Novel alkali and alkaline earth hydrides for high voltage and high energy density batteries

BlackLight Power, Inc. (BLP) of Cranbury, New Jersey, is developing a revolutionary technology based on novel hydrogen chemistry. More explicitly, energy is catalytically released as the electrons of atomic hydrogen are induced to undergo transitions to lower energy levels corresponding to fractional quantum numbers with the production of plasma, light, and novel hydrogen compounds (1-35). The Company uses a chemically generated or assisted plasma to form atomic hydrogen and a catalyst which react through a nonradiative energy transfer to form lower-energy hydrogen atoms called hydrinos. Since hydrinos have energy levels much lower than uncatalyzed hydrogen atoms, the energy release is intermediate between chemical and nuclear energies. The net enthalpy released may be over several hundred times that of combustion. Thus, the catalysis of atomic hydrogen represents a new source of energy with H/sub 2/O as the source of hydrogen fuel obtained by diverting a fraction of the output energy of the process to split water into its elemental constituents. Moreover, rather than air pollutants or radioactive waste, the products are novel compounds having hydride ions with increased binding energies that may be the basis of a high voltage battery. Such a high voltage battery would have the advantages of much greater power and much higher energy density where the limitations of battery chemistry attributed to the binding energy of the anion of the oxidant are addressed. The concept of our novel hydride battery and some preliminary results are discussed during the presentation.