GB908469A - Improvements relating to the production of electrical energy from atomic nuclear reactions - Google Patents

Abstract

908,469. Nuclear reactors. SIEBKER, M. Feb. 28, 1959 [Feb. 28, 1958], No. 6619/58. Class 39 (4). A method of producing electrical energy from nuclear reactions is characterized in that heat released in a fission or fusion reactor is used for the thermal dissociation of a working medium (for example steam or carbon dioxide) circulating through the reactor, the dissociated constituents are separated from one another, for example by selective diffusion, and the chemical energy thus obtained is converted to electrical energy in a fuel cell. In Fig. 1 the recombination water leaving a group I of low temperature hydrogen-oxygen cells flows through a relief valve 44 into a line in which it mixes with a water-steam mixture and passes into an evaporator 5<SP>1</SP> which absorbs heat from the outer surface of the reactor core 5 of a High Temperature Reactor; from the evaporator the steam passes through heat exchanger 4, which acts as a superheater, and then into the reactor core 5 where it is heated to 1600‹ C., at which temperature some of the steam is dissociated. The hydrogen evolved passes into permeable tubes 6 and then to a cooled header 7, a cooler 18, a compressor 19, and then into the fuel cells 1. The oxygen flows with the steam through heat exchangers 4 and 8 to steam transformers 40 where the oxygen is separated and passes through a cooler 41 and compresses 42 to the fuel cells 1. The condensate from steam transformers 40 is con - veyed by a pump 43 to the heating surface of a pre-evaporator 1<SP>1</SP> heated by the waste heat of the fuel cell. The secondary steam produced in heat exchanger 8 passes in a separate circuit through turbine 9, condenser 10 and feed pump 11. A similar circuit may be adapted for use with fuel cells of the low pressure high temperature type, Fig. 2 (not shown).