Seminar Report On BUBBLE POWER

The standard of living in a society is measured by the amount of energy consumed. In the present scenario where the conventional fuels are getting depleted at a very fast rate the current energy reserves are not expected to last for more than 100 years. Improving the harnessing efficiency of non-conventional energy sources like solar, wind etc. as a substitute for the conventional sources is under research.

                         One of the conventional methods of producing bulk energy is nuclear power. There are two types of nuclear reactions, namely fission & fusion. They are accompanied by the generation of enormous quantity of energy. The energy comes from a minute fraction of the original mass converting according to Einstein’s famous law: E=mc², where E represents energy, m is the mass and c is the speed of light. In fission reaction, certain heavy atoms, such as uranium is split by neutrons releasing huge amount of energy. It also results in waste products of radioactive elements that take thousands of years to decay. The fusion reactions, in which simple atomic nuclei are fused together to form complex nuclei, are also referred to as thermonuclear reactions. The more important of these fusion reactions are those in which hydrogen isotopes fuse to form helium. The Sun’s energy is ultimately due to gigantic thermonuclear reaction.The waste products from the fusion plants would be short lived, decaying to non-dangerous levels in a decade or two. It produces more energy than fission but the main problem of fusion reaction is to create an atmosphere of very high temperature and pressure like that in the Sun.               

       

                        A new step that has developed in this field is ‘Bubble Power’-the revolutionary new energy source. It is working under the principle of Sonofusion. For several years Sonofusion research team from various organizations have joined forces to create Acoustic Fusion Technology Energy Consortium (AFTEC) to promote the development of sonofusion. It was derived from a related phenomenon known as sonoluminescence. Sonofusion involves tiny bubbles imploded by sound waves that can make hydrogen nuclei fuse and may one day become a revolutionary new energy source.

SONOLUMINESCENCE

                     

                         When a gas bubble in a liquid is excited by ultrasonic acoustic waves it can emit short flashes of light suggestive of extreme temperatures inside the bubble. These flashes of light known as sonoluminescence, occur as the bubble implode or cavitates. It is show that chemical reactions occur during cavitations of a single, isolated bubble and yield of photons, radicals and ions formed. That is gas bubbles in a liquid can convert sound energy in to light.

   

                         Sonoluminescence also called single-bubble sonoluminescence involves a single gas bubble that is trapped inside the flask by a pressure field. For this loud speakers are used to create pressure waves and for bubbles naturally occurring gas bubbles are used. These bubbles can not withstand the excitation pressures higher than about 170 kilopascals. Pressures higher than about 170 kilopascals would always dislodge the bubble from its stable position and disperse it in the liquid. A pressure at least ten times that pressure level to implode the bubbles is necessary to trigger thermonuclear fusion. The idea of sonofusion overcomes these limitations.

THE IDEA OF SONOFUSION

              

                        It is hard to imagine that mere sound waves can possibly produce in the bubbles, the extreme temperatures and pressures created by the lasers or magnetic fields, which themselves replicate the interior conditions of stars like our sun, where fusion occurs steadily. Nevertheless, three years ago, researchers obtained strong evidence that such a process now known as sonofusion is indeed possible.

                         Sonofusion is technically known as acoustic inertial confinement fusion. In this we have a bubble cluster (rather than a single bubble) is significant since when the bubble cluster implodes the pressure within the bubble cluster may be greatly intensified. The centre of the gas bubble cluster shows a typical pressure distribution during the bubble cluster implosion process. It can be seen that, due to converging shock waves within the bubble cluster, there can be significant pressure intensification in the interior of the bubble cluster. This large local liquid pressure (P>1000 bar) will strongly compress the interior bubbles with in the cluster, leading to conditions suitable for thermonuclear fusion. More over during the expansion phase of the bubble cluster dynamics, coalescence of some of interior bubbles is expected, and this will lead to the implosion of fairly large interior bubbles which produce more energetic implosions.      

BASIC REQUIREMENTS

• Pyrex flask.
• Deuterated acetone (C₃D₆O).
• Vacuum pump.
• Piezoelectric crystal.
• Wave generator.
• Amplifier.
• Neutron generator.
• Neutron and gamma ray detector.
• Photomultiplier.

Microphone and speaker.   

SONOFUSION

                         The apparatus consists of a cylindrical Pyrex glass flask 100 m.m. in high and 65m.m.in diameter. A lead-zirconate-titanate ceramic piezoelectric crystal in the form of a ring is attached to the flask’s outer surface. The piezoelectric ring works like the loud speakers in a sonoluminescence experiment, although it creates much stronger pressure waves. When a positive voltage is applied to the piezoelectric ring, it contracts; when the voltage is removed, it expands to its original size.

  

                         The flask is then filled with commercially available deuterated acetone (C₃D₆O), in which 99.9 percent of the hydrogen atoms in the acetone molecules are deuterium (this isotope of hydrogen has one proton and one neutron in its nucleus). The main reason to choose deuterated acetone is that atoms of deuterium can undergo fusion much more easily than ordinary hydrogen atoms. Also the deuterated fluid can withstand significant tension (stretching) without forming unwanted bubbles. The substance is also relatively cheap, easy to work with, and not particularly hazardous.

§  ACTION OF VACUUM PUMP:

                         The naturally occurring gas bubbles cannot withstand high temperature and pressure. All the naturally occurring gas bubbles dissolved in the liquid are removed virtually by attaching a vacuum pump to the flask and acoustically agitating the liquid.

§  ACTION OF THE WAVE GENERATOR:

                         To initiate the sonofusion process, we apply an oscillating voltage with a frequency of about 20,000 hertz to the piezoelectric ring. The alternating contractions and expansions of the ring-and there by of the flask-send concentric pressure waves through the liquid. The waves interact, and after a while they set up

an acoustic standing wave that resonates and concentrates a huge amount of sound energy. This wave causes the region at the flask’s centre to oscillate between a maximum (1500kpa) and a minimum pressure. (-1500kpa).

                          

§  ACTION OF THE NEUTRON GENERATOR:

                         Precisely when the pressure reaches its lowest point, a pulsed neutron generator is fired. This is a commercially available, baseball bat size device that sits next to the flask. The generator emits high-energy neutrons at 14.1 mega electron volts in a burst that lasts about six microseconds and that goes in all directions.

ADVANTAGES OF BUBBLE POWER OVER OTHER APPROACHES

1.               It is self sustainable.

2.               Easily controllable.

3.               It consistently produces more energy than it consumes.

4.               Low cost.

5.               Easily available raw materials.

6.               Environmental friendly.

APPLICATIONS

1)      Thermonuclear fusion gives a new, safe, environmental friendly way to produce electrical energy.

2)      This technology also could result in a new class of low cost, compact detectors for security applications. That use neutrons to probe the contents of suitcases.

3)      Devices for research that use neutrons to analyze the molecular structure of materials.

4)      Machines that cheaply manufacture new synthetic materials and efficiently produce tritium, which is used for numerous applications ranging from medical imaging to watch dials.

5)      A new technique to study various phenomenons in cosmology, including the working of neutron star and black holes.     

CONCLUSION

                  With the steady growth of world population and with economic progress in developing countries, average electricity consumption per person has increased significantly. There fore seeking new sources of energy isn’t just important, it is necessary. So for more than half a century, thermonuclear fusion has held out the promise of cheap clean and virtually limitless energy. Unleashed through a fusion reactor of some sort, the energy from 1 gram of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, would be equivalent to that produced by burning 7000 liters of gasoline. Deuterium is abundant in ocean water, and one cubic kilometer of seawater could, in principle, supply all the world’s energy needs for several hundred years.