Patent Application
20130121449
This application is claiming no priority..
The production of energy from nuclear reactions is a well established domain. There are known the fission and fusion applications as well the accelerator induced nuclear transmutations. As a new domain, it starts to develop the nuclear quantum entanglement and nonlocality theories based on experimental advances as a way to explain new phenomena. The present invention refers to a method of controlling the nuclear reaction rate in nano-cluster assemblies and a device to produce electric energy, using the kinematical properties of such reactions.
I(x,t)=I0t
I(x,t) is the amplitude of the tunneling wave transmitted through the wall or barrier; as a function of distance and the propagation time, in the idea of a linear consistent space inside the 1 nm radius around the nucleus. I0 represents the amplitude of the wave probability density transmitted at the wall boundary, at the time t0 when the particle is at rest on the energy potential barrier, and we trend to believe that it is equal with 1. Tunneling formula tells us that there is an exponential decay with the radius, captured inside the exponential term and a wave behavior captured inside the sinusoidal term.
In fact a particle bouncing on a quantum wall transmitting an evanescent wave through it—also similar to tunneling. Modern quantum mechanics considers a non-locality or a phenomenon called entanglement. This comes in contradiction with a common sense principle that an object occupies a single position at a certain time moment. In this case, the object is everywhere, with different probabilities of occurrence, and only an outside intervention—as the presence of another particle determines the quantum object to take a stand, and show up in a location or another, often placed in different space-time cones, that requires super -light speeds to explain the propagation. It seems that there is NO Propagation, but a fold of the space, that makes the object be in many position at once and show-up in at least one.
When the nucleus reflects against the quantum/potential well an entanglement or tunneling wave propagates around, but not as a spherical wave. We trend to believe that it behaves like a soliton having a displacement in the same direction with the nucleus oscillation vector. If the nucleus will be alone with a homogenous structure inside the wave might be supposed as being spherical, only for didactical purposes, and easiness of the mathematical approach.
The wave speed and propagation is supposed of being those of the local speed of light, but in the absence of uniform matter that to give an average refraction index, the electromagnetic stress tensor regulates the local propagation properties.
The problem becomes more complex because almost all the nuclei above Hydrogen have a complex structure generically formed of nucleons (protons and neutrons), which is in fact is a soup of quarks boiling inside the space domain we consider the actual nucleus, and redistributing in order to give the minimum energy, or maximum binding energy sub-structures. That will make the entanglement wave be heterogeneous, and having time and space dependent proprieties.
The entanglement is a very delicate concept—as we know from high school and regular physics that an object can NOT be in the same time in two different spaces, when we talk about entanglement this basic concept ceases to be true, and the space gets “short-circuited” in such a manner that points outside the Minkovski cones behave that being the same space. Going deeper in String theory and QCD this effect finds a reasonable explanation, that is hard to find in classical physics.
The important part one have to understand is that at different time moments some specific points in the space surrounding an atomic nucleus behave like being part of the same space of the nucleus, or the nucleus is appearing in those points for a period of time and probability depending on a modified tunneling probability that is usually considered an exponential decay. That is not quite true because the exponential law is modified by the atomic and electronic structure of the space surrounding the nucleus of reference.
I believe that the associated function of entanglement may be considered at the quark level and an interference of Bessel functions may be obtained around the nucleus in the 3D space having a temporal window or occurrence assigned.
The presence of another space—time-energy formation—for example another nucleus—may make the nucleus to “take a stand” in quantum terms and materialize all in that point of the 4D space—being what we usually call “tunneling effect” similar to an octopus that if it likes the fish and needs it to stabilize its bio-processes, it may decide to move a tentacle and catch it, or in the other cases it may remain invisible to the fish.
In
In some of the zones the space behaves “strange”—and creates an entanglement—the principle that an object cannot be in two places in the same time is not TRUE—the particle is there but does not take a stand. x=ct rule of electromagnetic action does not apply; t=0; x=0 or undefined.
When the nucleus 201 respectively 202 is colliding against the potential walls 221 and respectively 220 the entanglement wave is transmitted through the wall propagating along the direction of oscillation of the nucleus modified by the refraction in the wall domain. It decays exponentially as the density of occurrence probability 215, respectively 216 shows, waving a wave super modulation imposed 217 and 218 that makes that certain places to be less probable than others. These waves pass like solitons.
When these waves are coming closer an interference with another wave creates interference steady zones of probability. The mediated entanglement becomes stable and the probability that the two nuclei 2003, 2004 to be caught in a better exchange mood increases.
The overlapping of the two tunneling points 225 in the same moment of time makes the two nuclei being present one into another as heavy ion fusion as in heavy ion-heavy-ion accelerator induced collisions, with the difference that the atoms are at very low energy and still being part of a material lattice. The probability that they to remain together and generate a super-heavy nucleus is infinitesimally small, being driven by the binding nuclear energy and nuclear stability, and because the conservation laws imposes to end up with at least two bodies. In these cases the particles fell apart in the initial state, or some nuclear transmutation by fragmentation of one nucleus and adding to the other nucleus being possible, but in the frequent case of using Fe zone nuclei the transmutation probability is very small, being driven by specific isotopic configurations and the synergy of the conservation principles.
The potential well walls 221 and 220 are also a mechanical type of visualization. In reality it does not seem to exist such a thing, but a domain of space where the probability or likelihood of existence of the particle is greater, being very unclear how the particle is moving in that domain. The oscillation eigen modes and its amplitudes 207 and 2008 matters, because the propagation of the entanglement soliton is made in function of that direction 213, 214. Along this direction the probability of tunneling decays and is wave modulated by sine function. When the direction are near and a synchronized oscillation is obtained the shift vector 219 is small that makes the two solitons emitted by the two atoms to interfere and their domains of likelihood 211, 212 to partially overlap 225. In this point the partial fusion occurs and a few quark exchange is possible.
The cones 201, 202 separated by the distance Δx1>cΔt1, where c is the speed of light in vacuum, and 205, 205 separated by the distance Δx2>cΔt2 represents Minkowski space-time cones, and represents entanglement points, that have the particularity that the interaction or transmission of a state is propagated with super-light speeds, or through short-cuts in the space fabric.
When the different orientation vibration amplitude 207 and 208 grows, simply due to electronic contribution or other lattice modes, the directions 213 and 214 become more divergent and the distance between them 219 growth, and the overlapping density function, or in other words the interaction cross-section decreases. This process gives us a possibility of controlling the interaction rate, by controlling the eigen-modes of vibration amplitudes A207/A223 and A208/A224 and the phase shift φ203-φ204 supposing that the oscillation frequencies driven by
The mass defect equivalent energy is what is released and is our reward of facilitation these nuclear reactions:
where Z is the atomic number, or number of electrons or protons in the nucleus, N is the number of neutrons, and M is the mass of respectively Hydrogen nucleus, neutron and the bound isotope as illustrated in
The binding energy curve 302 has a maximum of about 8.8 MeV/nucleon for iron, 56Fe, and lower energy for smaller nuclei 303 or bigger nuclei 305.
The transition from a nucleus to another is called transmutation, while the transition from very small nuclei to bigger ones is called fusion, while the transition from a bigger nucleus 305, like 235U to smaller ones is called fission.
An atom of H is shown 320 where the orbital structure and dimensions are detailed. The quark structure of the proton is also detailed.
The Deuterium atom, 321, also called heavy hydrogen is briefly presented, and the structure of tritium, 324 near by.
The helium nucleus 322 dimensions and total energy is given, and as well the Lithium-7 323 is shown.
As it was shown in the atomic structure 403 has the dimensions about 100 pm, while the nucleus inside is in the range of 10 fm, being composed of nucleons (protons and neutrons) with the dimension of 1 fm, that are formed of quarks with the size in 1 am (ato-meter), same as electrons.
The nucleons are combining forming the nuclei with different masses, but only a narrow combination of protons, versus neutrons is stable 402 and makes various isomer nuclear surface shapes shown in 401. The shape is related to nuclear stability and to the tendency of generating nuclear reactions.
Electron capture is the primary decay mode for isotopes with a relative superabundance of protons in the nucleus, but with insufficient energy difference between the isotope and its prospective daughter (with one less positive charge) for the nuclide to decay by emitting a positron. Electron capture also exists as a viable decay mode for radioactive isotopes with insufficient energy to decay by positron emission, and it competes with positron emission. It is sometimes called inverse beta decay, though this term can also refer to the capture of a neutrino through a similar process.
If the energy difference between the parent atom and the daughter atom is less than 1.022 MeV, positron emission is forbidden because not enough decay energy is available to allow it, and thus electron capture is the sole decay mode. For example, rubidium-83 (37 protons, 46 neutrons) will decay to krypton-83 (36 protons, 47 neutrons) solely by electron capture (the energy difference, or decay energy, is about 0.9 MeV).
After the capture took place and the electron simply disappears from its position on the orbital 412 leaving an empty place similar to an excited atom, carrying the extraction energy, the atom is preparing for a readjustment and transitions 420 in the final stage, before stability.
Note that a free proton cannot normally be changed to a free neutron by this process: The proton and neutron must be part of a larger nucleus. In the process of electron capture, one of the orbital electrons, usually from the K or L electron shell (K-electron capture, also K-capture, or L-electron capture, L-capture), is captured by a proton in the nucleus, forming a neutron and a neutrino.
p+e
−
→n+v
e
Since the proton is changed to a neutron in electron capture, the number of neutrons increases by 1, the number of protons decreases by 1, and the atomic mass number remains unchanged. By changing the number of protons, electron capture transforms the nuclide into a new element. The atom, although still neutral in charge, now exists in an energetically excited state with the inner shell missing an electron. While transiting to the ground state, the atom will emit an X-ray photon (a type of electromagnetic radiation) and/or Auger electrons, or both. Often the nucleus exists in an excited state as well, and emits a gamma ray in order to reach the ground state energy of the new nuclide just formed.
Examples of such nuclear reactions are:
26
13Al+e−→2612Mg+ve
59
28Ni+e−→5927Co+ve
40
19K+e−→4018Ar+ve
Note that it is one of the initial atom's own electrons that is captured, not a new, incoming electron, as might be suggested by the way the above reactions are written. Radioactive isotopes that decay by pure electron capture can, in theory, be inhibited from radioactive decay if they are fully ionized (“stripped” is sometimes used to describe such ions). It is hypothesized that such elements, if formed by the r-process in exploding supernovae, are ejected fully ionized and so do not undergo radioactive decay as long as they do not encounter electrons in outer space. Anomalies in elemental distributions are thought to be partly a result of this effect on electron capture.
In the light of what was presented above the reaction chain is normally able to extend several hundreds of fm, over the size of a chemical bound length. This manifestation resembles an octopus that selectively chooses the fish it likes and extends its tentacles to catch it. In the case of particles the kinetic energy is the selection parameter. That is what was previously described as nuclear entanglement.
Chemical bonds can also affect the rate of electron capture to a small degree (in general, less than 1%) depending on the proximity of electrons to the nucleus. For example in 7Be, a difference of 0.9% has been observed between half-lives in metallic and insulating environments. This relatively large effect is due to the fact that beryllium is a small atom whose valence electrons are close to the nucleus.
Around the elements in the middle of the periodic table, isotopes that are lighter than stable isotopes of the same element tend to decay through electron capture, while isotopes heavier than the stable ones decay by electron emission.
Some common radioisotopes that decay by electron capture include:
7Be T1/2 = 53.28 d;
56Ni T1/2 = 6.10 d;,
49V T1/2 = 337 d
44Ti T1/2 = 52 y
37Ar T1/2 = 35.0 d;
67Ga T1/2 = 3.260 d
57Co T1/2 = 271.8 d
41Ca T1/2 = 1.03 105 y
51Cr T1/2 = 27.7 d
72Se T1/2 = 8.5 d
68Ge T1/2 = 270.8 d;
53Mn T1/2 = 3.7 106 y
Are observed that are plotting in some families with the feature of reducing the lifetime with the growth of the atomic number. It seems that they prefer some electrons, from s orbital with spin up or s orbital with spin down, and the probability of nuclear entanglements are different, as a function of these selection parameters, but the probability is increasing with the decrease of the electron orbital radius, or distance to the nucleus.
Another interesting case is that of the giant resonance cross sections. In nuclear and particle physics, the concept of a cross section is used to express the likelihood of interaction between particles.
When particles in a beam are thrown against a foil made of a certain substance, the cross section σ is a hypothetical area measure around the target particles of the substance (usually its atoms) that represents a surface. If a particle of the beam crosses this surface, there will be some kind of interaction.
A barn (symbol b) is a unit of area. Originally used in nuclear physics for expressing the cross sectional area of nuclei and nuclear reactions, today it is used in all fields of high energy physics to express the cross sections of any scattering process. A barn is defined as 10−∞m2 (100 fm2) and is approximately the cross sectional area of a uranium nucleus.
135Xe, with its extremely high absorption cross-section of 2.65×106 barns is “used up” quickly upon creation, transmuting into 136Xe, which is a stable isotope that means a diameter of about 20 fm, which is 4 times larger than the nucleus itself In the case of giant nuclear resonance, the direct mechanical transpositions are even more intricate. In this case suddenly one has an atom that has a cross section shadowing several atoms of the lattice. This manifestation, in spite it is contained inside quantum mechanics is not directly explained, and only some calculation receipts are provided.
Graphically the nucleus is seen with a size of 20% of that of the atom, instead its size of a 0.1%, looking-like the atom in FIG. B, 411.
For simplicity we consider only 4 atoms 502 in a plane creating a square structure. It is not clear if the tunneling probability function 503 is the same with the entanglement probability function or the first propagation in the linear space prepares the space for the generation of the entanglement function that behaves like a short-circuit of the linear 3D space from another dimensions of the subspace. This explanation is important from the theoretical point of view of better understanding the matter, energy and space but from our application point of view the presence of this phenomenon is what matters.
There are some oscillation eigen-modes that make the entanglement wave propagate inside and overlap giving stationary waves maximum 504, creating an unlocal-compound-nucleus, where the quarks are put together as in fusion
In a Pd, Ni or Pt lattice on a plane there are 4 atoms 502 oscillating under temperature excitation inside the force field of the chemical bound.
The symmetry may create more stationary eigen states 505 distributed inside the atomic 502 cell volume on symmetry axes.
The non locality, possibly due to stationary waves, makes the spaces interfere, long enough in order that a nuclear reaction to be induced. The non-locality waves or tunneling waves are a special manifestation of the space-time-matter realm and is also described as entanglement. The notion of entanglement is mainly used to show that a particle may be in various different places of the 4-D (Minkowski) space, simultaneously, with the probability that the particle to take a stand and show up in a certain location is depending on other called paricle's external parameters, or environment.
The effect of non-locality is also described by Heinsenberg's uncertainty principle, but in fact it may be due to the open-space entanglement connecting the dimensions E and t and r and p as being dependent parameters, generated by the same entity.
In fact this entanglement may be explained that the mass-energy is a space effect, and creates special space structures, that hold matter, and gets what we call matter properties, through the sub-space. The multi-dimensional space of the string theory makes possible to explain these effects, at least in part, by the concept of multidimensional universe.
In fact the tunneling effect is not clear if it is an entanglement effect or a propagation effect, in which a space-shape phantom that travels outside the particle classical borders gets materialized, having a finite traveling speed, or an entanglement effect with a latency time, making the particle appear through another “hole” in the space fabric with the same properties as the initial particle or even better adapted to the new environment.
If this is the case, the particle is present in a plurality of points of the space all the time, and depending the environment's features it TAKES A STAND in at least one of them—as staying in the classical point or materializing in a new point of the space, and that is what we used to call tunneling.
The presence of a particle in a “classical” point of space we call nucleus or corpuscle, with defined coordinates and parameters (in the limit of Heinsenberg's principle), but its presence modifies the wrapping of the multi-dimensional space and the interaction with another particle may take place in some of the cases almost instantaneous, the particles knowing about each other presence by the deformation of space and subspace, without a direct hard interaction (as in the quantum basic concept of a measurement of a quantum state) to be needed.
In the case when another particle and its phantom/entanglement domains are overlapping they are practically together in the same location in the subspace interacting, in spite in our space appears as being in different locations—and they are. In this way, it is explained the nuclear cross section with a clear manifestation in the case of nuclear super-resonances.
As it was previously shown the dimensions of an atomic bond, or the distance between consecutive nuclei in a material is about 100 pm, while the dimensions of the nucleus itself calculated or measured outside resonance is of few fm, by a factor of 10,000 smaller. The thermal oscillation amplitudes is of few pm.
In the case of 135I the thermal neutrons absorption cross section is of about 3.106 barns that gives a cross section area of 3.10−22 m2=(1.71.10−11)2 m2 and an equivalent radius of about 0.01 nm. This covers more than 0.1 atoms on one linear direction, and about 1 atoms in volume. In the light of the classical mechanics it is impossible to visualize this aspect, but only if we understand the new concepts of entanglement this aspect makes sense. The Iodine atom is there, from time to time overlaps the lattice atoms space entanglement, but the energy gain is small in order to activate any entanglement driven reaction. From time to time a spontaneous fission occurs, as the excess of n is transferred to lattice U nuclei, that fissions the nucleus, with some significant energy gain. In order to have a more visual image, of what is statistically described by differential cross section, is the fact that 135I and 235U are placed in the lattice position competing for neutrons, as a bunch of octopuses are competing for fish, and only is the fish they like, they make the effort to move the tentacles, take a stand and catch that fish. The thermal vibration modifies the cross section, phenomenon called nuclear Doppler effect.
The effect of generating nuclear reactions by entanglement is working in the case of fusion and transmutation that have been observed in electrolysis experiments. The modification of electrodes isotopic composition that has been also reported is possible only by transmutation, and over the time the theoretical understanding have been developed, and now these phenomena have better explanations.
FIG. 6—shows radiation, nuclear particle energy deposition in matter with exemplification for 100 MeV 140 Cs in UO2 as being a typical case of fission product, as base of further developments.
It shows the Energy loss versus depth values 600 of the incident radiation interacting with matter that slows down mainly by the interaction between the moving particle and electron structures surrounding the atoms.
Chart's ordinate giving particle Energy Loss in (eV/Angstrom) for 5 MeV alpha in U 601, chart's abscise giving the Target Depth in (micrometers) 602.
During the interaction the radiation dislocates the electrons by direct electro-dynamic field collision generating high-energy knock-on electrons, showed as the Ionization curve on the chart 603.
These electrons also called delta-electrons collides with other electrons sharing the energy until it becomes small at the phonon energy level and in this moment the electrons are returning in the initial position under the electric field of polarization the structures making a loop trajectory, and transferring all their energy into phonons.
A part of the collision energy is transferred to X-ray emission by atomic level excitation that travels micron distances until resonantly is absorbed generating electron showers. If the delta electrons were conserving the initial impulse the electromagnetic X-ray energy in almost omni-directional contributing to energy spread.
Towards the end of the range the nuclear collision interactions between the stopping radiation particle and lattice nuclei is intensifying and this is the domain of so called radiation damage based on nuclear dislocations, represented on chart as the energy loss in recoil creation 604.
According to the main embodiment, a method to produce nuclear reactions of fusion and transmutation in nano-structures and to make a device for producing electricity using the energy released by the nuclear reactions generated in the nano-structure, at adjustable power rate.
The method relies on the use of inter-atomic field particularities obtained inside the nano-structures by using the temperature, density and electric fields in order to modify the nuclear entanglement or quantum non-local nuclear cross-section in order to control the nuclear reaction rate of an inserted material, generically called nuclear fuel, into a nano-structured material with specific nuclear composition in order to facilitate the non-local nuclear reaction of the fuel, generically called burner.
The generated nuclear particles energy is converted using an assembly of a super-capacitor made of a micro-nano-hetero structure that loads from the nuclear energy and discharges by electric current.
According to another embodiment, the method is applied to knock-on electrons produced from stopping the moving entities resulted from the nuclear reaction drives to the design of a device for converting fusion energy into electrical energy that includes: a burner compartment where nuclear fuel is “burned” for generating fusion products by nuclear reactions; that are stopped in a plurality of direct conversion units stacked on the burner's surfaces, each CIci unit including a first conductive layer “C”, a first insulating layer “I”, a lower than the first conductive layer electron density layer “c”, and a second insulating layer “i”; and an electrical circuit coupled to the conductive layers and operative to harvest electrical energy. The fission products generate electron showers in the first layer that may contain nuclear fuel also while the low electron density layer absorbs the electron showers.
According to yet another embodiment, the method is applied to knock-on electrons produced from stopping the moving entities resulted from the nuclear reaction drives to the design of a tile for converting particle and radiation energy into electrical energy made of a morph of the CIci layers connected in series and parallel, that become a nano-clustered structure made of conductive nano-beads inserted into a dielectric or semiconductor material called meta-material, that converts the knock-on showers energy into electricity.
Applications are in nuclear fusion reactors, direct conversion of nuclear energy into electricity producing adjustable fusion battery structures. The electricity generator device uses repetitive nano-hetero-structure generically that may be also made of loaded nanotubes or coated nano-wires that behaves similar to the “CIci” structure described above.
The device contains the nuclear burner module in center that produces the nuclear particles surrounded by the direct nuclear energy conversion into electricity super-capacitor module that is formed of several functional sub-modules, and the utilities that provides the nuclear fuel and byproducts management and the process control systems.
The main application is to generate electric energy on demand by fusion nuclear reactions. The resulted devices are structural and dimensional varieties of method's application in specific configurations.
FIG. 6—Nucleus Binding energy as function of atomic mass
The understanding of the fundamental physics behind these processes given in
In fact the entanglement, or non-locality of hydrogen isotopic species as H (Hydrogen), D (Deuterium), T(Tritium) that are momentarily overlap with the entanglement functions of the “burner” material (called electrode in the past electrolysis experiments) and the most frequently used was Pd (Palladium) makes these reaction possible. Initial lack of understanding of these processes made the reaction to have an unpredictable occurrence and non-reproducibility in many laboratories of the world. It has to be clearly stated that not only Palladium has this property but other materials as Pt, Ni, U, Pu, Th, etc. and only if the appropriate nano-structure and the appropriate excitation is applied.
The 3 nuclei are interacting in a compound nucleus without “touching” each other in the classical sense of ion beam interactions that requires energy to penetrate through the Coulombian barrier in what we believed are the boundaries of the nucleus. There is also important to understand that a compound nucleus is not a sum over protons and neutrons present there but a wrap or loom of quarks, floating in the “meson sea”, in other words having more than 3 dimensions, and a neutron and a proton is the same entity, showing us 1 quark for each dimension of our 3D space, having a possibility to flip showing like a set of 3 magnets, a side uud=p or ddu=n, that has a lower stability, and a life time of 900s until flips back via a virtual boson w−.
The nuclear exchange is made at this level or at strong interaction units that operates in the case of fusion, transmutation, as well for fission, being no difference between them from this point of view of the nuclear reaction. This neutron decay is a process inverse to the e-capture, and in our universe the proton-electron coupling in H atom is more stable than a neutron. That is why the proton does not capture its electron to become a neutron in normal conditions.
This loom of quarks once entered in entanglement the exchange starts in order to recombine in a more advantageous manner from the point of view of nuclear stability and exhausting the surplus of energy as kinetic energy of the newly resulted particles. It is very probable that the initial ternary entanglement to produce new binary entanglement, following the conservation laws in new entanglement positions, based on center of mass, from where the surplus energy or defect of mass, is released, conserving the energy, impulse, spin, parity, etc., as kinetic energy of the particles and excitation energy of the particles, that is released at later times by various nuclear decay modes.
In this respect:
105Pd+22D→105Pd+4He+22.4 MeV or may drive to
105Pd+22D→107Ag+2D+0.02 MeV
In the reaction 105Pd+22D→105Pd+24He+22.4 MeV, Pd gets about 0.3 MeV kinetic energy producing a lot of dislocations in the lattice while He gets about 22.1 MeV traveling about 50 microns in the lattice.
This high energy, 22.1 MeV makes the particle travel a long distance of about 50 microns making possible the direct conversion of particle's energy into electricity. The structure used relies of the difference of the ionization energy deposited by radiation in different materials that drives to knock-on electrons induced electron showers that may be collected on electrodes of a super-capacitor structure and driven outside to the plots.
Up to this point, it was described the molecular excitation to nuclear reaction process, and remains to clarify how we can control the reaction rate in order to deliver power at will with high efficiency.
Under this aspect it is important to highlight that the fusion reaction delivers 22.4 MeV from which about 22 MeV, about 3 pJ (pico-Joules) are carried by the He nucleus, and may be converted into electricity, the rest of 0.4 MeV, about 2% are carried by Pd on short range and ends up in thermal energy. To deliver a power of 1 W, 3 1011 reactions are needed, while for 1 MW a factor of 1 million more is needed.
In order to estimate the limits of this method and power source, we may consider a total conversion efficiency of 95%, and we know that up to about 1 kW/cm3 may be removed from the actual nuclear structures, it will drive to a maximum power density under 20 kW/cm3.
A further estimation may be considered the following—For each 10 microns of Pd structure, 100 microns of direct conversion structures have to be added. That makes 80 structures to be packed in 1 cm thick power source. If 1 fusion act takes place at each cubic-micron, about 1 at 343 billion atoms with a probability of 3 10−12, about 1010 fusion acts are produced in 1 cm3 delivering about 30 mW/cm3 power. To have an acceptable technologic power supply one may need 30 W/ cm3, for which 1 fusion is required at every 100 nm apart, about 7,000 atoms lateral cube cell has to deliver 1 fusion per second, and that seems to be a reasonable value.
One important fact presented in
Another effect already known is the instability of pore Pd nanoclusters with the temperature. The grain nucleation effect makes the Pd nanocluster growing rate to grow with temperature increase. On the other side, we need high temperatures in the limits of dehydrogenation reaction, in order to create interstitial D that has a larger interaction probability than bounded D. The nano-cluster growth rate at this temperature will make the structure's operational lifetime shorter. In order to counterbalance this effect a dual or ternary structure including Ni and Ti, even Cr nanoclusters have to be put in place.
At special sizes, it may resonantly amplify the entanglement wave in interfaces, increasing the capability of structure self-recovery following nuclear reaction recoil dislocation cascade damage.
The two entanglement zones 823 and 824 (virtual spaces—structures of space without mass) at a moment of time t0 are in the certain position where the mass overlaps with the space structure and the nuclear reaction engages.
The spirals 821 shows three potential fractal levels highlighted, representing the different moments of the “compound nucleus” interaction that in this case may take longer than in usual nuclear collisions—creating metastable structures similar to positronum—most likely known that have manifested in similar form into reality. The circles A, 828 respectively 838B 829, respectively 849 and C 830, respectively 850 are different moments in time of the entanglement vortex evolution, having the lateral projections above, simply called A,B,C as moments of reaction evolution time.
This vortex coupling is equivalent to a standing wave structures at each of the levels where the opposite interacts. (There are no stable forms or even time without counteraction and limitations.)
The perpendicular projections shows the three fractal shells formed by opposing spirals, creating standing waves in order to give an idea of the inner structure. In effect, we are describing a vortex matrix from which all forms may emanate.
This is the description of the mechanism of nuclear entangled transmutation, where a particle as Ni may interact with a proton at long range forming a quasi-stable compound nucleus that finally end up in a Cu and the kinetic energy transmitted as recoils in the lattice.
In the initial phase “A” the entangled arrays 831 generated by 832 occupied by a Ni, Pd, etc. atom are interacting. When another nuclear entity has space coordinates matching with the entangled array 831 the interaction starts, and follow a vortex model. The particle 831 follows the spiral 835 and the particle in 832 follows the spiral 836 inside the time cones 833 respectively 834 moving in opposite direction. The spirals are interpenetrating and counter-variant, shrinking during interaction time as the quark matching evolves towards a new stable structure, having the envelope of interaction space 837.
At the middle of the interaction at time B, 849 the entangled spot are near in the vortex 843 inside the time cone 845 from the counterpart entangled array 842 evolving counter variant on vortex 844 inside the time cone 846. This elapsed time is what takes for the quark structure to rearrange in a more stable configuration and is influenced by the entry parameters of the mass in entangled zones, generically called collision parameter, which influences the reaction channel followed.
In the last stage of evolution C, 830 and respectively 850 the quantum states takes a stand and the final masses are delivered together with the released amount of energy.
These might be stable stationary states—and there will be many in reality. Note that the spiral forms closed systems at these fractal levels (which on the negative side provide a mechanism of entrapment and evolutionary control).
In this moment the conservation laws take shape and the expansion of the reaction area 851 in the vicinity is “searching” for nearby partners to share the process and contribute to final delivery, driving to a sequential triple entanglement that repeats on a perpendicular direction the phases A to C. If the process is successful the new products or energy states are delivered.
The entered matter is reshaped in more stable compounds and the excess of energy is released as kinetic energy of the novel compounds. Inside a lattice this is transformed in recoils of the lattice elements. The two particle released 852 and 853 are traveling the space in opposition conserving all the parameters.
This is a ternary fusion reaction facilitated by the proximity inside nano-structures doped with addition elements because a three initial mass bodies (the energy is stored as mass) combine in the ternary process driving to only two resulted mass elements recoiled from the initial position. It remains a good probability that the three elements to interact but do not reconfigure, the energy balance driving to some other excited states, that may go as far as the nano-cluster boundaries, or generation of other particles.
The transmutation reaction where the dopant say Hidrogen, Deuteriu, Tritiu, etc. is capture by an element of a solid structure usually a nano-crystal say Platinum, Plalladium, Nickel, etc. nuclei obviously requires the overcoming of an electrostatic potential barrier which opposes the process.
As an example for 58Ni (the more abundant of the Nickel isotopes), reacting with Hydrogen driving to Copper, the maximum electrostatic potential energy Vmax occurs at a distance d between Ni and proton nuclei centers equal to the sum of their nuclear radii, that is d=7; 239 fm. The Vmax=5.6 MeV=0.89 pJ.
At room temperatures the Hydrogen energy is of about 25.3 meV, far too small to overpass this barrier.
Such an opportunity, in principle, is given by the quantum mechanical tunnel efect: in this case, the incoming particle can penetrate into the nucleus by getting through the potential barrier. The tunneling probability of a single particle colliding with an atomic target is about 10−1000, so small as it may even not being considered. Electronic vortexes were experimentally observed in stellar gas, known as Debye-Huckel shielding effect, that may be applied in solid matter case too and comes to reduce the effective value of the barrier from 5.6 MeV down to about 3 MeV in metallic Ni. To this adds the electron screening effect of both nuclei that produced an increase of the nuclear cross section reaction published by F. Raiola in Eur. Phys. Journal A 13, 377 (2002), A 19, 283 (2004), A 27, 79 (2006).
To this the original addition is the nuclear entanglement zone propagation controlled by the nano-cluster eigen-modes that brings several orders of magnitude for the process at resonance. Quantum entanglement and string theory are hot subjects at the moment and here is not the place for entering in such a debate.
What is important for this application is the fact that controlling the isotopic composition of the nano-clustered matter and the doping is possible to control the reaction cross section in real time, making the process possible and reproducible.
In spite from the point of view of already classical nuclear reactions physics there are distinctly treated the fusion, fission and the transmutation, in fact there are manifestations of the same phenomena—the search for stability by rearranging the energy stored in mass effect that may take place in binary reactions—collisions that requires over the threshold initial kinetic energy or ternary reactions that requires nuclear and atomic parameter matching in something called resonance.
The
The figure shows that ionization 903 is the dominant energy deposition process, and this generates knock-on electrons that generates other knock-on electrons creating avalanches.
The first layer “C” that can be made of gold, Uranium, etc., is insulated by a layer “I” 1005 that usually can be made of silica, alumna, nitrites or carbides and has to have moderate to low electron emission.
The electrons produced in the layer “C”, are tunneling through the layer “I”, and are collected in the layer “c” 1006, that is a conductor material with low electron density as graphite, aluminum, magnesium, Lithium or Lithium-Hydride (LiH). This layer collects the previously generated shower and emits a very little shower, or none. In this way it gets negatively polarized. The structure is further insulated by a layer “i”, 1007 that can be an oxide like alumina, silica or a carbide or nitride.
After this first elementary cell another one follows having about the same structure but different dimensions and materials. In the figure the layer C1, 1008 and C21012 are made of the same materials. They are followed by the insulators 1009 respectively 1013 made of alumina, and the low electron availability layer “c1” 1010, insulated from the next cell by an alumina layer 1011. In the plot 1001 is shown the ionization power deposition 1003, as “Energy loss in eV/Angstrom on the ordinate 1000 as a function of penetration depth 1002.
The alpha particle, having an average energy of 5 MeV is directing towards the elemental “CIci” conversion structure 1101. The alpha emitters energies are varying from 4.6 MeV up to 5.6 MeV, having an average value about 5 MeV, while the fusion-emitted alpha has up to 11.4 MeV. The conversion structure that is made on a plurality of “CIci” elemental units to cover the stopping range of the particles in that structure.
When the particle 1109 encounters the layer “C” 1102 abundant in available electrons, it generates many knock-on electrons 1110, that at its turn collides with another electron 1111 knocking it out two, and sharing the energy and impulse, and so on until all electrons that now form a shower tunnels through the insulating layer “I” 1103, reaching the layer “c”, 1104, that is a low electron density electricity conductor material.
The “c” layer 1104 is a conductor material that did not has enough stopping power and produces a small electron shower behind, that may tunell the insulator “i” 1105 and reach the next “C” layer after it.
This mechanism is polarizing the conductive layers 1102 positively and 1104 negatively. An exterior electric circuit is needed to connect the negative plot 1107 on the “c” layer 1104 via a resistor RL 1106 to the positive plot 1108 on the “C” layer 1102 and allow the electric charges return at the place from where were dislocated by the alpha particles. The current's energy is further transmitted outside the structure.
The alpha particle 1149 is crossing an electronic orbital and makes an electron there 1150 knock-on. This electron collides with another electron and changes its path on 1151 while transfers to the colliding electron a part of its energy and impulse. To simulate the behavior of the first electron a Monte Carlo (MC) code may be used as e-casino, but it does not track the secondary electrons. To track alpha particles a code named SRIM was used, and also MCNPX, both being MC codes.
After the first collision of the alpha particle 1149 with the electron 1150, other atomic orbitals 1148 are crossed with the same consequences. The shock wave of the moving electric field of the particle passing through propagates far in the structure but due to short interaction time well under 1 ps (pico-second) the atoms 1147 are not removed from their position.
The energy of alpha particle is in the range 0 to 12 MeV, while other elements as fission products may well have energies up to 100 MeV; cosmic particles are going in GeV domain but the structure will not be customized to stop them. The purpose of the present structure is to harvest and transform in electricity the energy of the fusion generated particles as transmutation recoils and by product light particles as in the atomic number range from 1 to 6, mainly Hydrogen and alphas, as well as energetic neutrons.
On the ordinate 1201 is plotted the Power deposited by the alpha particle in materials by Ionization in [eV/nm] (electron-Volt/nanometer), and the right ordinate 1200 shows a complete scale. The abscises 1202 represents the normalized path in percents of the maximum range of each particle.
At the left side of the chart the dashed line 1203 shows a possible “CIci” structure by alternating various materials at choice, that are grouped in classes as “C”, high electron availability conductors 1206, “Ii” insulators 1208 or low electron availability conductors “c” 1207. The sandwich structure depending where on the particle energy range is placed is harvesting an energy in ‘C″ equal with the thickness of the layer 1204 in [nm] multiplied by the average energy on the ordinate in [eV/nm], from which we have to subtract the energy deposited in the “c” layer 1205 obtained by multiplying its thickness in [nm] with its average power density in the relative position on the stopping range.
The result will be transformed inside the nano-layer in electric energy that is the product between the accumulated electric charge and the polarization voltage between the “C” and “c” layers acting as capacitor foils.
In the chart are plotted as example various known materials with high potential of being used to build the structure as Gold 1210, Uranium 1211 in the “C” class, aluminum 1213, Lithium 1216, LiH 1217, in the “c” class, alumina 1215, silica 1214 in the “Ii” class and tin 1212 as a material that may be used with care not being in any class, but in some conditions a tin-Lithium structure may operate as well. The “C” and “c” classes are relative to the available materials and technologies, the only condition is that the electron availability in “C” class to be greater than in “c” class, both being electricity conductive materials. Even if one by mistake ignores this rule it my have an inverse polarization, as long as these materials are different.
The knock-on electrons generator layer “C” 1311 is made of 8 nm of Gold, it is followed by a 20 nm thick silica layer 1303 separated from the previous layer by an interface 1302 that may exhibit a special deposition in a very narrow layer called “delta layer” with the goal to optimize the electrons emission and direction, by developing atomic and molecular electric and magnetic fields. The layer 1302 has also the role of bringing chemical and mechanical stability and increase the robustness to radiation damage. The delta layer will develop a nano-clustered structure having specific thickness under 3 nm. The nanoclster magnetic moments in this position will drive the electrons to tunnel through 1303 insulator with no significant loss towards the collector layer 1304 build of aluminum in this example.
A delta layer may be also applied on the interface 1303-1304 with the role to turn the electrons along the layer and to maximize the stopping of the electrons in this layer. A Ti-Fe-Co layers with the magnetic moment along the interface may be used. Some other magnetic nano-clustered layers may be used in order to make the electrons 1311 balistically drift through insulator “I” 1303 and turn, and stop in the “c” layer 1304, 40 nm thick for this simulation purpose only.
The layer “c” 1304 is followed by the insulating layer “i” 1305, that is made of Alumina and is 20 nm thick in the simulation. This layer is separated by another 6-layer, represented by a dashed line separating the “c” layer 1304 from the “i” layer 1305. This interface layer, generically called delta exhibit high magnetic moment designed to turn back the electrons emitted by the “c” layer. The “i” layer is followed by a cell termination 1301 or may be followed by another “CIci” cell.
This is a complex process that has to be made at the buildup of any new structure.
The chart in
One may observe that when the layer is very narrow, there is not enough production rate and the energy deposition is low. After the thickness grows over 20% of maximum on the abscises 1502 the grows rate is decreasing drastically and the curve 1511 flaterns, and so it does up to the end where it may get a bump due to the change of the ionization rate towards the end of range. And soon after that it starts to drop until comes back to the background emission.
The values are shown n the right scale 1510 showing the maximum yield and the maximum length for transmitted electrons. The normalized range is a little bit bigger than the stopping range of the alpha particle in that material.
Another important curve is the growth rate of the electron emission with the thickness, 1504, simply the tangent at the first curve, 1511. This curve exhibits two local maximums, one at the beginning in the area 1505 that presents a special interest and one at the end. The values of this curve 1504 are plotted on the left ordinate 1503 also as a function of position 1502.
In the optimization area, 1505 what is measured is the worth of extra material added, because after the curve 1504 is reaching the first maximum, adding more material brings less extra electrons to the electron shower, but the electron energy is coming smaller and with the right tunneling through the Insulator “I” it may drive the device to maximum harvesting efficiency.
This is just an example of an indirect calculation method applied
The “CIci” structure was calculated at an energy of 5 MeV, the most probable used because also matches the alpha decay not only median alpha energy in fusion applications.
The alpha particle 1610 penetrating the layer “C” 1602, knocks-on the electron 1611, that creates a shower, by secondary collisions with other electrons, drifts through the layer “I” 1603 and stops in the “c” layer 1604, that is insulated at its turn by the layer “i”, 1605. Surpassingly that all the energy deposition of the alpha particle 1610 crossing these layers is of about 7 units and only 5 units represents energy absorbed in layer “C” the maximum efficiency may be as high as 84%. Of course, some other effects that need to be mitigated will make it smaller, but what was intended to be shown here was this upper limitation.
The calculation 1601 shows this and also says that these ratios have to be applied all along the 20 microns stopping range of the alpha particle in this combination of materials repeating homogenously all along the path. The structure is a nano-hetero structure in the class of meta-materials.
The alpha source 1711 is placed in direct contact with the conversion structure. It can be a fusion system, or a isotopic source or a fission particle generator, or an accelerator beam. The alpha particle 1710 appears in the source 1711 and crosses all the layers of the energy converter slowing down to rest.
The “C” layer 1702 is electrically connected to the rest of the cells by cables starting from the plots of the armature. In this type of material the particle 1710 is dropping most of its energy.
The particles generated in “C” layer 1702 are adjusted in the delta layer separating from the insulator “I” 1703, and redirected by the next delta-layer between the insulator “I” and the “c” layer 1704. Further the electrons generated in the “c” layer are returned in “c” layer by the combined action of the delata layer and the insulator “i” 1705.
The backscattered multipactor electrons emitted by the next “C” layer 1701 are driven by the delta-layer 1706 straight into the conductive layer “c”.
A plurality of elemental conversion cells 1712 have to be used in order to achieve the optimal energy conversion into electricity, that has to span over the entire stopping range of the particle of interest.
The alpha particle 1827 penetrating through the structure generates knock-on electron showers 1828 in the layer “C” 1821 connected to the pack's positive pole 1825. The shower tunnels through the insulator “I”, and stops in the armature “c” 1822, electrically connected through the interface delta layer 1824, where the electric strap have been reduced and eliminated, to the next “C” layer 1823. This layer at its turn is generating another electron shower that reaches the last in the pack “c” armature connected to the negative plot 1826.
Because the structures in
This transformation maintains the positive pole 1835, thin enough for the particles 1839 to penetrate it, but thick enough to have a good mechanical stability. The insulator “I” separates the pole, from the bimetallic bead 1831 that takes the knock-on electron shower 1838, and it is allows passing forward to the next bead allowing the electric field to build-up. The nano-beads 1831 are separated ny the insulator “i” 1837 from the negative pole 1836 that terminates the cell. The structure is equivalent with a 3 pack elementary cell shown in
This nano-material is a special meta-material as relies on bead insulator interfaces and beads polarization, developing also secondary effects as plasmon-polaron resonance and excited electrons stripping making simultaneously the thermal electrons training and conversion in electricity. The thermal energy conversion by switched commutation in electric circuit matters less to the energy balance, but some cooling effects may be observed as associated with this direct energy conversion in this type of meta-materials.
The radiation or ion beam 2001 is generating particles 2002 that are passing through a thin gold foil 2008 used to measure the beam current from the backscattered multipactor electrons and may as well serve as the input electrode “C” that creates the electron shower 2003 inside the structure. The nano-beads 2005 maintain the electron shower and drives it along the particle's path 2006 across the insulator “I” 2004, towards the other end 2009 at a “c” conductor, that is connected to the first electrode through a IV (Current Intensity—Voltage) measurement device.
Because the structure is few microns thin, the beam passes through and a radiation stopper 2010 usually a faraday coup is used to measure the beam intensity in the instrument 2011. The beam current that stopped in the structure may be optionally measured by a similar instrument with 2011 or it may be grounded.
The radiation particle 2110 crossing the nano-structured energy harvesting cell 2100 is crossing the “C” material embedded in naostructures 2102 and generates knock-on electron showers 2111 that are stopped in the “c” filler 2105 and driven to the negative poles 2114 and via an external circuit to the positive pole 2115.
The chamber is equipped with electric signal passes through, and fittings for ambient atmosphere control. A n input valve 2211 is used to introduce the desired isotopic gas inside, or flush the chamber. Another set of valves 2207 are used to control the “combustible” gas input. In this case we used Deuterium stored in a bottle 2206. A safety valve 2210 that is meant to mitigate the avalanche burning danger that can drive to step pressure increase and at least a set of atmosphere measurement devices as pressure, temperature, composition are recommended 2209.
The system also is equipped with a charged particle detector 2204 and a specific multi-channel analyzer (MCA) that detects the nuclear particles produced in the sample as a function of sample control parameters.
The experiment is making a background calibration and detection system test using the position in
The most interesting of all is the aneutronic fusion that combines the two deuterons into an alpha particle shooting the alpha with about 22.1 MeV and generates a 300 keV recoiled Palladium atom.
Other possible nuclear reaction channels are the Palladium transmutation in various combinations up to a Z+2; A+4 transmutation, shooting back the residual products as neutron, hydrogen, Deuterium, tritium, even beta or gamma.
The
Another possible process is the creation of a meta-stable structure stable in the vortex 2301 that locks together the three particles, similar to the positronium (an electron and an anti-electron spinning around each other) molecule, delaying the nuclear process for variable times depending on the nano-structure parameters...
Note: many other materials may be used instead Palladium and Deuterium, that drives to same results. For example nano-structures of Ni, Pt, Th, B etc. may also be used in combination with the counter part atoms as H, D, T, 3He, Li, etc. combining the isotopes in such a manner that a possible better nuclear combination to come out by transmutation or fusion. Heavy nuclei are prone to fission in the presence of the appropriate structure that to drive them to a more stable combination, but due to large electronic structures the probability of reactant nuclei stepping in the entanglement spots is drastically smaller than for the Pd—D case, but possible.
The figure shows the lateral view of the potential trajectories 2344 of a recoiled Pd 2343 as function of target depth 2342 and target height 2341.
The power source is made of an external enclosure 2500, containing the following modules:
The central burner 2501, that contains a “CIci” nano-structure that harvests the recoil energy of the atoms involved in nuclear reaction. In the central burner the combustible fluid that can contain Deuterium, Hydrogen or Tritium is introduced and reacts with the Palladium, Platinum or Nickel atoms in nano-clusters. In this area there are means to control the reaction rate by controlling the input parameters as pressure, temperature, electric field, input and output flows. The central burner is built on a “CIci” structure that converts in electricity the energy of the recoiled nuclei. An important fraction of this will be heat that will be removed from the structure by same liquid flow, carrying the heat outside in a heat exchanger.
The conversion module 2502 that converts the energy of the resulted fusion product in electricity. This module contains the high-energy customized “CIci” structure that converts the energy of alpha particles into electricity. It also uses Helium for its cooling purposes. It may also use actinides in the structure to convert the energy of emitted neutrons by fission and fission energy harvesting.
As a general use the first charged particle energy conversion module may not contain actinides being very thin compared with what is needed to harvest the neutron's energy and amplify it in fission processes.
The second stage of the direct energy converter 2503, that contains “CIci” structures customized for lower energy and terminal structures robust to the end of range damage. These structures will be cooled down by a Helium flow.
To prevent the end of range excessive damage the end structures will have higher porosity and liquid or viscous material trapped in the pores that recover after the end of the range dislocation process. Another alternative solution is to use special cells that fail-safe and may be easily replaced when damaged.
The third energy conversion stage 2504 is placed outside the box, because it has high volume, being about 1 ft thick of nano-structure fulfilled with actinides exhibiting high cross section, and driving to a sub-critical nuclear fission structure.
The burner converter stage is using a special unit 2507 that to inject the fluid and re-circulate them for cooling. It uses for cooling the same combustible fluid because there is not too much room to separate the circuits. The pressure is dynamically established by the differential pumping method.
The main fuel system 2508 that provides the fuel to the burner system and re-circulates it, cooling and purifying it and preparing for being reused. The system supposes no leaks of any material all being content inside the system.
The helium cooling system and helium recovery 2505 and 2506 is a closed system attached to each energy converter structure. It cools the harvesting structure in the zone where it has the maximum conversion efficiency and prevents overheating. It also recovers the reaction-generated helium and prevents its agglomeration in the structure where it may trigger damaging effects.
The control system and power extraction 2009 combines the power extraction systems and power adjustment for delivery with control system, integrating the feed-back signals coming from all the modules 2510, with those from the external control unit.
The outer case 2600 is integrating in the same box the modules needed that the harvesting unit to operate for transmutation and aneutronic fusion processes. It allows the connection on exterior side of the special harvesting modules 2604 used for neutronic fusion that is coming with their own shield, and structure.
This structure is bulky and heavy and it comes as a modular nuclear fission reactor subcritical structure that integrates in its core the entire fusion box 2500 or only its active part 2603, leaving the rest of equipment out of the radiation field.
The central part of the structure is the active element box 2603 that contains inside the burner 2601 where the nuclear reaction takes place blanketed on its lateral sides by the energy harvesting modules 2602. The structure may have a cylindrical or rectangular geometry. In case of cylindrical geometry the harvesting modules will be built and add as sectors. In fact all the dimensions we are talking about for the inner structure 2603 are about 1 mm diameter and up to 100 mm long, while for planar structures they are up to 50 mm lateral and 100 microns thick. A bigger interlaced structure being the most preferred. The present figure shows the simplest configuration for the power source.
The central module also called burner 2601 is made of a very thin containment structure that is mainly a frame. It contains the fittings 2611 that assure the fuel re-circulation from inside to the re-circulation module 2607 and back into the burner. The arrows show the flow of fluid through the system. The central armature 2612 is used for electric polarization, applying an electric field with role of ion implanter in the burner structure 2615 that is made of a foil or a micromesh supporting the active material plated structure.
The foil has the capability of warming up electrically as a resistor and also operates as a grid in connection with the central armature 2612. The fuel fluid is washing the structure inside on all directions and is caring out the heat, while is taking part in the reaction. From the burner structure also a set of electric wires are connected to the control unit 2609. The structures 2607 is basically show a MEMS fluid multi-stage pump.
The main wires coming from the burner are related to resistor 2615 power warm-up and its temperature control, central armature 2612 to active mesh 2615 voltage, central armature temperature, burner harvesting structure current output, and flow detection.
The burner modularity and interchangeability is important because it is the most stressed structure from all the system.
The fluid coming into the burner is accelerated between armatures and penetrates the microstructure deposited on a lateral grid in the “C” elements of the associated “CIci” nano-beaded structure. The electron avalanches that creates an electric current and voltage is further transmitted outside the structure to the control module 2609 where it gets a multiple use, as information about the reaction rate and output energy.
The complementary particle associated with the ternary nuclear reaction 2622 is crossing the burner structure and stops in the “CIci” harvesting structure 2621.
The structure is also modular, having various modules stacked together but being customized for different zones of the particle's stopping range where it exhibits different energies. A helium flow 2623 cools the structure and maintains it inside the operational domain that exits the structure collecting and the nuclear reaction produced atoms.
A very important part that assures the operation of the harvesting structure is the cooling system that relies on the use of Helium gas (other fluids may be used too) that is pumped inside by the MEMS pump 2662. The gas flows in the structure channels mainly between modules and collects the heat and all the residual gases formed inside, maintaining the operation pressure inside.
The exhausted gas 2650,2660 is driven into a heat exchanger 2657, 2667 that took outside air 2651, 2661 to cool down, and exhausts it 2658, 2668. The heat exchanger unit also separates and collects the fuel fluid 2659, 2669 and sends it back to feed unit.
The cooling gas that leaves the heat exchanger is going into a multistage two way flow switch 2653, 2663 that can resend it back into the recirculation pump 2652, 2662 or may direct it into a compressor pump 2654, 2664 that pushes it back into the tank 2655, 2665. All these are micro-fluidics devices controlled from the control unit 2609. For good operation there are needed two cooling system for a lamellar structure, one for each harvesting module.
The units 2605 and 2606 are identical but serving different energy conversion “CIci” units.
The fuel control circuit uses a storage tank, 2684 that can be placed outside the structure or inside, because the consumption is very small connected through a multi-stage, multi-way flow micro-switch to the recirculation pump 2681 that introduces the fuel into the burner 2680 on the active structure side 2615.
From here it passes in the opposite recirculation pump 2607 that reintroduces the flow in the center of the cell, from where it exits the structure 2689 and is taken by a multi-stage pump 2682 that passes through the heat exchanger 2683 and further in the flow micro-switch 2685 that may direct it back in the circuit or into the compressor micro-pump 2686 and store in the tank 2684.
Some of the fuel may diffuse through the harvesting structure 2621 from where is directed collected by the vacuum pump 2688 that sends it into a purifier structure 2687, together with the fuel recovered from the cooling circuit 2605 and 2606, respectively 2669. From the purifier 2687 the fuel is redirected back to the circuit 2682, while the coolant is sent to coolant recirculation pump 2664.
The control unit 2609 collects the signals from all the units and bring them into a computer data acquisition system, interprets them in real time and sends commands to all the elements of the systems as micro-pumps drivers, micro-switches, voltage and current controllers. The harvested energy collected on the wires 2693 from the energy converter modules and that collected from the burner's embedded direct energy collection structure is processed by the controller specialized unit in order to be delivered outside the structure with the appropriate voltage and current.
The burner module 2701 on the other side has another MEMS pumps 2707 that sucks the fuel from the burner 2779 and reintroduces in the center 2770 using customized fittings. The control unit 2709 controls the pumps driver in such a manner that through the differential pumping to assure a good flow inside and the right static and dynamic pressures and temperatures.
The burner 2701 has a customized modular structure allowing it to tightly couple with the converter module 2702. If the transmutation reaction is mainly used such a (H,Ni)→Cu, that generates in initial stage a Cu and a Ni recoil sharing several hundred keV the mass defect energy, there is no need for the direct conversion modules 2701 to blanket the burner 2701 all the released energy will be converter inside the burner structure in electricity and heat. If the fusion reactions are used a H, D, T or alpha particle will result being accompanied by a neutron only in neutronic fusion schemes. In all these situations the presence of the direct energy conversion module 2702 to blanket the burner 2701 is recommended.
The burner 2701 has the fuel come in from the supply module 2708 through the fittings 2780 is washing the burner structure interacting with the nuclear reaction facilitator material stored on the direct energy conversion hetero nano-structures 2710, warms up and is extracted thru the fittings 2779, reprocessed and reintroduced in the center through the fittings 2770. Inside the fuel fluid acts as coolant, and is exhausted through the fittings 2789 back into the supply unit's 2708 pump 2782 that compresses it and sends to be purified, cooled down in the heat exchanger 2783 and reused.
Inside the burner 2701 nano-structure the fuel is heated by the micro grid 2720 and accelerated towards the nano-structure 2710 by an electric field created by the controller 2709 applied between the plots 2792 and 2791, 2793.
The plot 2794 is used to collect the temperature, pressure data, and all the information is transmitted outside to a data acquisition and process control unit via the bus 2795.
On the burner nano-structure support, there is a “CIci” structure created, using for the “C” the material of the facilitator, or an alloy of a high electron density material with the facilitator material on the surface.
Because the released energy of the recoiled facilitator are relatively small of the order of few hundreds keV, the total length of the facilitator structure is in the order of about 1-2 microns thick. This dimension is a compromise between the acceptable mass of facilitator and acceptable surface for power extraction. The usage of the carbon nano-foils contributes to the process heat extraction by it's high heat conduction coefficient.
The average thickness of the burner stage is about 3-5 microns and being connected to fittings that seals it from the other stages of the converter.
The fuel 2821 enters the structure from the lateral side, and diffuses all over inside agglomerating inside the facilitator nano-structure. When the temperature in the nano-cluster and the electric field and fuel pressure outside the resonant mode builds-up and the nuclear reaction cross section increases. The fuel taking a part of the reaction heat exits the structure 2822 and is further reprocessed and reused.
The burner converter nano-structure is made of an external foil 28092802 that contains the nano-hetero structured pack. These foils are permeable leaving the fuel pass through and diffuse inside the nano-structure.
The next layer 2803 is a inherit “CIci” structure that does not contains facilitator material but acting as symmetric and of range in a bi-directional elemental cell.
A conductor 2804 that forms one plot of the power harvesting connected to the outside plot 2806 follows it. The other pole 2807 is connected to the opposite polarity layers.
The next “CIci” structure 2805 contains facilitator material structured in nano-wires or nano-clusters embedded on nano-tubes surface or facilitator coated nano-foils. This structure is repeated as many times as needed inside the burner core until all the energy is converted in electricity.
The “CIci” converting structures with facilitator embedded are structured in modules, separated by gaps with role in fuel circulation and accelerated diffusion 2808. The pole 2810 is used in connection with the pole 2806 to apply a heating current on the structure to reach the reaction optimal temperature and after started to maintain it. The V/I ratio is giving the resistance of the grid that warms the structure and that is temperature dependent being used to give an indication on the average temperature. The fuel flow is structured in such a manner as to minimize all the local abetments from the average temperature and keep the reaction homogenous in the facilitator volume.
As was clear stated before, the transmutation reaction energy is only a particular case of application of the structure. The main goal is to use the facilitator for deuterium aneutronic fusion that releases a 22.4 MeV from which the alpha particle takes about 95%, and the recoiled facilitator (Pd, Ni,Pt in this case) gets up to 300 keV. It is a tremendous need to harvest the energy of the alpha particle with maximum efficiency and that is why the lateral harvesting structures 2812, 2814 are added. The direct energy converters are attached to a separation nano-foil acting like a grid 2801 and 2811 connected to the local ground. The power generation in these “CIci” facilitator free device is taking place as previously described.
The energy conversion cell case 2900 is surrounding the nano-structure, and contains all the necessary fittings for fuel input 2960 and output 2961 in the burner as well the additional cooling agent 2970 and respectively the exit 2971.
The burner direct conversion nano-structures are marked by showing the lateral view of the possible paths inside that lattice of a recoiled facilitator nucleus 2902, if the reaction point is that marked 2901. The complementary fusion product path 2903 is longer because its kinetic energy is bigger.
This path crosses the normal harvesting structures 2920 that are grouped in sub modules separated by cooling interstices 2921 where a He flow is passing between the fixtures 2970 and 2971.
The near burner, normal direct conversion module 2904 has the surface customized to fit tight to the burner surface 2940 in order to contain the fuel flow inside the burner's direct conversion structure 2941 and between the specialized input 2960 and output 2961 fittings. For flow optimization reasons the burner contains interstices 2942 that facilitates the residual heat extraction.
The harvested electricity is collected at each module's plots 2910, and via specialized cords 2921 is driven to a local dc-converter 2920, that prepares the voltage to be summated in a summator-converter module 2928 and extracted 2929.
The local control units 2930 are connected to the process by specialized terminals and connections 2931, each burner module having a dedicated controller. All the controller signals are accumulated in a higher level controller 2938 that communicates via a bus 2939 with the external controller, that can be a computer or a dedicated unit.
These features of repetitive structure makes it easy scalable and redundant easy to be customized.
The hexagonal structure 3001 is made of a “C” material, and may include the facilitator material (Ni, Ti, Pd, Pt, etc.) coating in a nano-structured delta-layer. In this way it will be exposed to the nuclear fuel, 3011, a light isotope (H, D, T, 3He, B, etc.) that together with the facilitator generates a nuclear reaction when the nano-cluster-nuclear entanglement conditions are met.
The hexagonal structure external surface 3001 is coated in a “C” or “C″+”F″ (F stands for facilitator) material, is porous allowing nuclear fuel 3011 pass through. On inside it is coated by an insulator “I”, and may have a delta layer applied between, then another delta layer is applied to support the “c” layer 3002 that may also hold nano-clustered facilitator as a delta layer or in the alloy. The inside of the hexagonal structure is made of a porous insulating material 3003, that may be aero-ger, ceramics, etc., that depending on facilitator material type may contain it in the structure. In the porous insulator 3003 some “C” material nano-beads 3004 are floating. These nano-beads may be coated in the facilitator material “F” 3010, in order to expose it as much as possible to the nuclear fuel “NF” 3011 diffusing through the structure.
The exterior coatings with “C” porous layer 3001 is connected to the positive electric pole 3005, while the “c” layer 3002 is connected to the negative pole 3006. Due to the dimensions of the structure in tens of nm the expected voltages are in Volt domain, and serial parallel connections of the cells inside is required, in order to deliver higher voltages.
When the entanglement resonance conditions are met, in a position in the structure 3010 the reaction takes place and may have as products a recoiled medium mass nucleus 3008 that is usually a facilitator atom, and a by product that may be a facilitator transmutation or a fusion product 3009 that flies in opposite directions through the lattice. If the product is a fusion product 3007 it has a much longer range, about 30-50 microns than a transmutation product that usually drifts up to 100-200 nm.
It is desirable that the lattice to be light, porous and harvest the energies of both the transmutation 3008 and fusion products 3007. That makes necessary that on the reaction cell borders to have a zone without facilitator added to the structure, in order to assure the containment and energy harvesting of all the generated byproducts inside the direct conversion structure.
While the invention has been described in detail with reference to specific embodiments thereof, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made, and equivalents employed, without departing from the scope of the appended claims.
