We’ll be honest with you, a project isn’t an exciting project without some wild working principles. When we were engaging with this as a team, we said in effect that we’d like to take a few pages off Tesla’s book and add to that many hints of the Edison spirit. After all, who turned broken ideas into “finger-posts on the road to achievement”? However, flip to the next pages for more of that – this isn’t yet the place for Edison’s undaunted optimism.
Instead, here’s a little view of our Tesla side. i.e., the purely principal aspect of our work, or the working principle.
When gas is passed through a high voltage source, such as a live wire (imagine the positive side of a battery exposed to air), it ionizes. A gamut of reactions can be produced when ions and neutral atoms kept in the same chamber reach the electrical ground. There, not only do some of the electrons recombine with the positive helium ions – some of these ions and electrons react to form molecules, and these molecules combine again with other free electrons, which in turn yields reactive gaseous species (larger gas molecules that can react easily). Since helium is inert (i.e. not very reactive at all), these reactive species are not very reactive at all (meaning, explosive upon impact with other molecules or biological species). So you can relax just a little bit more when they hit your fingertip, even if it’s all sweaty from fear of touching that high voltage nail wedged into the side of the device off the corner of your eye that you’ve been eyeing warily and trying to not brush or fall on accidentally.
Wait. Why won’t an electrical arc like lightning shoot over and land in my body? Well, remember how reactive species are larger molecules? Since the gas atoms have now become molecules when passing over the high voltage source, and the gas is flowing, the larger molecules (having more mass, therefore more inertia) that compose the majority of the flow of gas are less energetic. This means, from the thermodynamical perspective, that they don’t carry so much heat! Meanwhile, the electron (light-as-a-feather when compared with the molecules) is highly energetic being on its own now after the ionization process. This means it carries a TON of heat. So, it’s very very hot to the touch, so to speak, but the good news with having a flow of inert gas is that the light electrons are trapped in a sea of heavier molecules, and so some of these electrons quickly recombine with some heavier molecules. Hence the gas that comes out of the nozzle is composed of mostly heavier molecules (more inertial, therefore less thermally excited i.e. hot) trodding along the path of flow – and out of the aperture onto your waiting fingertip. Hitting your finger? No problem. These ions feel cool to the touch because they’re not energetic – although we mentioned this just a few moments ago, to reassure you, they have enough inertia to be slow enough and not carry enough heat.
