Stirling Engline

The LION reactor, if it works like I believe it to, depends highly on the doped diamonds that are emitting electrons and EVOs. For it to be compatible with any type of engine, many improvements need to be made so these diamond structures either remain stable over the long term (many months) or constantly regenerate (both the diamond structure itself and the dopants/terminating agents which produce the Negative Electron Affinity and work function reduction).

Obviously, with only a few tests performed so far -- only one producing self sustained operation -- we need more basic tests before we try to improve upon anything. We need to document beyond any doubt that the device is capable of self sustaining. After that, the next step will be determining the most critical parameters which I expect to be the doping of the diamond. Using water (light or heavy) to produce surface H and OH bonds will produce a NEA and a work function reduction. But I expect there are better doping agents such as the oxygen lithium or oxygen magnesium combination. There are many other elements and materials we can test out as well: even powdered metal oxides, especially TiO, will produce a NEA on a diamond surface. Hopefully, one of these combinations will produce a stable system that will self sustain for longer periods of time before burning out.

One important topic I'd like to bring up is that all diamond eventually burns out. These types of emitters don't last forever, although they can last many thousands of hours in some conditions. A better method may be to produce diamonds in the reactor by using a nickel or other transition metal substrate, a plasma source to produce atomic hydrogen, and a source of methane (or we could test using high carbon nickel powder/wire). This is basically a CVD setup in which diamond is grown by continually bombarding the nickel/carbon surface with atomic hydrogen. The sp2 bonds are hit and become sp3 diamond bonds. This way, as the diamond emitters wear out, they can be replenished.

Linking a stable, long lasting, and not-prone-to-melt-down nickel-carbon-hydrogen reactor to a Sterling Engine will be standard engineering. What will require the most work is getting the reactor ready.