Patent Application
20140097083
The invention relates generally to modifying the rates and branches of three-body association reactions, and in particular to modifying the effective mass of the electron quasiparticle forming a transient covalent bond with energetic associating entities.
Nano-surface physical chemistry during the last dozen years revealed an unexpected reaction that released most of the vibrational oscillation energy of a molecule to a single electron bonded to the molecule—in one step. It was unexpected because vibrations cannot lose that much energy in one quantum step. It was immediately useful because the fast moving single electron can be a useful electric current. Molecular internal vibration energy had been efficiently converted into electric current in one quantum step. Nienhauss (1999) and Huarig (2000) started this work. The electron was assumed to have an effective mass of 1 electron.
At first, experimenters supplied the energy to cause the molecular constituents to oscillate with the large amplitude apparently needed to cause the direct electron ejection. Molecules excited by a laser or free radical chemical reactants collided with a conductor surface and energetic electrons were directly ejected. Direct charge ejection only happened on a conductor. Wodtke 2008 explained how these happen, and tells why the Observations seemed to be impossible. They would violate a principle of physics referred to as the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation (BOA), where highly energetic vibrational energy cannot be quenched in one step.
Ji et al, used chemical fuels to supply the vibrational energy, as in
Multiple, repeated experiments using a range of chemical constituents confirmed the enigmatic observations now referred to as “Vibrationally Promoted Electron Emission” (VPEE), according to LaRue 2011.
The three-body nature of the VPEE process converted reaction energy into electricity. The crucial role of the low mass third body can be understood intuitively using a property of a covalent bond modeled simply by the theory of the H2+ ion, where two positives are bonded together by the negative electron between them.
The positive nuclei, protons, are attracted by the electron between them, repelled by their like charges (a weaker effect because of 1/rr coulomb forces), and repelled by the quantum-mechanical “Heisenberg pressure” of the electron when it is confined to a small region between the positive entities. At the inner turning point, the Heisenberg pressure prevents collapse of the electrons into the protons, and pumps all the vibration energy entirely into the electron.
When the vibration energy is sufficient, the electron can absorb all the energy and be ejected, leaving the entities associated together with relatively little energy. The entities must be able to bond without an electron between them. This occurred in VPEE and also occurred in processes referred to as “Vibrational Autoionization.”
VPEE enabled the reaction to go in this direction or branch. This branch represents a three body association reaction. Two heavy objects begin completely separate and far apart. Their attraction causes them to collide violently together with the full system energy. The low mass electron between them is forced to stay between them by coulomb electric forces if the bodies are electrically relatively positive. If the two bodies can form a stable product without the electron, they can associate together and form a stable product. If the electron can take the excess energy away, the result is a three-body association reaction with the products associated and relatively less energetic. The research did not emphasize this analogy to a three body association reaction. VPEE was not known until recently.
in VPEE, the third body, an electron, comes from a conductor. It is attracted out of the conductor by the electrical forces of the other two bodies. The two bodies promptly pump up the electron energy as the two bodies attempt to merge into one, sending the electron back into the conductor with a substantial fraction of the association reaction energy. The electron effective mass as a control over the reaction itself was not considered.
LaRue et al (2011) observed one VPEE surface reaction outcome where apparently all the available bond energy was transferred from the chemical system to a single electron. No connection was made to use modified electron effective mass to enhance the yield of this most useful branch.
Effective mass can be changed by crystal momentum. An unexplained, and in some cases dramatic acceleration of chemical, hydrocarbon oxidation reaction rates on a thin, Pd or Pt catalyst surface was reported by several different research groups (Inoue et al, Saito et al., Kelling et al., King et al.). Their common process included a piezoelectric Surface Acoustic Wave generator supporting the thin catalyst that incidentally injected crystal momentum into the reaction surfaces.
None of this research taught or proposed that the rate of reaction or the branch of the reaction could be modified by transiently changing the effective mass of the electron quasiparticle abstracted from the conductor.
Concurrently, dozens of research groups reported claims of large total heat energy anomalously generated in conductors hosting reactants. Chemical processes could not supply such large energy. The same experiments invariably displayed stable isotopes not present in the initial materials. Radiation and nuclear reaction products were not observed except as almost immeasurable traces near the detection limit, thereby eliminating known nuclear processes as the main reaction branch. These observations would be dismissed as impossible and flawed experimental technique, except that when taken in their entirety the observations revealed the characteristic signature of VPEE, but with an elevated electron quasiparticle effective mass.
Common elements were observed in all the anomalous observations. A reactant ion apparently always moved through the conductor as if it were delocalized along with the delocalized electrons of the conductor. In each successful anomalous reaction, the mass-energy (E=m c2) of the reactants always exceeded the mass energy of the product of the same reactants if associated together. The energy always appeared as heat, and not in the expected ways where nuclear products and radioactive entities dominate.
The key common element is that each anomalous observation was accompanied by processes that imparts crystal momentum to an electron in the lattice. The term “crystal momentum” is a solid state physics term associated with the band structure diagram of crystals. Adsorption and description result in addition or subtraction of crystal momentum. Electromigration, ion flow in ionic electrolytes, and certain laser excitation act similarly. When hydrogen or deuterium reactant was injected into the materials a crystal momentum was added to the lattice. Crystal momentum injection was always present.
Others reported anomalous heat energy production and stable isotopes after a high peak power electron current pulse was passed through a metal immersed in water or heavy water. In some pulsed electron beam experiments, the only chemical element present is the target, a copper metal element. In other experiments, traces of unexplained highly energetic particles of unknown type are recorded in detectors placed tens of centimeters from the target. Boiling electrolytes were associated with anomalous reaction. A highly energetic, short pulse laser caused nuclear reaction products in materials holding either hydrogen or deuterium.
All of the anomalous isotope observations are either predicted by or consistent with three body association reactions with nuclei if the electron were heavier than it is. None of these experimental claims made any known connection to VPEE processes. Nor was any mention made of the common feature of crystal momentum added to electrons.
Many theorists suggested that an electron in a conductor with elevated effective mass could cause the observed reaction rates if the process were nuclear fusion, a two body process. However, the lack of nuclear products excludes two body fusion. Widom et al. showed how an electron quasiparticle in the conductor could acquire the required, elevated effective mass. Their electron appears to have far too much kinetic energy to bond with the reactants. No one considered a process generating a transient elevated effective mass with low kinetic energy.
Several authors calculated the reaction particle atom size as a function of electron effective mass for reactants including those used in anomalous chemistry experiments. An effective mass between about 6 and about 12 was shown to be sufficient to account for observed reaction rates if tunneling caused fusion. Mizuno calculated steady state effective mass values as high as 10 for particles with dimension as small as 10 lattice numbers. However, fusion would produce energetic products, while only tiny traces were observed. Many authors taught that such electrons would engage in a nuclear weak interaction forming neutrons. Neutrons had only been observed as a trace.
No one taught that such a tunneling can initialize the equivalent of VPEE with total vibration energy thermally slightly greater than the reaction energy. No one taught that these high energy reactions have schematics and potential energy diagrams functionally the same as the chemical counterparts.
The literature did not reveal or teach that the potential energy diagram and schematic of the anomalous chemistry processes seemed to be nearly identical to that of VPEE, as in
Missing in the literature was a requirement to add specific ranges of crystal momentum and energy to a conduction electron. This disclosure shows the value of this requirement. The literature did not teach that in all known cases where experiments observed or described anomalous effects, there always existed a process that generated both a substantial pulse of crystal momentum injected directly into a conductor immersed in reactant(s) and in a way that would transiently modify the effective mass of the electron. Godes ignored the need to intimately couple momentum with the electron.
No experiments and none of the theories mention or show how to generate a transient ensemble of elevated effective mass electrons that can be used in any of the desired ways.
It would be highly useful to be able to generate transient populations of elevated mass electron quasi particles having almost no kinetic energy in or on a conducting material where ions are also delocalized in or on the material.
Processes and devices are described to control the reaction rate and reaction branch between two reactants of certain three body association reactions. Such reactions include two relatively positive atoms, molecules or nuclei that can form a stable product, and a low mass negative particle, an electron quasiparticle, as the third body. Embodiments dynamically control the effective mass of the electron quasiparticle, which provides the desired control.
One controlled reaction branch starts with reactants and an electron together having a total energy well in excess of a ground state of a product consisting of just the reactants without the electron. When one models raising the effective mass, m*, from a value far below the electron rest mass to far above, one finds that a threshold exists below which no reaction occurs. The two reactants and the electron do not bond. At threshold, all the reaction energy can be taken away from the reaction by a single electron quasiparticle, leaving the associated product with no excess energy. The product is two atoms, molecules or nuclei that associate into one, in the ground state.
Sharply contrasting familiar two-body nuclear or chemical fusion reactions, this controlled branch of the three-body association reaction can result in complete conversion of the available reaction energy into a form of electrical energy in one step, in the form of electron quasiparticle kinetic energy. This effect can be well described by recent discoveries from Physical Chemistry referred to as “Vibrationally Promoted Electron Emission,” (VPEE) and “Vibrational Autoionization,” but only if we raise or lower the electron quasiparticle effective mass.
The problem of controlling the rate and/or branch of such a reaction is solved by raising or lowering the effective mass of the low mass third body, the negative charge.
The problem of raising the electron effective mass in a conductor is solved in part by adding both crystal momentum and energy to an electron thermally close to the Fermi level, which is a semiconductor physics method. Electrons in metals, semiconductors and insulators can often be modeled and used as quasiparticles that respond to forces as if they had an effective mass that is heavier or lighter than a real electron. This formalism is an approximation in a model where the electrons and ion quasiparticles move and act as if they were real particles with modified properties. The model applied to nuclei, referred to as an electro-nuclear reaction, describes the combined effect of (1) protons and electrons accelerated by the electric coulomb force and (2) the same protons with adjacent neutron(s) accelerated by the nuclear strong force.
The electron quasiparticle effective mass at a given energy, E, and momentum, k, is proportional to the reciprocal of the curvature of the band structure diagram at (k,E). The problem of modifying the effective mass of an electron quasiparticle in a conductor or crystal is solved by locating an inflection point on the electron band structure diagram, where the curvature approaches zero, selecting a point near it with the required, pre-calculated curvature, and injecting the corresponding energy E and crystal momentum k into the lattice to place an electron quasiparticle at that point or in a distribution including that point. The resulting electron kinetic energy can be modified in a way where electrons have only thermal kinetic energy.
The problem of coupling the modified effective mass with a reactant is solved by delocalizing the reactant in the same location as the delocalized, thermal electron quasiparticle. The reactant becomes a delocalized ion quasiparticle. Embodiments delocalize the ion by providing the energy needed to permit it to surmount the confining potentials in the crystal, or to tunnel through them, exactly as in semiconductors. These are completely analogous to the electron and hole charge carrier quasiparticles in semiconductors which form the basis for light emitting diodes.
Embodiments take advantage of the property found in similar, atom-like quasiparticles in semiconductors called excitons. Excitons and atom quasiparticles can respond like a single entity, and can be formed from electron quasiparticles with modified effective mass. Such quasiparticles in conductors and semiconductors act as if they were a real particle and can form transient molecules or liquids, but only during the lifetime of the quasiparticle. The problem of causing a three body electro-nuclear association reaction with modified electron effective mass is solved in part by using atom quasiparticles as reactants. Controlling quasiparticle effective mass is only required for as long as it takes for the reaction to occur, which is typically less than tens of femtoseconds.
The resulting atom quasiparticle can form a transient covalent bond with relatively positive reactants, such as atoms, molecules or nuclei. The problem of providing the proper reaction environment is solved by embedding the reactants in or on a solid state semiconductor or conductor and modifying the effective mass of co-located electron quasiparticles. A conductor can be synthesized transiently from a semiconductor or insulator.
Embodiments limiting particle size can enhance performance. Limits to the largest useful particle size include the mean free paths of the electrons and phonons, and the distance an electron travels during a half period of the highest energy optical phonon. The resulting particle dimension is typically of order 2 to 15 nanometers. The elevated effective mass is a transient with a lifetime directly limited by these mean free paths and distances. The lifetime is of order 1 to 10 femtoseconds.
The problem of injecting crystal momentum can also be solved by bombarding the reaction particles with energetic masses. The problem of controlling the magnitude of the momentum injection is solved in one method by including tailored momentum injection materials having a calculated bombardment momentum close to the optimum. The optimum is given by the E vs k band diagram, as described above. Bombardment energies include, for example, the adsorption or desorption energy, a chemisorption energy or a physisorption energy.
Many methods are known to inject crystal momentum, including electromigration, electrically overdriving a current through the conductor, energizing materials surrounding the reaction particle to adsorb and/or desorb, energizing the region around the reaction particles with electric current or extreme current pulses in a way that energizes tailored momentum injection materials, direct injection of particles using devices such as electrically driven ion guns or electrolytes, exciting optical phonons, electrically causing oscillatory motion in nanomechanical resonators connected to the reaction particle, using Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) devices, and using nanomechanical oscillators such as single walled nanotubes or C60 placed in contact with the reaction particles and caused to oscillate with applied potential.
A simple method to optimize the lifetime of the transients is to physically disconnect the reaction particles from any other masses, e.g. to arrange for the reaction particles to exist in the transient vacuum existing during a time less than the mean time between gaseous collisions, which is typically about 100 picoseconds. Surrounding the particles with tailored momentum injection materials and energizing the materials to become gaseous without substantially destroying the reaction particles provides such a vacuum around the particles. An approximation to this includes forming and using weakly connected reaction particles, such as sponge-like connections, percolation connections, or nodule-like links to each other.
The problem of injecting energy into the electron quasiparticles is solved using any one of a plethora of known methods, including injecting energetic photons such as are produced in semiconductor light emitting devices, lasers, electric arcs, glow discharges, and injecting hot electrons produced by forward biased diodes and junctions, and by injecting heat.
Other features and associated advantages will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art with reference to the following detailed description of example embodiments in connection with the drawings described below.
The accompanying drawings, Which are included as part of the present specification, illustrate the presently preferred embodiment and together with the general description given above and the detailed description of the embodiments given below serve to explain and teach the principles of the present teachings.
The disclosure and the various features and advantageous details are explained more fully with reference to the non-limiting embodiments that are illustrated in the accompanying drawings and detailed in the following description. Descriptions of well-known starting materials, processing techniques, components, and equipment are omitted so as not to unnecessarily obscure the invention in detail. It should be understood, however, that the detailed description and the specific examples, while indicating embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only and not by way of limitation. Various substitutions, modifications, additions, and/or rearrangements within the spirit and/or scope of the underlying inventive concept will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.
To describe the embodiments that control the rate and branch of transient, stimulated three-body association reactions where the third body is an electron quasiparticle with modified effective mass it is best to briefly describe the physical phenomena whose application is part of the embodiment.
This disclosure shows how to control the branch and rate of stimulated three-body association reactions by dynamically controlling and modifying the effective mass of the low mass third body, an electron quasiparticle. The first two bodies are reactants.
During the last dozen years, researchers discovered and began to understand an enigmatic set of observations of physical chemistry now referred to as “Vibrationally Promoted Electron Emission.”
As shown schematically in
Electricity was generated as shown in
The product of the three body association reactions had exactly the same constituents as the reactants in both the chemical case and the anomalous chemistry case. For example, the product CO2 of the chemical association reaction has exactly the same atom constituents as the reactants adsorbed CO and O. The CO2 was in in a low energy state because the energy was measured and accounted for. The energy would become heat within 10 femtoseconds if the diode did not convert it into electricity.
A similar situation is observed in descriptions of anomalous chemistry experiments. The products of the association of reactants, such as a proton with nickel-62, or of two deuterium, or of cesium and deuterium mixtures, always had exactly the same number of protons and neutron constituents. The energy was only observed as heat. The reaction branches appeared to be “proton+e−*+Ni-62 gives Cu-63 and heat; deuteron+e−*+deuteron gives helium-4 and heat; Cs-137+4e−*+4 deuterons gave Pr-145.
The potential energy diagrams of the chemical case, as in
We should therefore expect the same result when we combine the nuclei of two chemicals when one is an atom quasiparticle and the other is another positively charged nucleus. The result should be a single electron ejected with excess energy typically in the range of 5 to 25 million electron volts, compared to the chemical energy of about 3 to 4 electron volts. In principle, this means we could harvest 25 million units of electrical energy from an electro-nuclear battery or energy source, compared to chemical's 3 or 4.
However, this nuclear process cannot happen at all. The electron has too low a mass. Its Heisenberg repulsive force is higher and greater than the available nuclear attractive force when the electron is confined to a nuclear dimension of the product nucleus. The process can only happen if the electron quasiparticles acquire an elevated effective mass. An elevated effective mass would result in less repulsive force. This reaction branch is “turned OFF” by a low value of effective mass, m*. The chemical reaction of
Embodiments elevate the effective mass by adding a targeted amount of crystal momentum Δk and a targeted amount of energy ΔE to place the electron into a targeted region of the E vs. k band structure diagram for conduction band electrons, as suggested in
Choose the target (k,E) point by selecting a desired effective mass, calculating a curvature, and then selecting the point (k,E) with that curvature. The values shown would increase the effective mass.
As shown in
When one models the effect of modifying effective mass one discovers a threshold exists. As shown in
The electron quasiparticle between the nuclei pushes against the reactants due to the Heisenberg uncertainty energy. At threshold, the electron quasiparticle has absorbed all the excess kinetic energy of the two nuclei coming together violently, with the ˜ many MeV energy of a nuclear bond.
In
At threshold, the electron quasiparticle has taken with it the entire reaction energy. The results, as shown in
This renders obvious how embodiments of the invention control reactions and their branches. Embodiments decrease effective mass to turn off a reaction and increase it to turn on a reaction, as shown in
At maximum m* the reaction has maximum internal vibration energy and produces energetic reaction products, for example, like that observed with laser excited NO in the original VPEE experiments. The product was internally excited to vibration levels from about 1 thru about 10. The threshold m* for the excited state NO reaction is less than 1. An m* less than 1 is typically found in semiconductors.
A key element in embodiments is a delocalized reactant ion. An elevated effective mass electron quasiparticle can combine with a delocalized positive ion and then with another positive nucleus to form a three body, transient covalent bond. As shown in
Fusion and three body association reactions produce entirely different reaction branches. Two body fusion of a proton and boron-11 results in three energetic alpha particles. A transient, stimulated three body association reaction at threshold produces carbon-12 and about 25 MeV electron quasiparticle.
As shown in
The target value of (k,E) is achieved by injecting (Δk, ΔE) into a region near the desired point (k,E). This region is inadvertently populated by the haphazard injection. All the other regions consume the energy to populate them but are not yet known to produce effects.
The haphazard method has a distinct advantage because a typical band structure diagram has many inflection points. The haphazard method simply accesses many of them, and even each of them.
Embodiments using this haphazard method using electrolysis generating glowing arcs around the electrodes immersed in reactant gas or electrolyte liquid. Embodimens use the pulsed discharges through metal foils immersed in reactant. These activate the desired regions of (k,E) at the expense of energy efficiency.
It would be advantageous to be able to use reactants and reactables with a high affinity for negative charge. A positive, low mass quasiparticle is required between them. Embodiments would use a semiconductor in which a hole is the positive quasiparticle and reactants with a negative charge or affinity for negative charge can be delocalized. It is recognized that positive real mass ions may act like negative particles when excited to higher energy portions of the E vs k band diagram for the positive ions. A corresponding real electron may act like a positive particle in a similar way, for example, at k values above the inflection point.
The crystal momentum and energy injection is a transient process and only lasts as long as the quasi particles retain their properties. This time is when electrons in the conductor are “ballistic,” meaning “before they collide with something,” and is of order the “mean time between collisions,” which is of order 1-10 femtoseconds for conduction electrons in metals. The corresponding mean free path is typically of order 1-50 nm.
The crystal momentum value is also transient because it energizes phonons. The phonon energy also changes when phonons propagate and hit something. Energized phonons will exist for a time of order 500-20,000 femtoseconds. A particle with dimension sufficiently small that the highest energy phonon is not activated lengthens the time during which electrons cannot dissipate their energy to phonons. It is a tradeoff returning longer electron quasiparticle lifetime. This dimension is also of order 5-15 nm in many materials.
As shown in
The key elements of a practical device include reaction particle participants, a pump system and an energy sensor system.
As shown in
Each of the conducting reaction particles have a minimum dimension, D, across the conducting reaction particles 3004. In one embodiment, the distribution of the minimum dimension across the particles of the one or more conducting reaction particles includes particles having the dimension across the particle less than a maximum, nominally 15 nanometers. The optimum dimension is a function of many variables and is not under 15 nm for many situations of interest. In other embodiments, choice of targeted dk and dE may Obviate this limitation.
A pump system, shown in
Configure the electron energy pump 3103 to inject at least the energy of a chosen, target inflection point. Configure the crystal momentum pump 3102 to inject at least the crystal momentum near to the inflection point. In both cases, electron and phonon thermalization allows “near to” to mean in the same Brilloin Zone and corresponding to an energy or energy derived from momentum to be greater than 5 kT less than the desired value, where T is temperature and k is Boltzman's constant.
The delocalizing pump, the electron energy pump and the crystal momentum pump can in some configurations be accomplished with one and the same device and method. Many methods are known and have been used in anomalous chemistry experiments.
Many methods to fabricate tailored crystal momentum injection material 3104 can be used, including using reactants, electrolytes, reactables, tailored materials, and even parts of the reaction particle itself. For example, the titanium foil used by Urutskoev disintegrates and can produce byproducts which react, adsorb and desorb, chemisorb and physisorb on a titanium or titanium dioxide reactant. Tailored crystal momentum byproducts include heavy water, water electrolysis metal and metal oxides resulting from the disintegrating, high current pulses.
Embodiments designed to target dL, dk and dE values to enhance efficiency include a crystal momentum pump dk 3501 to inject phonons 3508 into a reaction particle 3503 containing a delocalizable reactant 3504 and a reactable 3505, sketched in
A complete system to control reaction branches, reaction rates, and association or dissociation processes includes a sink for exhausts such as heat and reaction products, as shown in
An optical source can be used as an electron energy pump. A pulsed laser can provide not only tailored energy values but also sequenced pump timing. An efficient electron pump adds electron energy after crystal momentum has been injected and during the lifetime of the resulting energized phonons. The appropriate pulse durations are a function of specific configurations. The pulse durations are typically orders of magnitude shorter than the time between collisions of gas molecules such as air or vaporized reaction participants and vaporized materials surrounding reaction participants.
The injection of electron energy can be done in many ways. For example, a forward biased Schottky diode has been successfully used to inject 1-5 volt electrons into a nano-meters thick surface exposed to reactants, specifically for the (somewhat failed) purpose of causing changes in reaction rates. The electron energy is directly related to the band discontinuities, and manifests as a Schottky barrier or band discontinuity. Other similar solid state devices include a forward biased pn junction and a metal-insulator-metal junction, which have also been used for hot electron injection.
An embodiment sketched in
The energy sensor system includes an sensor configured to detect and/or measure one or more emissions by any reactions that may be stimulated. Note that an engine or electric generator is a sensor with quantifiable output 326.
An embodiment sketched in
An electron energy pump can comprise an electric energy source 323 configured to pass an electric current or pulsed current through the reaction participants 327. An energetic reactant and reaction particle combination in one embodiment includes reactants including deuterium and a reaction particle including palladium.
Examples of some products of three body association reactions are shown in
Diode energy converters should be located within the range of emitted electrons. A semiconductor- or metal-insulator-metal diode may be directly connected to a reaction particle. Pulsed operation in conjunction with a heat sink ensures that the energy converter temperature remains lower than the effective temperature of the collected electrons. Pulsed pump systems therefore have the advantage.
As sketched in
A mass energized by emissions can also serve as an energy sensor. For example, the thermionic diode 3408 and heat sink 3409 can be replaced by the working fluid of a turbine engine or the propellant of a rocket, both guided by aerodynamic flow controls such as nozzles and diffusers. The sensed output 3408 could then be momentum and/or energy density of the flow.
In embodiments, forming the reaction participants to be thinner than the distance penetrated by the energetic emissions can minimize energy losses. For example, an approximate monolayer of 5 nm average dimension D of reaction particles can be used both as reaction particle and as electrode for a proton electrolyte.
Using a proton electrolyte to inject reactants and/or as a delocalizer is useful, especially if used in a pulsed mode.
Useful tailored crystal momentum materials include water, heavy water, hydrogen sulfide, conductors used for hydrogen storage, and electrolytes.
Embodiments using an efficient injection sequence first inject reactants, delocalize them, add crystal momentum, and finally add electron energy, in that order. This sequence starts with the longest process and ends with the shortest. The electron energy will therefore be immersed in the desired crystal momentum.
It is useful to use separate delocalizer, electron energy injector, and crystal momentum injectors. One way to do this places reaction particles on a nonconducting substrate to support the particles.
A device can increase the efficiency of crystal momentum addition by including materials that adsorb, desorb, chemisorb or physisorb with the reaction particles at a temperature lower than the melting point of the reaction particles.
Experiments in anomalous chemistry suggest that an effective pump system discharges sufficient electrical energy in a pulse to destroy or vaporize some components of the reaction region. A useful device includes a pump that may operate destructively. A natural phenomenon with characteristics apparently matching the key elements of a transient, stimulated three-body association reaction is bail lightning. Reactant candidates include delocalized proton (H), delocalized electron, and carbon-13 in glowing carbon conductors, for example, from tree wood soot energized by the electric pulse of a lightning stroke.
In one possible reaction branch, the resulting highly energetic electron would be ejected from the reaction region as a relativistic electron quasiparticle. Such electrons were never acknowledged. The relativistic electron quasiparticle, born with low momentum and energy typically between 5 MeV and 25 MeV, in the vicinity of the product or nearby nuclei may cause the electro-nuclear equivalent of Desorption Induced by Electronic Transitions (DIET), summarized by Frischkorn. This would result in apparent fissions where groups of particles are ejected in relatively low internal energy states, exactly as observed in DIET. The result is the inverse of a three body association reaction, which is a stimulated three body dissociation reaction. Experimental evidence supporting this are observations of isotopes with atomic mass number less than the mass of the heaviest isotope.
One can also expect excited states not readily accessible by two body reactions and with unfamiliar lifetimes and reaction products.
in another possible reaction branch the electron wave functions making up the electron quasiparticle will dephase into the constituent electrons making up the quasiparticle. Dephasing is estimated to occur in a time less than the mean time between collisions, tau_mfp ˜10 femtoseconds.
Using a Warmier function representation where all the electron wave functions couple to form a localized electron quasiparticle, dephasing can result in each electron sharing the total energy. Because the number of conduction electrons in a particle of 10 nm dimension can be Ne˜100,000, the dephasing time can be as small as tau_mfp/√Ne, ˜2E−17 seconds. After some time between 2E−17 seconds and 1e−14 seconds the average energy of each electron can become the shared value of order “Reaction Energy”/“number of electrons”. This is the basis for the simplest energy conversion embodiments. In this reaction branch, all the electrons involved collide at a rate given by the mean time between collisions, and complete thermalization can occur during the time of one collision.
An estimate of the energy per electron after a dephasing time uses a cubic particle with “radius” equal to about one electron mean free path. With about 3 Pd atoms per nanometer and between 2 and 10 electrons taking part in the conductivity, there are of order “2 to 10 electrons”×cube of “2×5 nm radius×3 atoms per nm”, or between 54E3 and 270e3 electrons that could share the reaction energy. Sample energy ranges include ˜25 MeV for a d−e*−Boron10 reaction, ˜23 MeV for d−e*−d, ˜18 Mev for p−e*−boron-11, ˜16 MeV for d−e*−Ti49 and ˜7 MeV for p−e*−Ni64 reaction. These sample the most quoted reactions.
In the limit, all the electrons take part and the energy ranges therefore between between ˜26 and ˜460 eV/electron. The initial high voltage, single electron current can dephase within one mean collision time to low voltage, high current, with 50 to 250,000 electrons having from 26 to 460 electron volts energy. These energies are compatible with solid state energy sensors and converters. An effect resembling this has been observed in anomalous chemistry.
These energies are above known work functions in metal nanoparticles. Work functions range from about 1 eV to about 6 eV in metals. All electrons with energy above the work function will escape the particle as soon as energized if the dimension travelled is less than the mean free path of the given electron. The result would appear to be an electron explosion, with the particle retaining an equal positive charge.
Note again that in this branch, the dephasing can complete in a time less than one mean collision time, unlike simple electron-electron collisions, because the Wannier function can use as many electrons as the number of the electrons in the particle to participate in the effective mass. This branch and energy result is consistent with and predicted by electronic friction by IDS Gumhalter et al.
In another possible branch, the energy is shared among the number of electrons given by the effective mass, in the range ˜50 to ˜100 electrons. The electron energy would then be in the range from about 7 MeV to 25 Mev in about 50-100 electrons, or between 70 keV and 500 keV.
As suggested in
A highly energetic, 5 to 25 MeV electron quasiparticle emitted from a three body electro-nuclear association reaction can also collide with and energize other electrons in the conductor much faster than it can lattice atoms. These collisions dissipate energy into other electron quasiparticles in the conductor. This reaction path also results in a spray of energized electrons sharing the total energy. In one embodiment, the energy can be the entire 5-25 MeV electron quasiparticle energy. An embodiment would convert the apparent energetic electron explosion into electrical potential.
When a distribution of elevated effective mass electron quasi particles are created in a region including delocalized ions with more than one positive charge it is expected that the heavy electrons can, transiently, quickly replace all the electrons of the ion. The resulting bare, positive nuclei may also take part in transient, stimulated three body electro-nuclear association reactions. Adamenko may have observed this in his copper targets. Bare carbon nuclei would associate to Magnesium. Ball lightning may be doing this. The reaction may therefore include multi-body association reactions where multiple modified effective mass electrons take part and are emitted. Embodiments would sense these electrons.
A person having ordinary skill in this art is well versed in VPEE, quantum mechanics of effective mass at inflection points, chemical physics of nanometer dimension particles, surface catalysis reactions, desorbtion induced by electronic transitions, nuclear reaction pathways, and in known conventional methods of energy conversion. This person therefore recognizes that the direct charge ejection can also result in energizing and pressurizing any material, mass or working fluid.
Rocket propulsion may use stimulated three body electro-nuclear association reactions to energize whatever propellant is available in a thermal rocket. Lunar regolith, asteroidal regolith, dust, ice, water, steam, comet dust hydrocarbons, and the atmospheres of planets and moons can be used as a rocket propellant. Hydraulic fluids can be energized in many ways and are exceptionally weight efficient in application of hydraulic pistons and hydraulic rotary engines. Gasses used in turbine engines may be energized. These are only a few, more obvious examples and are shown generically in
Embodiments use methods to tailor the value of the injected crystal momentum.
p=√(2 m E).
where p is the momentum, m is the adsorbate mass and E is the adsorption energy. This suggests that any entity with the same m−E product will impart the same momentum. There are a plethora of materials from which to choose, each with a different adsorption/chemisorption/physisorption energy E and molecular mass m. Various methods to cause adsorption and desorption are well known to those with ordinary skills in the art.
For example, the adsorption energy of hydrogen or deuterium adsorption releases ˜4 eV, and has mass ˜1 or 2. This imparts more than 50 times the momentum of the first Brillouin Zone (BZ). It would be advantageous to decrease the energy to the range of ˜100 millivolts, like that of the first BZ, and incidentally like that of physisorptions.
Additionally, when the energy is relativistic with energy exceeding the electron rest mass and when the reaction particle is a nucleus, this can result in desorption of collections of stable isotope subsets of a nucleus. These are not fission products. Requiring energy, they are ejected by a DIET process.
As shown in
All of the methods disclosed and claimed herein can be made and executed without undue experimentation in light of the present disclosure. While the compositions and methods of this invention have been described in terms of embodiments, it will be apparent to those of skill in the art that variations may be applied to the methods and in the steps or in the sequence of steps of the method described herein without departing from the concept, spirit and scope of the invention. All such similar substitutes and modifications apparent to those skilled in the art are deemed to be within the spirit, scope, and concept of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
