ALFRED BENNUN, PH.D.

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ABSTRACTS

Proposal previously submitted to NIAC
and resubmitted to DARPA evaluation

Ron Turner, advisor
Integrate design for radio-nucleotide energy transferable by scintillation crystals as light powering photovoltaic cell to generate electric power
Alfred Bennun

General principle

Heat-transfer nuclear reactors because of their complexity have been scaled only too much larger sizes with energy outputs requiring larger amounts of radioactive materials, which require a heavy lead shielding (1-3), than the system proposed in this paper.

Light-weight radioisotopes, could be used as sustainable, long lasting-sources of energy, which do not involve like the heavy ones; the danger of generating a chain reaction. Accordingly, their use had been proposed elsewhere, as lightweight nuclear sources that by heat-transfer generate electrical power. Hereby, it is emphasized the feasibility of replacing heat-transfer by a light-transfer technology. The latter, could use the energy generated by b (beta) particles and/or g (gamma) radiation, to excite scintillation substances which emits light.

a) Crystal made of: NaI with 1% Thallium (Tl) and / or Dimethyl POPOP

b) Crystal + g and / or β →crystal l*l → hn (or un)

A radioactive chip (crystal), could be designed in which.

Table 1: Scintillators and fluorescence emission range

Low weight could be achieved because the scintillation material could be use to dissolve the radioactive isotopes.

Furthermore, covering the radioactive-scintillators chip with additional layers of scintillator to further encase the radioactive substance, could convert any residual kinetic energy of radiation into light, until all beta particles became non-dangerous electrons.

Protection by the Scintillators could be enhanced, by designing mirrors to enclose the radioactive crystals, allowing only light to emerge.

This manufacturing approach could minimize the possibility of harmful radiation leaks, allowing the use of rather small quantities of radioisotopes, without having to resort to a heavy lead shielding.

Table 2: Radioisotopes with suitable half-lives

Surrounding crystals with photo voltaic panels could generate electricity and also add shielding.

Therefore only for rather larger quantities of the radioisotope may be needed conventional shielding like lead.

Alternatively, optical fibers could be use to transfer light to operate photovoltaic cells, at considerable distance from the radioactive-light power source. Very small radioactive quantities could be used for instruments in which the crystal and its shielding are sized to replace and play the role of many years long-lasting batteries. Fragmenting crystals, allows an easy methodology, to obtain chips, of the size required for use in nanotechnology.

Radioisotope-scintillation crystals are lamps that could support photosynthesis (4-18) in the absence of natural light.

Will be continually generating light, glowing day and night without any possibility to be turned off. However, it is suggested that a switching mechanism could be that of sliding these lamps to enter inside photovoltaic panels when its role as a lamp in not longer needed.

Figure 1. Radioisotope excited scintillation lamps (RESL) (a) the Beta Decay of a radioactive isotope encased in a glass fiber, with atomic disintegration ( ), emitting b particles ( ), (b), being introduced in a translucent cylinder made of a mixture of scintillation substances.The return to ground state of the excited molecules of sodium iodine (NaI) contained into glass or plastic results in a scintillation light that glows like a lamp.

The latter, illuminating photovoltaic panel will generate an output of electrical current and therefore could be use to replace chemical batteries, or could be use to recharge chemical batteries. An appliance that could function as a voltage amplifier requires two lamps both attached to photon cells. One of these could be connected to supply the electric consumption by the amplifier and the other, to supply its electric output at the desired voltage.

These systems could be made totally independent of electrical power generated by other forms of energy than the light produced by the radioisotopes themselves.

One additional example could be that production of light by these lamps may allow generation of electricity from hydrogen gas, or enhance its propulsion power by producing two dissociation pathways, of opposite parity which entangle and lead to correlations in the directions followed by the resulting proton, electron and atom (19).

References

(1)IRVING, Kaplan, ¨Nuclear Physics¨, E. Addison Wesley.

(2) KLIMOV, ¨Nuclear Physics and Nuclear Reactors¨, Ed. MIR.

http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Sr/chem.html

(3) Dr. Lide (ed.) CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 1999-2000: A Ready-Reference Book of Chemical and Physical Data (CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics). CRC Press, USA, 79th edition, 1998.

Photosynthesis publications by PI:

(4) BENNUN, A. and AVRON, M., The relation of the light-dependent and light-triggered adenosine

triphosphatases to photophosphorylation, (1965). Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 109, pp. 117-127.

(5) BENNUN, A., A model mechanism for coupled phosphorylation, (1974). In Proc. 3rd International

Congress Photosynthesis, Rehovoth (Mordhay Avron Ed.), Vol. 2, pp. 1107-1120, Elsevier Science

Publisher Co., Amsterdam.

(6) BENNUN, A., Hypothesis for coupling energy transduction with ATP synthesis or ATP hydrolysis, (1971).

Nature New Biology, Vol. 233, No. 35, pp. 5-8.

(7) BENNUN, A., Properties of chloroplast's coupling factor-1 and a hypothesis for a mechanism of energy transduction, (1971). Proceedings First European Biophysics Congress, Baden, Austria, 1971, in

“Photosynthesis, Bioenergetics, Regulation, Origin of Life” (E. Broda, A. Locker and H. Sprínger-Lederer Eds.), Vol. IV, pp. 85-91, Wiener Medizinischen Akademíe, Vienna, Austria.

(8) BENNUN, A., The unitary hypothesis on the coupling of energy transduction and its relevance to the modeling of mechanisms, (1974). Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 227, pp. 116-145. A. B 10

(9) BENNUN, A. and AVRON, M., Light-dependent and light-triggered adenosine triphosphatases in chloroplast, (1964). Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 79, pp. 646-648.

(10) BENNUN, A. and BENNUN, N., Hypothesis for a mechanism of energy of energy transduction.
Sigmoidal kinetics of chloroplast's heat-activated ATPase, (1972). In Proc. 2nd International Congress

on Photosynthesis Res. (Giorgio Fortí, Mordhay Avron and Andrea Melardri Eds.), Vol. 2, pp. 1115-1124, Dr. W. Junk N.V. Pub., The Hague.

(11) BENNUN, A. and BLUM, J. J., Properties of the induced acid phosphatase and of the constitutive acid phosphatase of Euglena, (1966). Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, 128, pp. 106-123.

(12) BENNUN, A. and RACKER, E., Partial resolution of the enzymes catalysing photophosphorylation IV.

Interaction of coupling factor I from chloroplast with components of the chloroplast membrane, (1969). The Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol. 244, No. 5, (1969), pp. 1325-1331.

Publications pertinents to the use of radioisotopes by PI:

(13) STOPPANI, A. O. M., RAMOS, E. H., WIDUCZYNSKI, I., BENNUN, A. and DE PAHN, E. M., The effect of 2,4 –dinitrophenol on the oxidation of endogenous and exogenous substrates by the yeast

Saccharomyces cerivisiae, (1962). Proc. Conf., Mexico City, 1961, in “Use of Radioisotopes in Animal

Biology and the Medical Sciences” (C. M. Fried et al., eds.), Vol. 1, pp. 241-252, Academy Press,

London.

(14) STOPPANI, A. O. M., BENNUN, A., and DE PAHN, E. M., Effect of DNP on the metabolism of

phosphates in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, (1965), “5th inter-American Symposium on the Peacefull

Application of Nuclear Energy”, Valparaíso, 1964. J. D. Perkinson and the Secretariat of IANEC, pp.

59-68. Organization of American States, Washington, D. C.

(15) Bennun, A.; (1971). Congreso Argentino de Ciencias Biológicas, 1970 in "Recientes adelantos en

Biología" (J.A. Moguilevsky and R. Mejía, eds.) pp. 254-264, Univ. of Buenos Aires Press.

(16) Bennun, A.; (1971). Proceedings First European Biophysics Congress, Baden, Austria, 1971. In “

Photosynthesis, Bioenergetics, Regulation, Origin of Life” (E. Broda, A. Locker, and H. sprínger-

Lederer, eds.) Vol. IV. pp. 85-91, Wiener Medizinischen Akademíe, Vienna.

(17) Bennun, A. and Bennun, N.; (1972) In Proc 2nd Int Cong. On Photosynthesis Res. (Giorgio Fortí,

Mordhay Avron and, Andrea Melardri, eds.) Vol. 2, 1115-1124, Dr. W. Junk N.V. Pub., The Hague.

(18) Bennun, A.; (1974) Proc. 3rd Int. Cong. Photosynthesis, Rehovoth (M.Avron, ed.) Vol. 2 pp. 1107-

1120 Elsevier Sci. Pub. Co. Amsterdam.

(19) F. Martin, J. Fernandez, T. Havermeier, L. Foucar, Th. Weber, K. Kreidi, L. Schmidt, T. Jahnke, O. Jagutzki, A. Czasch, E. P. Benis, T. Osipov, A. L. Landers, A. Belkacem, M. H. Prior, H. Schmidt-Bocking, C. L. Cocke, R. Dorner Single Photon-Induced Symmetry Breaking of H2 Dissociation

Science, Vol. 315, page 629-634 (2 February 2007).