The arc reactor is a life-sustaining virtual device of "Iron Man" Tony Stark in "Marvel Movie Universe", and it is also the energy source to maintain the operation of various steel armor.
In real life, it is similar to an icy nuclear reactor. In the history of single chip microcomputer, its prototype was first completed by howard stark and Anton Vanko. In the MCU universe, Ark Reactor I mainly has two prototypes: the initial large-scale industrial version and the perfect small-scale version of Tony Stark.
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It first appeared in the movie Iron Man in 2008. After being kidnapped by terrorists, Tony Stark left many shrapnel in his body, which seriously endangered his life. Although Ethan tried to help him take out some shrapnel, there was still a fish in his body.
In order to prevent shrapnel from entering the heart, Stark can only be equipped with a cylindrical electromagnet, which is powered by the car battery. The shrapnel in the body will not move to the heart diaphragm, but Stark must move around with the car battery. When Stark started his escape plan, he decided to imitate his factory and build a small and large arc generator to absorb shrapnel for him.
With the help of Ethan, a small ark reactor was built with 1.6 grams of palladium, with an energy output of 3 billion joules per second, which provided a compact and powerful power source for Stark to put directly in his chest. Finally, when Stark and Ethan made a huge power armor (Mark 1), they used it to maintain energy output and make him escape from terrorists.
After being rescued and returned to Malibu, USA, Stark and Ai (Jarvis) build a new Ark reactor. However, when Malibu replaced the first generation Ark reactor, an accident caused a short circuit of a copper wire in the body, which was finally taken out by Potts and returned to Tony as a souvenir.
Obi-Wan has been persuading Stark to hand over the ark reactor design or apply for a patent, but Stark refused. When he recovered Stark's Mark 1 wreckage in the desert and started the reconstruction plan, he tried to entrust the rest of Stark's scientists to copy the miniature Ark reactor, but failed. That night, after paralyzing Tony at Tony Stark's residence in Malibu, he took the Ark reactor from his body.
This move made Stark's life dying. Finally, he put the memorial ark reaction back into his body and put on Mark 3 to stop Oberdale.
In the final battle in Los Angeles at the end of the film, because the energy of the first generation Ark reactor was too low, Mark 3 almost lost its flight energy after rushing into the sky at high speed. Pepper Potts overloaded the large ark reactor powered by Stark Enterprise Factory at the last minute, successfully destroyed the ironmonger's armor and killed Obi-Wan.
Tony's first-generation Ark reactor was also seriously damaged and almost scrapped. Ark reactors should eventually be recycled.