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It’s called gas plasma. The best way to understand it is to follow this chemical sequence: when a solid is heated, it becomes a liquid; when this liquid is heated, it becomes a gas; when the gas is heated, it turns into plasma. In each of these passages, matter gains energy and the fourth state is the most energized of all. There are many situations in which plasmas are present. “Fire, for example, is a plasma”, says Alex Antonelli, from Unicamp’s Institute of Physics. Science studies this state in order to learn how to make nuclear fusion. The atomic energy that we know (from the bomb or from nuclear power plants) is the product of fission: the division of the nucleus of the atom. Fusion is the opposite: the merging of two nuclei into one. The process, still far from being equated, is seen as an inexhaustible source of energy for the future.
There is also a fifth state of matter, which occurs when the atoms are cooled until the electrons stop rotating around the nucleus.
Nuclear fusion in the laboratory is an attempt to use plasma as an energy source
1. The mixture of two gases, deuterium (atom with one proton and one neutron) and tritium (two neutrons and one proton) receives energy
2. Electrons are released from atoms, thus forming plasma, the fourth state of matter
3. Bombarded with more energy, the tritium and deuterium nuclei fuse, releasing enormous amounts of heat
4. Fused tritium and deuterium turn into helium, but the process has a flaw: the release of neutrons makes the plasma radioactive