I heard recently a large hurdle to figuring out fusion energy was overcome and while there are still other challenges to face it’s possible that we could one day see fusion reactors.
How is energy released through both fusion and fission? Would it be theoretically possible to split heavier elements into lighter ones and then fuse them back into heavier ones to be split once more?
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The fusion of atoms releases a small amount of energy. This is because of the slight difference in the mass of the starting particles and the final atom. The loss of mass is expressed as energy. This is because mass and energy both can neither be created or destroyed. So when the mass is lost, it transforms into energy.
Conversely, fission is the atoms splitting. When something like a neutron slams into an atom it can split. This is for big atoms like uranium. They are often shedding particles through radioactive decay. These particles hit other particles. The split from big atom into smaller atoms releases energy from the broken bonds of the original nucleus.
Theoretically it would be possible to take a bunch of hydrogen, fuse and fuse and fuse up to something like uranium, and then split it back down and repeat the process. However, the problem is the middle elements. Light elements like hydrogen and helium are easy (relatively) to fuse. And heavy elements tend to get easier and easier to split. But the middle elements are pretty stable. Silver is hard to fuse. Stars do it. But only when they go supernova. The energy required to get that reaction doesn’t give more than you put in. Then metals like gold are hard to split. They don’t have radioactive decay. They are pretty stable. It takes a lot of energy to split them. Again often more than you get out without making a bomb.
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