I believe boron fine wire is available but I have not found a manufacturer yet. A laser in the shadow of the Magrid could ablate the tip of the wire. I am not sure if a laser would work in the fields of the Magrid.
A year or so of wire supply could be wound on a spool outwith the vacuum chamber in an enclosure that is connected to the vacuum of the chamber.
Boron Fuel Injection
That's a good idea. One or more spools of wire, fish it in through a Teflon tube, and evaporate the end of it with an e-beam within the magrid. This company sells wire, and also they have some B11 and B10 isotopes, but they don't say what form it's in. http://www.americanelements.com/bmw.html
How much fuel would a 100 MW reactor use in a year? I've read that high purity boron can be around $5/g, (2270/lb) which is spendy. Also, would you need to use D depleted water as a source for P or is natural hydrogen good enough?
I also wonder if having the p and B11 being injected chemically bound would give better results... better mixing and all.
-Alan
How much fuel would a 100 MW reactor use in a year? I've read that high purity boron can be around $5/g, (2270/lb) which is spendy. Also, would you need to use D depleted water as a source for P or is natural hydrogen good enough?
I also wonder if having the p and B11 being injected chemically bound would give better results... better mixing and all.
-Alan
-
KeithChard
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:16 pm
- Location: Banff,Scotland
I have discovered that boron wire is a coating of boron on a tungsten core wire. So the wire feed idea is a non starter.
[B12H12]2- is an anion with the required elemental composition. Could someone with more chemical knowledge than me comment on how this might be used to produce boron and hydrogen cations? Doing a web search for [B12H12]2- throws up a lot of information.
I have discovered that borom dust that may be condensed on the inside of the vacuum vessel is likely to explode spontaneously on contact with air. It may be necessary to break the vacuum with an inert gas to start maintenance procedures. Then introduce a robot vacuum cleaner?
I suspect that p-B11 may be a bigger engineering development than has so far been recognised.
[B12H12]2- is an anion with the required elemental composition. Could someone with more chemical knowledge than me comment on how this might be used to produce boron and hydrogen cations? Doing a web search for [B12H12]2- throws up a lot of information.
I have discovered that borom dust that may be condensed on the inside of the vacuum vessel is likely to explode spontaneously on contact with air. It may be necessary to break the vacuum with an inert gas to start maintenance procedures. Then introduce a robot vacuum cleaner?
I suspect that p-B11 may be a bigger engineering development than has so far been recognised.
Keith
-
KeithChard
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:16 pm
- Location: Banff,Scotland
A variety of possibilities for boron injection exist and their suitability depends on the relative rate of upscattering of protons and borons at the required operating condition of around 10 protons to one boron.
There are many compounds of the form BjHk where usually j>=5 and k>j. Many of these are gases at normal conditions, particularly if k>>j. These could readily be used if the rate of upscattering of protons were to be greater than borons. If necessary extra protons could be injected separately.
If upscattering of each species is more equal it is possible that the method cited by Icarus in this forum could be used as it appears to deliver pure boron.
Altenatively compounds containing anions of the form [BjHk]2- , where k>=j, could be melted and electrolysed to give anions which could be introduced as a relatively cool plasma. The flow rate could be controlled by pulsing the potential of the hollow anode of a Penning source, which is a cold cathode injecteor suitable for use with cations. As before, supplementary protons could be injected separately.
There is plenty to experiment with, but the first thing would be to discover the relative rates of upscattering, hopefully by using a simple method of injection, such as decaborane gas. Then go for the more cmplex methods if they prove to be necessary.
There are many compounds of the form BjHk where usually j>=5 and k>j. Many of these are gases at normal conditions, particularly if k>>j. These could readily be used if the rate of upscattering of protons were to be greater than borons. If necessary extra protons could be injected separately.
If upscattering of each species is more equal it is possible that the method cited by Icarus in this forum could be used as it appears to deliver pure boron.
Altenatively compounds containing anions of the form [BjHk]2- , where k>=j, could be melted and electrolysed to give anions which could be introduced as a relatively cool plasma. The flow rate could be controlled by pulsing the potential of the hollow anode of a Penning source, which is a cold cathode injecteor suitable for use with cations. As before, supplementary protons could be injected separately.
There is plenty to experiment with, but the first thing would be to discover the relative rates of upscattering, hopefully by using a simple method of injection, such as decaborane gas. Then go for the more cmplex methods if they prove to be necessary.
Keith
-
Orionblade
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 6:59 am
Boron...
Anyone think of borax?
It should be nontrivial to coat the inside of the chamber with a material that would combine with boron to yield something along the lines of borax - nice and inert and non-toxic.
I thought of using borax as a boron source, but the oxygen and sodium aren't all that reaction-friendly. Further, b11 and b10 are both present in naturally occurring boron in high enough concentrations to be a pain in the butt.
How would you go about purifying your own B11 from raw B10/11?
Does a 20% impurity content of B10 not cause problems?
Further, I am investigating the crystal bar process for making high purity titanium from TiI. It may be possible to engineer a reaction whereby boron gas is liberated from a boron metallic compound, and the metal is precipitated out onto a hot filament. This serves to heat the boron, as well as provide it in a pure elemental form. The most advantageous route, however, would likely be an ion gun of some sort, or a laser, since any reaction at lower than boiling point would yeild, in fact, boron soot, and not boron gas. One would have to have untold amounts of excess hydrogen and unholy plasma densities so that it would react before the solid boron fell out of the reaction area, and not quench the electrons. Pre-ionization should be the way to go, or at least pre-heating past B's boiling point, since any material added at less than reaction temperature will strip away energy and thermalise your electrons AND hydrogen - leaving you with a really cool light show, but no fusion.
Any thoughts?
It should be nontrivial to coat the inside of the chamber with a material that would combine with boron to yield something along the lines of borax - nice and inert and non-toxic.
I thought of using borax as a boron source, but the oxygen and sodium aren't all that reaction-friendly. Further, b11 and b10 are both present in naturally occurring boron in high enough concentrations to be a pain in the butt.
How would you go about purifying your own B11 from raw B10/11?
Does a 20% impurity content of B10 not cause problems?
Further, I am investigating the crystal bar process for making high purity titanium from TiI. It may be possible to engineer a reaction whereby boron gas is liberated from a boron metallic compound, and the metal is precipitated out onto a hot filament. This serves to heat the boron, as well as provide it in a pure elemental form. The most advantageous route, however, would likely be an ion gun of some sort, or a laser, since any reaction at lower than boiling point would yeild, in fact, boron soot, and not boron gas. One would have to have untold amounts of excess hydrogen and unholy plasma densities so that it would react before the solid boron fell out of the reaction area, and not quench the electrons. Pre-ionization should be the way to go, or at least pre-heating past B's boiling point, since any material added at less than reaction temperature will strip away energy and thermalise your electrons AND hydrogen - leaving you with a really cool light show, but no fusion.
Any thoughts?
When you have a Cray II for a brain, you wish your body had more clock cycles available...
-
blaisepascal
- Posts: 191
- Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:57 am
- Location: Ithaca, NY
- Contact:
Re: Boron...
Personally? I'd go to a boron dealer and buy it. Pure B11 and B10 are already commercially used and purified.Orionblade wrote:How would you go about purifying your own B11 from raw B10/11?
-
Orionblade
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 6:59 am
Re: Boron...
How much for a dime bag?blaisepascal wrote:Personally? I'd go to a boron dealer and buy it. Pure B11 and B10 are already commercially used and purified.Orionblade wrote:How would you go about purifying your own B11 from raw B10/11?
:-p
Sorry, so so so so sorry. I just had this image of a shady guy in a trenchcoat standing on the corner, holding out a baggie of boron, whispering "c'mon, the first one's free"... *sigh*
When you have a Cray II for a brain, you wish your body had more clock cycles available...
-
Mike Holmes
- Posts: 308
- Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:15 pm
But the BOE analysis of cost has already been done, and even if forced to deal with the cost of the five nines stuff, it's still plenty economical (barring errors on calculation of several orders of magnitude). It's a fuel source that's readily available today, plentiful from existing mines (don't have to create any new ones), and comes from the good ole US of A.
As somebody pointed out, same Borax that Ronnie Reagan sold to us in the 60s. Low toxicity, non-flamable, portable in dense, though maleable form (you can even dissolve it in water, if that's useful)... hard to imagine a much better fuel.
Mike
P.S. Hmm. The soluble nature makes me desirous of seeing somebody do an experiment like whasisnames where you hit water with "lightning" to produce fusion products. Except in this case, do it with Borax dissolved in solution... and maybe with heavy water...
As somebody pointed out, same Borax that Ronnie Reagan sold to us in the 60s. Low toxicity, non-flamable, portable in dense, though maleable form (you can even dissolve it in water, if that's useful)... hard to imagine a much better fuel.
Mike
P.S. Hmm. The soluble nature makes me desirous of seeing somebody do an experiment like whasisnames where you hit water with "lightning" to produce fusion products. Except in this case, do it with Borax dissolved in solution... and maybe with heavy water...
-
KeithChard
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:16 pm
- Location: Banff,Scotland
A possible solution to the problem of clearing up potentially explosive self igniting boron dust could be to oxidise it slowly, or otherwise react with it, by very slowly introducing oxygen or some other suitable reactant into the inert gas.
Has anyone the chemical knowledge to comment. If not, can anyone recruit a chemist to the forum? I am sure there will be other problems of a chemical nature to be addressed.
Has anyone the chemical knowledge to comment. If not, can anyone recruit a chemist to the forum? I am sure there will be other problems of a chemical nature to be addressed.
Keith
-
Orionblade
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 6:59 am
Nitrogen...
You could run the reactor with some nitrogen in it, at normal vacuum pressures, and the reaction itself would quench, but you could use the nitrogen plasma to nitride the boron. This would prevent your other bits and pieces from oxidizing.
One must also conisder just how much boron powder/dust/etc. would really accumulate in the reactor. Might be useful to just run a test device (like the one i'm working on) without an actual reaction going, just to see how much free boron the plasma would dump out over a period of time, in a worst-case-scenario sort of situation. It may be a completely benign problem to have a few milligrams of dust buildup in a large reactor over the course of a month or two. Depending on fuel feed mechanisms, it could dump a considerable amount under off-design conditions. In such a case, even though normal functioning may or may not produce problematic amounts of dust, it would be nice to have already figured out a way to safely open the chamber for cleaning ahead of time.
I really think nitrogen would work, or something along the lines of sulfur hexaflouride - reasonably safe gases in and of themselves, and reactive as plasma or at slightly elevated temperatures, to give you a much lower energy boron compound. Neither of those gases contains oxygen, however, which would protect most of your other components. Steel, however, does not like sulfur. Just ask the titanic Up to a few percent, however, should be safe, and you'd have to get to about 600 or 700 degrees for the sulfur to migrate any distance into the steel itself. Might be beneficial to have a thin foil sacrificial liner just inside the chamber wall to take care of that sort of thing with a long-life-cycle commercial type unit, though.
Just some thoughts,
Rion
One must also conisder just how much boron powder/dust/etc. would really accumulate in the reactor. Might be useful to just run a test device (like the one i'm working on) without an actual reaction going, just to see how much free boron the plasma would dump out over a period of time, in a worst-case-scenario sort of situation. It may be a completely benign problem to have a few milligrams of dust buildup in a large reactor over the course of a month or two. Depending on fuel feed mechanisms, it could dump a considerable amount under off-design conditions. In such a case, even though normal functioning may or may not produce problematic amounts of dust, it would be nice to have already figured out a way to safely open the chamber for cleaning ahead of time.
I really think nitrogen would work, or something along the lines of sulfur hexaflouride - reasonably safe gases in and of themselves, and reactive as plasma or at slightly elevated temperatures, to give you a much lower energy boron compound. Neither of those gases contains oxygen, however, which would protect most of your other components. Steel, however, does not like sulfur. Just ask the titanic
Up to a few percent, however, should be safe, and you'd have to get to about 600 or 700 degrees for the sulfur to migrate any distance into the steel itself. Might be beneficial to have a thin foil sacrificial liner just inside the chamber wall to take care of that sort of thing with a long-life-cycle commercial type unit, though.Just some thoughts,
Rion
When you have a Cray II for a brain, you wish your body had more clock cycles available...
-
KeithChard
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:16 pm
- Location: Banff,Scotland
Rion: That is a good start. I am thinking of a routine maintenance situation after, say, a year long run, when there would likely be a substantial amount of condensed boron dust between the Magrid and the vacuum chamber wall. Would we be able to get a reactive nitrogen plasma to form in those regions? I like the idea of using nitrogen as it would appear to be less damaging than the sulphur compound.
Keith