Concept: Hydrogen-Noble reactor

[JMBuilder]

I have a concept design for a special reactor, simply called the Hydrogen-Noble reactor. You take an electron from noble gas, rendering it unstable and in need of an electron. You combine the unstable gas with hydrogen, creating a highly unstable compound and making fusion energy. After re-stabilizing the noble gas, the two atoms split, creating fission energy. In effect, you get both fusion and fission energy from the same reactor for incredible amounts of energy.

I'm not sure if it would work that way, but it's just a thought.

[dustinsonger]

removing an electron from a noble gas is extremely costly, energy wise, much more so than i would think your returns would ever be.

[JMBuilder]

Well, pickle...

[metaphor]

Fusion and fission don't have anything to do with electrons. Fusion happens when two nuclei collide and stay together, fission happens when one nucleus splits into two. Only the protons and neutrons are involved in this. So it doesn't matter whether the atom is part of a compound or not, or how many electrons it has. You're confusing chemical reactions with nuclear reactions.

[ROFLCopter64bit]

Yes, this is a chemical bondage. Not fusion. And i'm not sure how the noble gas would want to split again.

[K^2]

Here is exactly what's going to happen.

Ne⁺ + H -> Ne + H⁺.

Basically, you will simply end up with Neon (or any other noble atom through Krypton) stealing electron from the Hydrogen with no bonding of any kind taking place.

The only exception is Xenon, which probably will form some sort of a complex ion with Hydrogen, but even that will probably be short-lived. Still, absolutely no energy-generation benefits.

Edited April 28, 2013 by K^2

[andrewas]

I have a concept design for a special reactor, simply called the Hydrogen-Noble reactor. You take an electron from noble gas, rendering it unstable and in need of an electron. You combine the unstable gas with hydrogen, creating a highly unstable compound and making fusion energy. After re-stabilizing the noble gas, the two atoms split, creating fission energy. In effect, you get both fusion and fission energy from the same reactor for incredible amounts of energy.

Conservation of energy. You have Neon plus Hydrogen, you create Neon Hydride, which decomposes to Neon plus Hydrogen. This cannot produce or consume energy. The first step will consume vast energy as Neon really does not want to bond with anything - in fact, I don't think any Neon compounds have ever been created. The second step will release that same energy.