Michael C. Romer

Ragone Plot Comparison of Radioisotope Cells and the Direct Sodium Borohydride/Hydrogen Peroxide Fuel Cell With Chemical Batteries

Radioisotope cells (RCs) and a direct sodium borohydride/hydrogen peroxide fuel cell ( FC) are compared to conventional chemical batteries through Ragone plots of theoretical (RCs) and experimental (chemical batteries and FC) data. It is found that the RCs are projected to have superior specific energy but inferior specific power, while the borohydride/peroxide FC shows an impressive range for both parameters. Thus, RCs may be especially useful in battery charging, communications, or other applications that require a long-lived, low-power source or periodic pulses of energy. While the borohydride/peroxide FC can be scaled to a variety of high-power applications, it is especially well suited for space and undersea use where air independence is essential.

INTENSE NON-LINEAR SOFT X-RAY EMISSION FROM A HYDRIDE TARGET DURING PULSED D BOMBARDMENT

Radiation emission from Low Energy Nuclear Radiation (LENR) electrodes (both charged-particle and x-rays) represents an important feature of LENR in general. Here, calibration, measurement techniques, and soft x-ray emission results from deuterium bombardment of a Pd target (cathode) placed in a pulsed deuterium glow discharge (PGD) are described. An x-ray intensity of 13.4 mW/cm and a dose of 3.3 μJ/cm were calculated over a 0.5 ms pulse time from AXUV photodiode radiation detector measurements. A most striking feature is that x-ray energies > 600 V are observed with a discharge voltage only about half of that value. To further investigate this phenomenon, emission during room temperature D-desorption from electrolytically loaded Pd:Dx cathodes was also studied. The x-ray emission energy observed was quite similar to the PGD case. However, the intensity in this case was almost 13 orders of magnitude lower due to the much lower deuterium fluxes involved.