The present disclosure relates to thermionic energy conversion.
A challenge in the development of thermionic energy converters is to run thermionic energy converters at temperatures that are lower than temperatures that have been used in previous applications. For example, typical thermionic energy converters used in space applications employed hot side temperatures on the order of 1700 K and cold side temperatures around 900 K in order to supply enough thermal energy to effectively ionize cesium vapor in the gap to mitigate space charge.
In these previous systems, the efficiency of energy conversion increased as the hot side temperature increased because ionization became easier to achieve.
As is known, arc drop (that is, energy loss associated with cesium ionization) is proportional to Te-Tc, where Te is the electron temperature entailed in sustaining a discharge and Tc is the cathode temperature. Arc drop derives from plasma configuring itself to form a sheath near the electrodes in which the voltage drop across the sheath is sufficient to accelerate electrons away from the cathode with enough energy to impact cesium neutrals to create ionization events while also acting to keep the bulk of the plasma quasi-neutral. This sheath creates an accelerating field that pulls positive ions to the walls, which are balanced by ion production to maintain an arc.
As is also known, thermionic energy converters can operate at temperatures <1500 K, thereby helping to make them more useful. For instance, lower temperatures are more compatible with natural gas burners. However, such traditional modes of operation may have low efficiency. Thus, it may be desirable to improve energy converter efficiency at reduced hot side temperatures in order to enable integration into lower temperature systems.
If a energy converter uses a refractory metal emitter that depends on cesium vapor equilibrium to set its work function, then to reduce the operating temperature, maintain similar emission, and maintain optimal emitter work function and electron emission, then the cesium pressure also should be reduced. This reduction in cesium pressure increases the arc drop (that is, energy loss associated with cesium ionization). This increase in the arc drop results in a reduction in energy conversion efficiency that is due to cesium ion flux to the walls occurring faster than with higher cesium pressure—because the cesium ion-neutral collisions no longer limit the cesium ion flux to the electrodes.
Previous attempts have been made to use a pulsed noble gas (such as, for example, argon or xenon) plasma to mitigate space charge in thermionic energy converters. However, large active areas and currents led to difficulties in applying fast pulses to ionize the gas. For instance, previous attempts did not exceed a voltage Vpulse>20 V at times shorter than 1 μs. Prior experiments with pulsed noble gas energy converters also did not report integrating cesium into the systems.
Various disclosed embodiments include thermionic energy converters and electronic circuitry for generating pulses for igniting plasma in a hermetic package of a thermionic energy converter.
In various embodiments, an illustrative thermionic energy converter includes a hermetic package charged with a non-cesium gas additive. A cesium reservoir is disposed in the hermetic package. The hermetic package is configured to route into the hermetic package pulses for igniting plasma in the hermetic package. A cathode is disposed in the hermetic package and an anode is disposed in the hermetic package.
In other embodiments, an illustrative thermionic energy converter includes a hermetic package charged with a non-cesium gas additive. A cesium reservoir is disposed in the hermetic package. A cathode is disposed in the hermetic package and an anode is disposed in the hermetic package. Electronic circuitry is configured to generate pulses for igniting plasma in the hermetic package.
In other embodiments, illustrative electronic circuitry is provided for generating pulses for igniting plasma in a hermetic package of a thermionic energy converter. A gate driver circuit is configured to generate a first gate driver signal and a second gate driver signal. At least one first metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) has a gate, a source, and a drain, and the gate of the at least one first MOSFET is electrically coupled to receive the first gate driver signal. At least one second metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) has a gate, a source, and a drain, and the gate of the at least one second MOSFET is electrically coupled to receive the second gate driver signal. A first capacitor is electrically connected between the drain of the at least one first MOSFET and a common ground, and a second capacitor is electrically connected between the source of the at least one second MOSFET and the common ground.
The foregoing summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. In addition to the illustrative aspects, embodiments, and features described above, further aspects, embodiments, and features will become apparent by reference to the drawings and the following detailed description.
Illustrative embodiments are illustrated in referenced figures of the drawings. It is intended that the embodiments and figures disclosed herein are to be considered illustrative rather than restrictive.
In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof. In the drawings, similar symbols typically identify similar components, unless context dictates otherwise. The illustrative embodiments described in the detailed description, drawings, and claims are not meant to be limiting. Other embodiments may be utilized, and other changes may be made, without departing from the spirit or scope of the subject matter presented here.
By way of overview, various disclosed embodiments include time-dependent plasma systems and methods for thermionic conversion. In various embodiments and by way of illustration only and not of limitation, space charge mitigation in a plasma-based thermionic energy converter system can be achieved at lower operating temperature than standard cesium-only based thermionics by use of a non-cesium gas additive, such as heavy noble gas additives (such as argon, xenon, or other noble gas or mixture of noble gases) or other gases, application of time-dependent pulsed waveforms, or a combination thereof.
It will be appreciated that in various embodiments inclusion of argon, xenon, or other noble gas or mixture of noble gases or other gases can help contribute to reducing cesium ion flux to the walls. It will also be appreciated that applying pulsed waveforms to ionize the cesium and/or the noble gas additives can help contribute to optimally ionizing the medium in the thermionic energy converter.
Now that an overview has been provided, illustrative details will be provided by non-limiting examples given by way of illustration only and not of limitation.
Referring now to
In various embodiments, the cathode 16 (sometimes referred to herein as an emitter) and the anode 18 (sometimes referred to herein as a collector) are housed in the hermetic package 12 (or assembly) that may be suitably sealed by a metal-ceramic-metal interface. Given by way of illustration only and not of limitation, a suitable metal-ceramic-metal interface is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 62/830,027, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
It will be appreciated that, in various embodiments, the cathode 16 and the anode 18 may include several materials. For example and in various embodiments, the cathode 16 can include cesiated polycrystalline, single crystal or highly oriented molybdenum, tungsten, platinum, iridium, or nickel. These materials can be applied to super-alloy materials such as Inconel, Kanthal, or Haynes alloy or similar in order to work under flame operation. In various embodiments the cathode 16 may include a refractory metal cathode. It will be appreciated that, in such embodiments, use of refractory metal cathodes can help permit operation of the thermionic energy converter 10 at lower temperatures than previous thermionic energy converters and at cesium pressures less than around 1/10th that of previous generations of thermionic energy converters.
In various embodiments the cathode 16 can be a more complicated cathode, such as without limitation an impregnated barium dispenser cathode, a barium oxide cathode, a scandate cathode, or the like. It will be appreciated that in such embodiments the cathode 16 is an extremely high current density cathode. Use of such extremely high current density cathodes can help enable ultra-short pulses to ignite the plasma in a thermionic energy converter. It will also be appreciated that use of high pressures of an inert gas as a diffusion barrier (as an additional functionality) may also help enable coupling of a cesium-based chemistry on the anode 18 (collector) and a barium-based chemistry on the cathode 16 (emitter) (in the case of dispenser cathodes or scandate cathodes).
As another example and in various embodiments, the anode 18 is typically nickel. However, it will be appreciated that the anode 18 is not limited to nickel. To that end, in some embodiments the anode 18 can be copper, stainless steel, or a variety of other metal materials that support low work function operation in the presence of cesium with partial pressures ranging from 0.1 mtorr-20 torr and oxygen containing compounds such as pure O2, Cs2O, or other cesium oxide compounds in pressures ranging from 10−6-10−2 torr.
In various embodiments the hermetic package 12 contains the cesium reservoir 14 and an oxygen source (not shown). In various embodiments the hermetic package 12 is precharged as desired with a non-cesium gas additive, such as heavy noble gas additives (such as argon, xenon, or other noble gas or mixture of noble gases) or other gases at a pressure of 0.1-100 torr at operating temperature. In some embodiments the noble gas may have gas properties that are selected to reduce electron-neutral scattering, cesium ion mobility, and/or heat conduction. In some embodiments the other gases may include a non-noble, molecular gas with gas properties that are selected to reduce electron-neutral scattering, cesium ion mobility, and/or heat conduction. In some such embodiments, the non-noble, molecular gas may include SF6, XeF6, or a mixture thereof.
In various embodiments, use of a mixed cesium vapor/noble gas chemistry means that high current density emitters such as, potentially, LaB6, cesiated molybdenum, cesiated tungsten, cesiated platinum/iridium, barium dispenser, barium oxide, and scandate cathodes may be used at lower cesium vapor pressures. It will be appreciated that such lower cesium vapor pressure can help contribute to achieving a low collector work function at lower temperatures. This low work function is desirable to power production and efficiency of the thermionic energy converter 10.
It will be appreciated that addition of substantial pressures of a noble/non-cesium gas as well as enabling use of lower cesium pressures can also help contribute to providing improvements to the power output of the thermionic energy converter 10 through two additional mechanisms which work to decouple emitter chemistry from collector chemistry. First, in a cesium-only thermionic energy converter, the cesium pressures optimal for the emitter and plasma are often higher than optimal for the anode, which can result in a higher anode work function and a lower voltage output. By enabling lower cesium pressures, the anode work function can be more easily tuned to its minimum value in a pulsed thermionic energy converter. Second, presence of a moderate pressure of an inert gas can help to reduce evaporation of material from the emitter to the collector by forming a gas-phase diffusion barrier. This effect, in the parameter space described here, can help contribute to reducing evaporation rates by around one-to-two orders of magnitude. This reduction of evaporation rates can help reduce or seek to eliminate accumulation of emitter material—including work-function-raising contaminants such as barium—on the anode 18. This reduction of accumulation of emitter material can help keep output voltage of the energy converter at or near its optimal value. A reduction of emitter evaporation rate via gas additives can also help contribute to prolonging the useful operating lifetime of the thermionic energy converter 10 by delaying known failure modes such as (but not limited to): increasing optical emissivity (a large parasitic heat loss in any thermionic energy converter) over time due to film buildup on electrode surfaces; degradation of electrical conductivity due to accumulation of oxidized evaporation products on the collector; spurious power-consuming arcs from point defects in evaporated films; and electrical shorting due to reduction in the vacuum gap over time.
Referring additionally to
As shown in
The gate driver U1 receives digital control signals on power_pulsein and ignition_pulsein pins. These signals are supplied by a microcontroller 37 (
The upper MOSFET M1 drain, connected to the upper_drain output, is used to connect the output of the thermionic energy converter 10 to a DC-DC energy converter stage (not shown) which increases the output voltage and lowers the current in order to make the output power of the thermionic energy converter 10 usable. The output of the upper MOSFET has a large amount of capacitance C1 (or Top C) to continue to feed the DC-DC energy converter current and voltage while the upper MOSFET M1 is turned off and the lower MOSFET M2 is supplying a pulse to the thermionic energy converter.
The lower MOSFET M2 is connected to the pulsed ignition capacitor bank C2 (or Bottom C) that is charged through the Ignition Voltage input connection to a negative voltage relative to GNDREF using a power supply (not shown). The capacitor bank C2 (or Bottom C) stores the energy for igniting the plasma or re-pulsing the plasma in the thermionic energy converter 10. The capacitor bank C2 (or Bottom C) smooths the draw of the power supply and allows for rapid discharge into the thermionic energy converter 10. The pulse ignition can range from −3 V to −500 V depending on parts selected and can support stringing several thermionic cells in series or parallel, or combinations thereof.
The DC-DC up conversion stage (not shown) is used to bring the raw output voltage of each thermionic energy converter 10 (which is on the order of 0.5 V) up to a usable voltage >5 V DC. Another inversion stage (not shown) can be used to turn the direct current (DC) into alternating current (AC) and to convert output voltage to 110-120 V or 208-240 V or another voltage output. If desired, this electrical power optionally can be further conditioned as desired. This electrical power also can be used to charge a battery and/or power other electronics and/or feed electricity into an electrical grid.
In order to be able to effectively pulse the thermionic energy converter 10, it is desirable that parasitic cabling capacitance and inductance be accounted for. This leads to designs which have short leads between the thermionic energy converter 10 and the half bridge pulsing board that are configured in a low inductance manner. These designs include using braided copper wires or flat copper planes that are next to each other to reduce parasitic inductance. Shorter pulses can be attained by, for example, using a transformer built into the thermionic energy converter 10 to mitigate cabling inductance by having higher voltage, lower current pulses delivered to the device that are then subsequently transformed into lower voltage higher current pulses with lower overall stray inductance limiting the pulse current rise and fall times. It will be appreciated that various embodiments will be able to route pulses having pulse widths of less than 1 microsecond, 500 nanoseconds, 300 nanoseconds, 150 nanoseconds, or 100 nanoseconds, as desired, with sufficiently low inductance so as to avoid significant power loss.
It will be appreciated that typical electronic components and printed circuit boards should be kept below around 100 C. As a result, these electronic components and printed circuit boards typically will be situated away from the hot side of the thermionic energy converter 10. In a combined heat and power (CHP) application, the electronic circuitry 20 can be situated near an air or water intake for the CHP unit—which also acts as a way to recover power electronics losses by preheating the air or water coming into the system.
It will be appreciated that wiring leads running into the power electronics should be thermally grounded to an air or water intake or another thermal sink in order to minimize heat flux entering the electronics and to maintain cool junction temperatures.
By way of illustration only and not of limitation, noble gas pressure is tuned to optimize power in a typical operating regime specified below. The pressure is set such that it limits diffusion of cesium outside the active area, suppresses evaporation of the cathode 16, and allows for ionization of cesium or argon/xenon/other gas/mixture thereof effectively while limiting ion flux to the electrodes (such as the cathode 16 and the anode 18).
Various embodiments of the energy converter operate with a hot side temperature between 1200-1700 K and a cold side temperature between 300-1000 K. The cesium reservoir 14 is set such that it has a pressure sufficient to lower the work function of the cathode 16 (emitter) and the anode 18 (collector).
In some embodiments, pulsing can be set to supply an ignition pulse that is very short (that is, less than or equal to 100 ns). When used in conjunction with a high current density cathode 16 (such as a barium dispenser cathode, a barium oxide cathode, a scandate cathode, or the like), such short pulsing can help contribute to improving overall efficiency of operation by reducing the time-averaged parasitic power drain associated with the ignition pulse. It will be appreciated that short pulsing can also help contribute to reducing degradation of the cathode 18 due to sputtering from ion bombardment during the ignition pulse—which has previously been recognized as a possible operational risk in published experiments with pulsed noble gas plasmas.
As mentioned above, the logic of sending pulses to ignite or reignite the plasma is controlled by the microcontroller 37. The microcontroller 37 monitors the system and supplies the digital control signals to the gate driver U1 on powerpulsein and ignitionpulsein pins to trigger switching of the MOSFETs M1 and M2 to achieve various goals as desired (such as maximize power output, maximize efficiency, modulate power output for demand response, and the like).
In various embodiments applying pulsed waveforms can include a “low-voltage” mode of pulsing in which only cesium is ionized and a “high-voltage” mode in which both cesium and the noble gas are ionized. In various embodiments that entail the “low-voltage” mode of pulsing, application of time-dependent pulsed waveforms can ignite plasma at a voltage that is sufficient to ignite cesium but that is insufficient to ignite heavy noble gas additives. In such embodiments, the heavy noble gas additives sustain the plasma such that the plasma does not have to be reignited with additional pulses. It will be appreciated that the “low voltage” mode of pulsing can help contribute to enhancing surface coverage of cesium on electrode surfaces by having cesium diffuse to the wall faster than it normally would in the absence of the applied voltage due to sheath potentials formed near the electrodes (that is, the cathode 16 and the anode 18). This pulsing can help improve emission characteristics of the emitting electrode (that is, the cathode 16).
In the “high-voltage” mode of pulsing, high voltages can be used to ionize the argon and/or xenon and/or other gas/mixture thereof. Thus, in the “high-voltage” mode of pulsing, both cesium and the noble gas are ionized.
It will be appreciated that ultra-fast pulses also can be used for pulse reignition only to ionize some of the neutrals (that is, atoms of either cesium or the non-cesium gas that have not yet been ionized and as such are still “neutral”—neither positive nor negative) to achieve partial space charge mitigation while helping to minimize pulsing losses. Referring additionally to
Experiments validating the fast-pulse mode discussed above have been performed. Referring additionally to
Referring additionally to
From the foregoing discussion it will be appreciated that mixing cesium vapor with noble gases (or other gases) may be desirable. First, such mixing may help contribute to improving ionization efficiency compared to a cesium-only thermionic energy converter—because scattering between the cesium ions and the neutral gas will limit cesium ion diffusion to the walls. Second, depending on the pulse voltage, the species of gas can be selectively ionized. That is, if pulsing between 5-10 V, cesium can be selectively ionized and the other gas can be used solely for diffusion limitation of the cesium ions. This allows lower voltage pulsing than previously proposed pulsed thermionic energy converters that incorporated noble gases—which in turn can help contribute to saving power and improving efficiency. It will be appreciated that this mode of operation can be extended into a self-sustaining struck mode (in which a plasma arc is maintained continuously due to ionization from electrons accelerated by the cathode sheath as described above).
However, it will be appreciated that pulsing also can be used to help improve ionization fraction and current flowing through the thermionic energy converter. Modulation of pulse parameters (voltage, pulse length, duty cycle, and the like) then can be used to modulate power output of a thermionic energy converter as well at nanosecond-to-microsecond to millisecond timescales.
In various embodiments, the pulsing signal 30 can be supplied to the cathode 16 or the anode 18. In some other embodiments, discussed further below, the pulsing signal 30 may be supplied to an additional electrode that is independent of the cathode 16 and the anode 18. Regardless, it will be appreciated that the pulsing signal 30 is generated exterior the hermetic package 12 and is routed into the hermetic package 12 to the appropriate electrode in any suitable, known manner.
Referring additionally to
Referring additionally to
Referring additionally to
As shown in
As shown in
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Applying the pulses 30 to the separate electrode 36 also allows for longer duration pulses 30 than in a two-electrode device. This can help contribute to making for simpler and less expensive pulsing electronics 20. Furthermore, the separate electrode 36 can either be pulsed positively to accelerate electrons towards it, or it can be designed to emit electrons (for example, by heating it for thermionic emission) and then pulsed negatively to accelerate the emitted electrons into the gap 38. Depending on the specific design and properties of the thermionic energy converter 10 and the electronic circuitry 20, one of the electrodes 36 may provide for higher-efficiency or higher-power operation.
While various aspects and embodiments have been disclosed herein, other aspects and embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art. The various aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are for purposes of illustration and are not intended to be limiting, with the true scope and spirit being indicated by the following claims.
This patent application claims priority to U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 62/912,637 filed Oct. 9, 2019 and entitled “Time-Dependent Plasma Systems and Methods For Thermionic Conversion,” the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
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