FAQ - Ionization - the process, its limitations

It may be difficult to separate "theory" from "application," but let''s see if this helps facilitate the discussion.
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Richard Hull
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FAQ - Ionization - the process, its limitations

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Ionization is a process of violence. There is no such thing as gentle ionization. All ionization is endoergic, meaning it takes energy supplied by an outside force to make it happen.

All neutral atoms have a specific number of electrons about the nucleus that exactly match the number of protons. To find out how many electrons surround the nucleus of an atom look at its atomic number on a periodic chart to find out. e.i. H =1, Be=4, U=92, etc.

All electrons are organized, BY THEORY, into shells. The outermost shell has electrons that are more or less easy to remove by doing a calibrated amount of violence to the atom. Actually, all electrons about a nucleus are removable in this manner, but in Hi-Z atoms, the innermost require fearsome energies to remove.

For our purposes, however, ionization is an under 100ev business. For deuterium it is only a 14ev business.

Now the term "ev" can be misleading in the simple sense here, especially to the un-annointed. The term ev stands for electron volt. This is a unit of energy. It can represent potential or kinetic energy, but most often is used in the kinetic sense.

1 ev = the energy required to accelerate an electron to a kinetic energy of 1.6 x 10e-19 joules. or about 16 quintillionths of one watt-second. Pretty whimpy by any standard.

The "first ionization level" of any atom is that MINIMUM amount of energy that MUST BE ABSORBED by the outermost electron shell before it will spit out one of its electrons. When this occurs, one of the nuclear proton's charge is uncovered and the atom becomes electrically charged in a positive fashion. The atom is said to be ionized, meaning it is charged. At this point, it will respond to electrostatic forces in a coulombically calculable manner. i.e. it can be accelerated, decelerated, turned,etc. The fact that an atom is ionized doesn't necessarily mean that it will respond to a magnetic field. The word ionization means it will respond to an electric field. An ion in motion will respond to both electric and magnetic fields.

The salient point is that the orbital must ABSORB the minimum ionizing energy for a given atom before it ionized. This is normally accomplished by hitting the shell abruptly with an overkill force GREATER THAN the first ionization potential to warrant a high percentage of relative ionization.

Most often, other electrons are used after having been produced somewhere else and then accelerated within the gas to be ionized to a velocity that gives them a kinetic motion energy exceeding the ionization potential of the gas which they are in. In this manner, when they collide with a neutral gas molecule, they almost certainly transfer at least the full first ionizing potential energy to the electron shell, forcing the release of an electron, thereby, creating a postiive ion.

In the fusor, the ionizing electrons are created by a field emission process,unless a hot filament is employed from which they are "boiled" out of the filament atoms. These are then accelerated toward the positive OUTER shell or grid. On their journey towards the outer shell, they can collide with neutral deterium gas atoms and, if they have had enough time to reach at least 14ev of energy, they may ionize a deuterium atom, (turning it into a deuteron), This deuteron is then free to accelerate towards the negatively charged INNER grid and, hopefully, do fusion when colliding there with other deuterons headed in the oppsoite direction.

It is important to realize that a molecule of gas that has a fearsome 100 mev of energy may or may not be ionized!! An atom may be gently coaxed up to really high energies, never once absorbing, in its outer electron shell, energy exceeding its first ionization potential. Likewise, an true ion moving at 100,000ev speeds with electrons in its stream at similar relative velocities can become neutralized and still have 100,000ev energy relative to the universe and world.

You will have no trouble understanding ionization as long as you view the process of ionization as one of molecular energy absorption and violence, involving abrupt hits or abrupt transfers of energy relative to the particle in question. You must also realize that the kinetic energy of an atom, even if it far exceeds its own ionization potential, has nothing at all to do with its ionization state.

Ion lifetimes vary from microseconds in densely, matter laden volumes of space to millenia in interstellar vacuums. The lifetimes are governed almost entirely by mean free paths of the ions created which is a function of simple statistics.

In general, all first ionization potentials are under 40 volts (40 ev) for all atoms in the universe. Hydrogen and all its isotopes, (deuterium and tritium), is great as the entire nucleus is uncovered with only the first ionization. This makes fusion very easy in the laboratory, even if only possible at ultra low efficiency. Only the two hydrogen isotopes are readily fusible*

* H-H fusion is impossible at any earthly scale according to accepted science and totally impossible by my beliefs.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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