Quote:
Originally Posted by Reece
Those tubes might still work, in outer space...
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Unfortunately, they wouldn't, unless they were transported to space intact, and then broken open.
Once the oxide cathode coating is exposed to air, it reverts to an inactive carbonate mixture which will not emit electrons.
The emissive coating is originally applied as inactive carbonates, but it is then "activated" (reduced to oxide) by a special thermal processing stage (so-called "hot-shot") during evacuation.
You would need to go through the whole process again (if even possible) before the tubes would work again, even in a vacuum.
04-08-2012, 04:34 PM
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