Thanks to Daniele Passerini of 22passi.blogspot.com, who has posted an abstract a presentation given by a team led by George Miley (Lenuco LLC) from the program of the NETS (Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space] conference held in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Feb 23-26, 2015.
The abstract reads in part:
“Several companies Announced progress on gas loaded nickel nano-particle units designed for MW size plants. Others, including Lenuco LLC in collaboration with the NPRE (Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering) department at the U of Illinois, are working on development of small 10’s of kW units. Physically These power units are very simple. Special Ni alloy nano-particles are Placed in a pressure vessel Which is then pressurized to 60-100 psi with hydrogen to initiate the reaction. With pressure control, These units are expected to run for several years, before replacement of the nano-particles is required two [due] to buildup of transmutation products. Replacement is simply done by substitution of a new cylinder containing fresh particles while the particles are used for recycled use in fresh nano-particles. Our results in terms of energy gain from the pressurized nano-particles are Among the best reported in the field to date.
The main obstacle to development of a practical unit is Preventing the hot nanoparticles from overheating and sintering together, limiting unit run time. Thus present work is focused on Overcoming That problem.”
What we don’t read here is any performance data from these reactors, which would be very interesting to examine. My understanding is that these are relatively low power reactors — but that once pressurized they don’t require any additional energy input.
I have sent a request to Dr. Miley to find out if he can share any more information on this topic.
