Word: plasma
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Last week the AEC's Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory announced a major step toward direct conversion: an experimental "plasma thermocouple" no bigger than a can of frozen orange juice. Placed inside the core of a research reactor, the device produced 40 watts of electricity -enough to light a household light bulb...
...plasma thermocouple differs little in principle from the well-known bimetallic thermocouple that has been in use for a century to measure temperatures. In a bimetallic thermocouple, two pieces of unlike metals are joined. When the joint is heated, a feeble electric current is generated, flows through a wire connecting the cold ends. Chief obstacle to commercial use is the difficulty in finding metals that can operate efficiently at the high temperature required for large-scale power production (TIME, April...
...Alamos' plasma thermocouple, the solid metals of a bimetallic thermocouple are replaced by a tiny (finch long) rod of uranium suspended inside a vacuum-sealed can that contains liquid cesium. The uranium is enriched with U-235. Around the cesium is a circulating coolant (see diagram). When the device is lowered inside a reactor, the uranium is bombarded by the neutrons generated by the reactor, causing the U-235 to fission and give off intense heat...
Under vacuum, cesium turns partly to gas. As the uranium heats up. it ionizes the cesium gas to a plasma of charged particles (electrons wrenched from their atoms). As in conventional thermocouples, there is a flow of electric current between hot and cold: from the hot (2,000° C.) junction of the uranium and ionized cesium to the cold (300° C.) junction of the cesium and the oil coolant...
...relatives, some standing frozen and numb, some crying hysterically. As dark fell, the watchers moved on to St. Anne's Hospital 16 blocks from the school, waited for word of dead and injured. Doctors rushed children into surgery. Nurses parted crowds to wheel beds carrying children and plasma poles. Priests moved slowly from group to group, lips moving. One man in the crowd, a truck driver, said: "I heard it on the radio. I come straight home. I told my wife, 'Where's the daughter at?' I looked here. She got a little burned...