Transforming Hot Gas into Power: China's Hypersonic Energy Revolution
Chinese scientists in Beijing have created a generator that can turn hot gas at hypersonic speeds into electricity.
This electricity can potentially fuel military lasers, microwave weapons, rail guns, and other pulsed energy weapons.
The generator uses a magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) system to stream plasma and collect energy from fast-moving ions.
The MHD generator produced pulses of electric current reaching up to 212 kilowatts with just a small amount of hypersonic gas.
This technology offers a simple and compact solution to produce high-power electricity.
The generator system could produce 1 gigawatt of electricity from 177 cubic feet of hypersonic plasma.
The MHD generator is essential for the development of large laser weapons and China’s high-power microwave weapons.
Other research efforts using dynamite for MHD generators have been discontinued due to safety concerns.
The MHD generator functions optimally with hot gas, but it must maintain high speeds and temperatures simultaneously.
China’s hypersonic weapons program is aimed at creating missiles capable of surpassing five times the speed of sound.
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