this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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Chemistry
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Lithium fission is being explored for subcritical reactors. The fission of lithium ions by bombarding them with neutrons results in excess energy, tritium atoms, and helium atoms.
It would be an amazing thing if widespread energy generation via subcritical fission of lithium also helped solve the “finite helium” problem.
Imagine a world where old lithium batteries can be recycled and create H^3 and He^4 and also generate clean energy.
I defer to your expertise as I only read an article about Lithium fission and know my knowledge is limited.
I somehow deleted my comments when I meant to edit them, but I found the article you were talking about. They're using Lithium-7 and not Lithium-6 it seems. It sounds like they're proposing on using a radioisotope like americium from a nuclear reactor as their neutron source, which really won't create a lot of power and doesn't seem at all economical to me. Otherwise I really don't see how they're getting more power out than they put in with something like a particle accelerator.
https://rfsuny.portals.in-part.com/xDOgwnzONKvX