Pyroelectric Fusion with Helium-3 A Way to Generate Electricity?

Elementary Particles Everything is made of protons, neutrons and electrons.

Different Proton Number There are different elements based on the number of protons in the element.

Different Neutron Number Elements can also have different numbers of neutrons

Fusion is Fusing Elements Together

Opposites Attract; Like Charges Repel

Ionization and Charges A strong positive charge will attract an electron and repel a nucleus.

Pyroelectric Fusion In 2005, Naranjo et. al. used a pyroelectric crystal with a tungsten needle attached to generate a strong enough electric field to ionize deuterium. The deuterium was also accelerated fast enough by this positive charge to fuse with some stationary deuterium. Thus they achieved fusion at low pressure and room temperature!

Pyroelectric Fusion

Tungsten Needle Key to this experiment was the charge being amplified on the tungsten needle.

Deuterium Pressure In Naranjo et al.’s experiment, the deuterium pressure was kept low because too much deuterium would take charge away from the crystal (Gillich et. al., 2009).

Increase Pressure The pressure of the deuterium gas could be increased by putting Teflon or some other insulator as a barrier between the gas and the crystal.

Using Helium-3 instead of Deuterium The same electric field should strip both electrons from helium-3 because the electric field should be stronger at smaller distances from the needle, and the helium-3 should be at a greater pressure.

Chambers Keep helium-3 in a chamber inside a vacuum to maximize ionization and fusion events.

Changes from original experiment Use helium-3 instead of deuterium Contain gas in Teflon to have a high pressure Extract energy from proton products by having them pass through spirals of wire

Maximizing Current Generated

Many Spirals Having the protons pass through many spirals maximizes the energy extracted from them.

Key Points The optimum area for current from the magnetic flux from the protons is a spiral from 5 cm to 15 cm of 8 mm thick wire. The plastic or Teflon layers have to be thin enough to allow protons through, but thick enough that helium-3 and helium-4 nuclei bounce back.

Diagram of Apparatus

Magnets Keep Proton Path

References Gillich, D., Kovanen, A., Herman, B., Fullem, T., and Danon, Y. (2009) Pyroelectric crystal neutron production in a portable prototype vacuum system. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A. 602: 306-310 Naranjo, B., Gimzewski, J. K., and Putterman, S. (2005) Observation of nuclear fusion driven by a pyroelectric crystal. Nature 434:1115