Burner Direct-Energy Converter
The direct-energy converter turns the kinetic energy of escaping charged particles into electricity without a thermal cycle.
Electricity without a boiler
Most power plants convert heat to electricity through a steam cycle, which throws away a large fraction of the energy as waste heat. The burner can do better because its deuterium-helium-3 fuel produces charged particles, and charged particles carry electrical charge that can be harvested directly. The direct-energy converter does exactly this.
How it works
- Charged particles streaming out through the expander enter a region of biased electrodes.
- Moving against an electric field, the particles give up their kinetic energy to that field, decelerating.
- Collected on the electrodes, they deliver their energy as electrical current at high voltage.
- No intermediate heat-to-motion-to-electricity chain is needed.
Why the fuel choice enables it
Direct conversion only works on charged particles; neutrons carry no charge and cannot be converted this way. This is the payoff of the deuterium-helium-3 fuel and its 5.44 percent neutron fraction: with most of the fusion energy in charged particles, most of it is available to a direct converter. A neutron-heavy fuel would leave little for direct conversion to catch.
In the model
The converter is selectable at the end of each expander, shown as the array of collector electrodes facing the incoming plasma flow. The axial cutaway lines it up with the throat and expander so the whole escape-and-convert path reads as one chain along the axis.
The rest of the end
Whatever is not converted must be pumped and handled. See the end tanks behind the converter and the expander that feeds it.