Erica Salazar and her team, like the entire SPARC research and development effort, approached its work with a focus on eventual commercialization, usability, and ease of manufacture, with an eye toward accelerating fusion’s viability as an energy source. Credits:Photos courtesy of the researchers.

MIT’s Erica Salazar shows that faster detection of thermal shifts can prevent disruptive quench events in the HTS magnets used in tokamak fusion devices.

New fiber optic temperature sensing approach to keep fusion power plants running

Separation of 85Kr from spent nuclear fuel by a highly selective metal organic framework.  Image: Mike Gipple/NETL