Method and apparatus for long-term, continuous energy production

摘要

Method and apparatus for continuous operation of a heat producing electrical cell (20) disposed in a hermetic chamber (202). The method comprises an initializing step during which an anode-facing surface (250) of a hydrideable metal cathode (130) is structurally modified by ion bombardment preferably from a cell (20) atmosphere filled with purified hydrogen. After the initializing step, the cell (20) is evacuated and filled with a second gas for continuous heat producing operation. The second gas is preferably deuterium. To augment continuous operation, a cleaning vapor is added to the second gas. The cleaning vapor is added in sufficiently high concentration to clean the anode-facing surface (250) of the cathode (130) as the cell (20) operates but in sufficiently low concentration to not deleteriously affect cell (20) operation which inherently rehydrides the anode-facing surface (250). The apparatus comprises a cell (20) enclosure which provides a practically contamination free environment for anode (120) to cathode cell (20) discharge operation.