Key component of nuclear fusion research tastes great on sandwiches

Bethlehem, Pa. — Engineers at Lehigh University are using an unexpected ingredient as a model for plasma, the supercharged matter that makes up the sun. By using the stand-in material, researchers can test and observe a key aspect of nuclear fusion reactions without applying intense heat and pressure.

Nuclear fusion drives the sun's energy output, and on a small manmade scale it's a promising future source of nearly limitless, "clean" energy. Ideal nuclear fusion reactions have been performed successfully in lab settings a few times , but the practice still has some issues that need to be sorted out. One of these problems is inconsistent plasma behavior, which makes reactions both inefficient and difficult to control.

Instead of repeatedly performing fusion reactions, Lehigh U's engineers sought out a material that can stand in for plasma under safer, easier to create temperatures and pressure conditions.

That material is Hellman's mayonnaise.

Arindam Banerjee, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics at Lehigh University, explained : "We use mayonnaise because it behaves like a solid, but when subjected to a pressure gradient, it starts to flow."

This solid-flowing behavior mirrors both molten metals and the behavior of plasma.

Banerjee and his team have been using a specially-built, one-of-a-kind wheel apparatus to perform tests and observations on mayonnaise for five years . By observing the condiment under different heat and pressure conditions, they aim to pinpoint the stage at which it, and by extension plasma, starts behaving unpredictably.

Once the point of instability is identified, steps may then be taken to keep the substance — whether it's plasma or mayonnaise — within parameters that never reach an unstable phase.

Banerjee recognizes that mayonnaise isn't a perfect analog to plasma, but his mayo model is still making waves in the world of physics and industrial processes that use molten metals. Despite the materials' differences, Banerjee's fingers are crossed: maybe the properties of mayonnaise really will match up to the plasma created in real nuclear fusion reactions.