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...

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lodovic 6 months ago | parent [-]

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.

	▲	cryptonector 6 months ago \| parent [-]
		If such a generator were powered by nat gas rather than being a battery of sorts, then even being a bit less efficient than an ICE would be attractive if the generator were simpler and had a lower TCO than the ICE equivalent.