Efficiency and Physical Limitations of Adiabatic Direct Energy Conversion in Axisymmetric Fields

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel adiabatic magnetic drift-based direct energy conversion method in axisymmetric fields, analyzing its efficiency and limitations for advanced nuclear reactor applications.

Contribution

It presents a new class of direct energy conversion schemes using adiabatic magnetic drift in axisymmetric fields, avoiding classical drawbacks of traditional methods.

Findings

Efficiency of conversion is quantified.

Geometrical and dynamical limitations are identified.

Suitable for advanced aneutronic reactors and tokamak divertors.

Abstract

We describe and analyze a new class of direct energy conversion schemes based on the adiabatic magnetic drift of charged particles in axisymmetric magnetic fields. The efficiency of conversion as well as the geometrical and dynamical limitations of the recoverable power are calculated. The geometries of these axisymmetric field configurations are suited for direct energy conversion in radiating advanced aneutronic reactors and in advanced divertors of deuterium-tritium tokamak reactors. The E cross B configurations considered here do not suffer from the classical drawbacks and limitations of thermionic and magnetohydrodynamic high temperature direct energy conversion devices.