Chapter 380 Resonance Frequency
144 grams of cobalt-60 can continuously generate 2.7 kilowatts of power.
This is an extremely high power generation efficiency.
You should know that currently only Lucia and America in the world have mastered the comprehensive nuclear battery production technology, and the power generation capacity is extremely impressive.
Using plutonium as the raw material of nuclear batteries and adopting temperature difference power generation technology, a nuclear battery device weighing dozens of kilograms can only generate a few watts of power.
The characteristic of temperature difference power generation technology is that the system is simple and crude, but its disadvantage is that the thermal efficiency is very low, only 10% to 20%.
The compressed air absorption layer they accidentally created can actually achieve an output power of 2.8 kilowatts and a thermoelectric efficiency of 67%. This unexpected surprise made Du Hai tremble with excitement.
While Levis was writing a report to report the discovery to the Science Department, he asked Du Hai to lead people to conduct further research.
The key now is to replicate the experiment and study the principles of power generation.
This discovery immediately alarmed the management of the Science Department.
Even Li Qingye, who had been immersed in researching genetic issues, received the news.
Although he was surprised by this discovery, he did not interfere with the research plan of the Nuclear Power Institute. He just asked Sanjibada Lealto to pay attention to the reports in this regard.
After redesigning the experiment.
The Nuclear Power Research Institute’s 1377 laboratory in Hongsavadi is responsible for repeating the experiment to see if it can be replicated.
Inside the 1377 laboratory at this time.
According to the design of the nuclear explosion test site, 144 grams of cobalt 60 were placed in the production area. As the barrier layer was removed, a large amount of gamma rays and beta rays passed through the first layer of composite lead plate and entered the compressed air absorption layer.
"Report, current generation detected..."
"The voltage is 32,000 to 86,000 volts, the current is... the power is 2.617 to 2.75 kilowatts..."
"The compressed air temperature is 23.4 degrees Celsius and the flow rate is 12 meters per second..."
The head of the laboratory widened his eyes and said, "It actually works! How does it generate electricity?"
Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, as if he had thought of something, and he muttered to himself: "Gamma rays, air...resonance frequency...I understand! That's it."
He made a video call with Levis, Du Hai and others on Diego Garcia Island through the internal communication channel.
Then he told them his findings and guesses.
After listening to this, Du Hai on Diego Garcia Island suddenly realized: "So that's it..."
Specifically, the power generation mechanism in this experiment is mainly due to the resonant frequency formed by gamma rays and compressed air.
The fast-flowing compressed air forms positive and negative electrodes with the composite lead plates on both sides.
Thereby, the energy of gamma rays is quickly converted into electrical energy.
In fact, this phenomenon also exists in nature. That is, when the gamma rays from the universe enter the earth's atmosphere, they turn into lightning.
Of course, not all lightning is stimulated by gamma rays, only a small part of it is gamma-ray stimulated lightning.
Since this type of gamma-ray lightning is rare and the time and place of its occurrence are full of uncertainty, human research on this phenomenon is almost blank.
This cobalt bomb experiment unexpectedly allowed them to discover the formation mechanism of gamma-ray lightning.
Du Hai immediately communicated with the person in charge of the 1377 laboratory and readjusted the experiment, preparing to study the current generated by gamma rays under different gases, compression levels, flow rates, and metal barrier layers.
After redesigning, they roughly prepared hundreds of control groups and prepared to test them one by one, trying to find out the optimal conditions for the formation of gamma-ray lightning as soon as possible.
The other side.
Du Hai was also thinking about how to quickly produce cobalt 60.
If cobalt 60 is to be used as the raw material for nuclear batteries, it certainly cannot be produced by nuclear explosions, and other options must be adopted.
Although used as a raw material for nuclear batteries, cobalt 60 has a half-life of only 5.27 years, it does not meet the requirements for long-term use of nuclear batteries.
But it cannot resist its high thermoelectric efficiency and good energy density.
Moreover, after decaying, cobalt 60 will turn into extremely stable nickel 60. Nickel 60 is a non-radioactive element, which facilitates the scrapping of nuclear batteries.
In the field of outer space, perhaps cobalt-60 nuclear batteries are not suitable.
However, inside the earth, cobalt-60 nuclear batteries have great potential, and some special fields require more self-sustaining energy systems.
For example, if a heavy exoskeleton armor can be equipped with a ten-kilogram cobalt-60 nuclear battery (containing five kilograms of cobalt-60), the power generation capacity can reach 93.8 kilowatts.
The lightweight exoskeletons currently in use usually need to be paired with bulky ternary composite batteries, resulting in part of the exoskeleton's power being wasted on supporting the 20-kilogram battery.
If cobalt-60 nuclear batteries are used, it can be compressed to the 2 kg level.
However, Du Hai also knew that due to the extremely high danger of cobalt-60, the company would most likely not launch a civilian version casually, and would at most equip the new humans with a batch.
After all, there is uncertainty about natural person employees. If someone goes crazy and directly takes out the cobalt 60 from the nuclear battery and releases it in the city, it will definitely be a disaster.
However, the security team, which is undergoing a comprehensive transformation into a new type of human, could consider equipping itself with a batch of nuclear batteries.
He thought about it for a long time, and then contacted his colleagues at the Nuclear Power Research Institute, asking them to cooperate with the 1377 laboratory to strive to realize the practical application of cobalt-60 nuclear batteries as soon as possible.
As for the gamma-ray power generation mechanism, can it be applied to other nuclear power?
After discussion between Du Hai, Dr. Lewis and others, it was decided that it could be used as an auxiliary power generation system, but it was basically impossible to use it as the main power generation source.
This is related to the current principle of nuclear power generation. Whether it is nuclear fission or nuclear fusion, its main energy is contained in the released thermal neutrons, not in light radiation.
Therefore, the main focus of nuclear power is still boiling water.
However, the ground-furnace nuclear fusion reactor can use a gamma-ray power generation system. After all, the ground-furnace nuclear fusion reactor is essentially the detonation of a miniature hydrogen bomb, which will produce a large amount of gamma rays.
Previous molten salt power generation systems could only absorb a portion of light radiation, and had a very low absorption rate for gamma rays, so they could only rely on the lead plate composite layer to resist it, and this part of the energy was wasted.
Half a month later.
The Nuclear Power Research Institute's 1377 Laboratory, where six testing teams conducted a total of 32 control experiments.
Through these experiments, we have basically figured out some conditions of the gamma-ray power generation mechanism, including which gas is best to use, the optimal compression ratio, the optimal gas flow rate, the thickness of the gas and metal plates, etc.
At the same time, another laboratory designed a cobalt-60 nuclear battery system based on these data.
After all, this is something with extremely strong radioactivity, and it is very troublesome to design. Although most of the gamma rays are absorbed by the air resonance frequency, there are still about 0.21% of gamma rays that can penetrate the gas layer.
Therefore, it is necessary to provide a composite lead plate of suitable thickness and a protective shell of sufficiently high strength, while taking into account miniaturization and power generation capacity.
A group of researchers and engineers are almost going bald in the face of these requirements.
Du Hai couldn't stay on Diego Garcia Island anymore. He was eager to go back and study nuclear batteries.
But before he could submit his report, base commander Le Gong came over with several senior executives from the foreign security division.
Du Hai was pulled over to attend a meeting again.
He was totally confused about the purpose of the External Security Division. After all, the main research team of the cobalt bomb was from Dr. Lewis's side. What did it have to do with his Nuclear Power Research Institute?
