(ClamShell) A low input power, high temperature reactor

Could this be useful Bob?

It's probably a way out there idea but... I wonder if corrugated borophene or graphene could play a useful role. I recently read the following article about the use of borophene for flexible electronics:

spacedaily.com/.../...

But i suppose another quality of this material apart form its flexibility would be its large surface area. If a graphene layer is useful I wonder if corrugated graphene can also bring benefits.

I wondered else where if the electrical properties and other useful characteristics of Boron Nitride Nano Tubes or or Boron Carbide Nano tubes could bring some benefits:

disqus.com/.../...

if so perhaps the borophine equivalent could also bring some benefits too. Does Boro Carbide also produce graphene like mono sheets I wonder?

The following is probably way way out there but i saw it reading about the above and it makes me wonder, however it would require someone with better theoretical knowledge than me to know if it is relevant or not:

journals.aps.org/.../...

Its interesting that there appears to be a spatial dependance of the fermi velocity in this corrugated material could this be useful in some way? or is it complicating things too much?

This is interesting too:

arxiv.org/pdf/0904.1520.pdf

nature.com/.../nmat2710.html

Could Moire fringes and dislocations play a role in enhancing Hydrogen absorption?

en.wikipedia.org/.../...

Just an idea

The following book looks interesting too I'm not sure how easy it is to get:

books.google.nl/.../

Quoting Bob Higgins:

I added to the live doc above a description of the thermal simulation and the updated results."

@Bob Higgins Please may I stress the need for calorimetry (to convince all the skeptics) rather than relying on a complex mathematical simulation. All it would require is a sealed perspex box around the whole apparatus with a measured flow of ambient air going into the box and a measured delta temperature of the air coming out versus the air going in. Small adjustments could easily be made for the ambient air inlet pressure & humidity.

A highly reflective surface on the inside surface of the blocks would also help increase the COP by reducing the heat input required for any given operating temperature.

@Rigel,
I presume the MFMP online video you were watching was of the "!Bang" experiment - obviously so named after the fact. That occurred during a time when we believed the high pressure H2 liberated by the LAH (hundreds of bar) was necessary for the reaction. Since then we have discovered that the experiments that produced excess heat were the ones that leaked, and the actual H2 pressure needed was below 1 bar absolute (a slight vacuum). At this lower pressure there is far less H2 present and less danger. Still it makes sense to be safe. I will take your advice and re-double my efforts to protect against bad outcomes.

@Rene Vega
While it certainly would be possible to establish an RF electric field in the dummy alumina fuel that way, it will not be possible to do with the Ni+LAH fuel which is electrically conductive. The fuel will short out the electric field, but you could drive an RF current through the fuel that could provide an RF magnetic field. It is a complete unknown what effect such a current would have. Doing this would require a dielectric seal at the plumbing end of the tube (presently a metallic seal).

@Bob Higgins

Thanks for the update. I did wonder what programs you were using. Another small request. Could you add a text label next to the resistors and caps to specify what aspect they are modelling. For example, I assume that V1 is your ambient temperature, C1 your heater thermal capacity, R7 is your heater to ambient transfer,R6 your heater to fuel transfer, C6 your fuel heat capacity etc (Or something like that).

Quoting bob:

Bob:
If the bricks are easy to machine/drill it might be interesting to see if you could adapt this setup as a conduction calorimeter. * * *.

I asked the same question yesterday in another forum. His response:
"Bob Higgins > Rene • a day ago
2. The long term intent is to make the insulator 2" diameter on the outside which will match the diameter of the aluminum supports. Then this whole racked cassette will be inserted into a flow calorimeter. Almost anything I do to introduce variable heat outflow will make it hard to maintain calorimetry without the flow calorimeter. The flow calorimeter design I have already has variable coupling built in that will not invalidate the calorimetry.

Bob:
If the bricks are easy to machine/drill it might be interesting to see if you could adapt this setup as a conduction calorimeter. While the symmetry isn't perfect (ie. reactor is cylindrical while bricks are rectangular) it still might work. The assumption is that almost all of the heat from the apparatus is dissipated by thermal conduction through the brick material. Heat flux is known to be linear with delta T in conduction. Two axial (ie. drill longitudinal holes) located thermocouples at two different radial distances from the central chamber (ie. separated by a thin layer of brick material) might yield a linear relationship between delta T and input power during calibrations. Worth a try.

Might even work better if the bricks were machined into cylindrical geometry to be symmetrical with reactor tube.

Bob,
In the run-up null test graph, is the timescale in 1000 sec units? Is the thermal lag at top of brick measurements then around 200 seconds?

I like the clamshell design, and yes, raising the efficiency of the bulk heating is important to reduce the losses that mask excessive heat.

1. Is the heater winding a double helix? Doing that would significantly reduce magnetic field effects from the heater process, and, perhaps, permit answering the question whether magnetic fields quench the reaction;

2. For temperature control, has BobH considered adding a couple of grooves in the bricks parallel to the reactor in which he can place heat exchanger pipes? This might be a better way than lifting the bricks and blow air to draw heat out when the reaction starts to go nonlinear. Furthermore it could be the basis of some calorimetry based measurements;

3. Does the design have the means to vary the reflection of photons back into the reactor instead of absorbing them into the bricks, terrahertz comes to mind.

-Rene