Reply To: What can we do with $189 Billion?

[bcreighton7]

Tim_Petrik wrote: Ivy, I don’t think the gas cathodes have to end at the same plane as the center-anode. The current should stop flowing axially away from the back wall once the center electrode (solid) ends.

Dr. Lerner, thank you for your encouragement! I don’t know enough about the differences between Mather/Fillipov-style DPFs to comment on the necessity of solid electrodes. But I’d like to point out that I only want to replace the outer electrodes with gas electrodes and keep the design of the center electrode and insulator unchanged. If the resulting design doesn’t fit with Mather/Fillipov-style DPFs, maybe a new name can be found 😉

That actually sounds like an elegant solution to a lot of the cathode problems the reactor would run in to such as avoiding degradation of a solid cathode, but presents some new engineering challenges, and may require more energy than its worth.

I have a potential idea that seems it should use a lot less power, and should have less heat concerns – how about making the cathodes and maybe the anode of carbon nanotubes? It is a highly conductive and strong material, should be relatively cheap, and is structurally light enough to allow x-rays to pass through, although CNT has a somewhat high attenuation rate. My guess is the xrays may cause too much degradation of a CNT anode, but some long-term tests appear promising. Nevertheless, the relatively high x-ray attenuation of CNT makes it a less than ideal choice for an anode in this reactor. The cathodes might be able to be designed in a way to lessen the loss of X-rays. In a vacuum CNT is estimated to have a higher melting point than beryllium. I know next to nothing about the physics of such an application, but thought I might bring it up.