fuel delivery

[krikkitz]

Decaborane is highly flammable and self-igniting. Whoever suggested an enriched oxygen environment, that’s a no-go.

Is there any way to deliver the fuel to the tip of the anode rather than filling the reaction chamber? Because decaborane plates out boron anywhere a current touches it, and once deposited, it causes resistance, just filling the vacuum chamber with decaborane is a less than ideal scenario. Depending on how fast the plating builds up on the electrodes, this could seriously interfere with the experiment in very short order, and at $200k per electrode set, you’ll not want to keep changing out the electrodes.

I wonder if there might be a way to deliver the gas through the anode? Since only the outside of the anode needs to conduct the plasma sheath, I’m guessing that there is less need to be careful of plating the inside of the anode. Or, barring that, perhaps a non-conducting tube might direct the decaborane from outside the electrodes to the tip of the anode. If the gas is delivered just where the plasmoid forms by using either of these methods or some other means, there also might be more chance it will be swept up in the filaments and be available for fusion reactions. To maintain the desired vapor pressure in the chamber, perhaps the rest of the chamber could be filled with inert gas prior to delivering the decaborane to the anode tip. In any case, since cleaning the electrodes looks like next to impossible, minimizing the deposition seems like the way to go.

[Tim1]

Would a cold plate, possibly a cylinder just beyond the anode be used to collect most of the boron?

[krikkitz]

Tim1 wrote: Would a cold plate, possibly a cylinder just beyond the anode be used to collect most of the boron?

I’d guessing you mean a charged cold plate? Would another charged body inside the chamber mess with the filament formation?

[Andrew Palfreyman]

Cleaning doesn’t look like a deal breaker. The idea for commercial power production is therefore to use multiple power sources and rotate them in and out; two minimum.

[Sphereix]

krikkitz wrote:

To maintain the desired vapor pressure in the chamber, perhaps the rest of the chamber could be filled with inert gas prior to delivering the decaborane to the anode tip. In any case, since cleaning the electrodes looks like next to impossible, minimizing the deposition seems like the way to go.

I don’t think that this would be possible. Correct me if I’m wrong here but it would seem that any inert gas introduced will either pollute the plasma or hinder plasma formation. Additionally, the decaborane gas would be distributed throughout the chamber nearly instantly upon introduction. I also imagine timing difficulties as the fuel would need to be introduced at the exact moment of the pinch in a precise volume.

[Andrew Palfreyman]

With beryllium electrodes the price they are, I would think that electrode erosion is the last thing one would want when in production mode.

[Francisl]

Laser cleaning may be a practical alternative because there is such a difference between boron and beryllium.

[Author]

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