategies of multiple countries.

Editor: Wang Qian