Comment by DaniFong
16 hours ago
indeed yes; the sodium is added as sodium chloride. in molten form, it wicks along sapphire and alumina surfaces, similar to a candle. it reforms into sodium chloride as the temperature drops below its boiling point -- 1400 C.
we're exploring fully sealed experiments, but, you have to get the heat into the sealed cell somehow.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US12136898B2/en?oq=US12136...
aha, i was wondering how that worked. Creating pure sodium using the Downs process requires a lot of electricity and I doubt this engine would be economic if that was required. But it looks really promising, >= 40% efficiency is a great goal.