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Since this is a fictitious device, and it has no "official" scientific explanation in the Iron Man
canon that I'm aware of, I'm going to make something up. I'm mixing real science and fake
science here. Physics nerds and comic-book nerds, deal with it.
Let's look at what we know about the arc reactor from movies 1 and 2:
Mk1 Arc
Reactor
The full-sized arc reactor looks a lot like a toroidal "Tokomak" plasma
containment system for standard "hot fusion":
This type of fusion reactor exists today at research pilot scale. The reactor pictured, ITER, is
under construction and is planned to be the first fusion reactor large enough to produce a
net gain of energy. Basically it mashes two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium,
together at such high energies that they combine into one atom. When they fuse, the
reaction produces helium and a free neutron. Critically, helium+neutron has less mass than
deuterium+tritium, and the missing mass is converted to energy. That energy can be
captured as heat to run a traditional steam-driven turbine (like any other power plant).
So what does the arc reactor's torus (donut) shape tell us? It means there are charged
particles moving in a circle, contained by a magnetic field. High-energy particles usually
have high energy because they're moving very fast, and magnetic fields can curve the motion
of charged particles. Curving the particles' motion into a circle keeps them in one place long
enough to get them to collide.
You may notice that current fusion reactor designs have a lot of magnet coils on the outside
of the torus, whereas the Stark Industries arc reactor has a viewing window. Plasma
containment is the single biggest challenge for hot fusion, but the arc reactor makes it look
effortless. From this we can conclude that a key technology in the full-scale arc
reactor is a way to contain the reaction in a self-sustaining ring.
This line of reasoning is definitely backed up by the toroidal field lines drawn in the Stark
Industries arc reactor blueprints:
There is also a remarkable lack of cooling loops, turbines, or anything that a traditional
thermal reactor would require. Which means the arc reactor produces electricity
directly, rather than by first generating heat.This observation jives with the fact that
the megawatt-scale reactor in Tony's chest does not roast him alive. So it cannot be a hotfusion reactor, or a traditional thermal-fission reactor. Back to the drawing board!
What else do we know about the miniature arc reactor?
Requires no exotic materials outside what you could scavenge from dismantled
conventional weapons systems
Runs low on power at inconvenient times, meaning it must have some sort of fuel or
consumed charge
Palladium has been proposed as a substrate for "cold" fusion that does not require hot
plasmas and containment toroids, but this concept is pretty widely discredited in the real
world. Palladium does, however, have some interesting capture and decay properties.
the palladium core attracts lower-energy electrons from the suit's wiring. The ejection of
electrons from the core towards the rim of the device produces an electrical
cell capable of generating enormous voltage and current.
Here's the full proposed reactor start-up process:
Using external power, Pd-103 is ionized by an electric arc, and accelerated to high
velocity in the outer ring. There may also be some externally-powered gamma ray
production to jump-start the inner core.
Pd-107 in the inner core starts to emit high-energy electrons as it decays to Ag-107.
The electrons escape the core and are directed by magnetic fields into the outer ring.
Lack of electrons creates a net positive charge in the core, which slows further emission
(preventing run-away decay) until the electrons can be externally replenished.
In the outer ring, the high-energy free electrons collide with high-energy Pd-103+
ions. This causes instantaneous electron capture and gamma ray emission. The gamma
rays are deflected inward towards the core, thus catalyzing further electron emission
and producing a self-sustaining reaction. Note that the reaction is self-sustaining, but
very slow while the reactor is idle.
The electron flow from the inner core to the outer core creates an electric potential
difference. When a circuit is created through the suit's electrical loads, the outer ring
has an excess of electrons and the inner core has a shortage of electrons. This creates
current.
The electrical current through an external load relieves the electrostatic charge
accumulations that initially slowed the reactions. So the less power the suit draws, the
slower the reactor produces radioactive decay, and the more power the suit draws, the
faster the reactions are catalyzed. That way, the power output automatically throttles
according to demand.
The palladium slowly converts to Rh-103 and Ag-107, and the reactor runs out of
power when the palladium is fully consumed.
I can't speak for the next-gen "new element" arc reactor, but presumably it replaces the
palladium isotopes with a hypothetical element that also undergoes gamma-ray-mediated
beta decay, but in a less-toxic and higher-output fashion.
Several other lines of evidence also support this type of nuclear decay / electron flux
reaction being the mechanism for the arc reactor. First, the reactor's glow. It could be
caused by the ionization arc, but I think Cherenkov radiation is a much better explanation.
This is a special type of light emission that occurs when an energetic particle (such as
electron) enters a medium (like water or air) at a speed faster than the speed of light in that
medium. The high-energy electron flux within the arc reactor would be a natural fit to
generate this effect. This is a picture of an actual nuclear reactor producing Cherenkov
radiation:
Notice the
similarities?
Unlike electrical arcs, the light from Cherenkov radiation is quiet, cool-blue, and fricken'
awesome. This is a no-brainer -- the arc reactor's glow is definitely being produced by highenergy electron flux.
Another aspect of the original model palladium arc reactor was poisoningdue to
"palladium toxicity". It's very possible that palladium is simply being ejected from the device
into Tony's blood by all the high-energy collisions going on, but this doesn't explain the
freaky circuit-looking lines on his chest, and it doesn't explain why doctors can't help him.
I have a theory that fits the symptoms better. Remember, the proposed palladium
decay reactions produce rhodium and silver. Excess internal silver is known to stain
skin blue.
Rhodium compounds also stain skin, and are highly toxic. (Chemical properties, Health and
Environmental effects) In fact, because most people have essentially zero exposure to
rhodium, the toxicity of rhodium is very poorly-understood. This perfectly explains why
Tony didn't seek help from the medical establishment for his accumulated heavy metal
toxicity -- because he knew the doctors wouldn't know how to deal with rhodium
poisoning. Tony Stark didn't have simple palladium poisoning, he had
"palladium decay-product" poisoning!
So you see, everything fits together perfectly. The evidence all points towards the arc
reactor relying on a Pd-103/Pd-107 radio-isotopic decay cell to produce
electrical current.
Fonte: http://www.quora.com/What-is-theory-concept-behind-the-MiniatureArc-Reactor-built-by-Tony-Stark