Cold fusion

Calculate the energy release in kilocalories per mole (kcal/mol) of He for the cold fusion reaction... 

Calculate also the activation energy for the reaction, again in kcal/mol, assuming that the Coulomb repulsion maximizes at 3 -y 10 cm separation of the nuclear centers. Assuming a successful cold-fusion device, how many fusions per second would generate one horsepower (1 hp) if the conversion of heat into work were 10% efficient ... 

In the spring of 1989, it was announced that electrochemists at the University of Utah had produced a sustained nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature, using simple equipment available in any high school laboratory. The process, referred to as cold fusion, consists of loading deuterium into pieces of palladium metal by electrolysis of heavy water, E)20, thereby developing a sufficiently large density of deuterium nuclei in the metal lattice to cause fusion between these nuclei to occur. These results have proven extremely difficult to confirm (20,21). Neutrons usually have not been detected in cold fusion experiments, so that the D-D fusion reaction familiar to nuclear physicists does not seem to be the explanation for the experimental results, which typically involve the release of heat and sometimes gamma rays. 

Room temperature fusion reactions, albeit low probabiHty ones, are not a new concept, having been postulated in 1948 and verified experimentally in 1956 (22), in a form of fusion known as muon-catalized fusion. Since the 1989 announcement, however, international scientific skepticism has grown to the point that cold fusion is not considered a serious subject by most scientists. FoUow-on experiments, conducted in many prestigious laboratories, have failed to confirm the claims, and although some unexplained and intellectually interesting phenomena have been recorded, the results have remained irreproducable and, thus far, not accepted by the scientific community. 

E. Close, Too Plot to Handle The Role for Cold Fusion, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1991. 

It has been claimed that the D-D fusion reaction occurs when D2O is electroly2ed with a metal cathode, preferably palladium, at ambient temperatures. This claim for a cold nuclear fusion reaction that evolves heat has created great interest, and has engendered a voluminous titerature filled with claims for and against. The proponents of cold fusion report the formation of tritium and neutrons by electrolysis of D2O, the expected stigmata of a nuclear reaction. Some workers have even claimed to observe cold fusion by electrolysis of ordinary water (see, for example. Ref. 91). The claim has also been made for the formation of tritium by electrolysis of water (92). On the other hand, there are many experimental results that cast serious doubts on the reahty of cold fusion (93—96). Theoretical calculations indicate that cold fusions of D may indeed occur, but at the vanishingly small rate of 10 events per second (97). As of this writing the cold fusion controversy has not been entirely resolved. 

Cold fusion has been reported to result from electrolyzing heavy water using palladium [7440-05-3] Pd, cathodes (59,60). Experimental verification of the significant excess heat output and various nuclear products are stiU under active investigation (61,62) (see Eusion energy). 

Work at Berkeley-Livermore in 1974 first convincingly demonstrated the synthesis of this element via the reaction " Cf( 0,4n) 106. Contemporaneous work at Dubna applied their novel cold fusion method (p. 1280) to reactions such as 82 Pb - - 24 Cr although this methodolgy was crucial to the synthesis of all later elements (107-112) it did not at that time demonstrate the formation of element 106 with adequate conviction. Very recently, element 106 was resynthesized by a new group at Berkeley using exactly the same reaction as employed in 1974. The isotope 106 decays with a half-life of 0.8 0.2 s to 104 and then by a second... 

Element 111 was synthesized and characterized by the same group during the period 8-17 December 1994 using the analogous cold-fusion reaction, ° Bi( Ni,n) lll, followed by observation of up to five successive cc-emissions which could be assigned to the chain ... 

A scientist s credo might be One measurement is no measurement. Thus, take a few measurements and divine the truth This is an invitation for discussions, worse yet, even disputes among scientists. Science thrives on hypotheses that are either disproven or left to stand in the natural sciences that essentially means experiments are re-mn. Any insufficiency of a model results in a refinement of the existing theory it is rare that a theory completely fails (the nineteenth-century luminiferous ether theory of electromagnetic waves was one such, and cold fusion was a more shortlived case). 

Initially, cold fusion was investigated exclusively with just the aim of verifying the very possibility that such an unusual process could occur. Two fusion reactions of deuterium nuclei were regarded as being most likely ... 

Another result of the cold-fusion epopee that was positive for electrochemistry are the advances in the experimental investigation and interpretation of isotope effects in electrochemical kinetics. Additional smdies of isotope effects were conducted in the protium-deuterium-tritium system, which had received a great deal of attention previously now these effects have become an even more powerful tool for work directed at determining the mechanisms of electrode reactions, including work at the molecular level. Strong procedural advances have been possible not only in electrochemistry but also in the other areas. 

In parallel with the detailed checking of evidence for cold fusion, the range of hypotheses as to the nature of the phenomenon was at first extended very strongly at different levels. It must be pointed out at once that most of these hypotheses did not contain any specifically electrochemical element, except that from the very... 

A number of attempts have been made to accomplish nnclear transformations of heavier elements while making nse of similar electrode-solution systems. Undoubtedly, most of these attempts belong in the area of science hction. To some extent, this casts a shadow on all those who have participated in cold-fusion experiments. 

Lines of research exist, moreover, which are related genetically to cold fusion (insofar as they started both prior to and after the Fleischmann-Pons report) but are well above any accusations of science hction. Apart from the research cited above into processes that are mechanically or sonically induced, we can here add the warm fusion occurring during ion implantation (i.e., under appreciably milder conditions than genuine thermonnclear fnsion). 

Electrochemistry was at the sonrce of the cold-fusion boom, bnt then at hrst sight seemed to stand aside. However, as a matter of fact, the central point in the experiments concerning electrolysis at palladium has been a phenomenon which now is investigated more vigoronsly and persistently electrochemical intercalation. 

Palladium hydride is a unique model system for fundamental studies of electrochemical intercalation. It is precisely in work on cold fusion that a balanced materials science approach based on the concepts of crystal chemistry, crystallography, and solid-state chemistry was developed in order to characterize the intercalation products. Very striking examples were obtained in attempts to understand the nature of the sporadic manifestations of nuclear reactions, true or imaginary. In the case of palladium, the elfects of intercalation on the state of grain boundaries, the orientation of the crystals, reversible and irreversible deformations of the lattice, and the like have been demonstrated. 

Thus, despite the highly negative assessment of cold fusion as such, the competent science community cannot negate the existence of many positive consequences that have arisen from this epopee. 

Fusidic acid, bacterial resistance mechanisms, 3 32t Fusinite, 6 707t, 719, 828 Fusion, PVC, 25 663-664. See also Cold fusion Deuterium fusion Fusion-bonded-epoxies (FBE), 10 440 Fusion carburization, 4 674-675 Fusion-cast refractories, 21 504 shapes of, 21 481-482 Fusion method, for tin content assays, 24 791, 792... 

Unnilseptium, or bohrium, is artificially produced one atom at a time in particle accelerators. In 1976 Russian scientists at the nuclear research laboratories at Dubna synthesized element 107, which was named unnilseptium by lUPAC. Only a few atoms of element 107 were produced by what is called the cold fusion process wherein atoms of one element are slammed into atoms of a different element and their masses combine to form atoms of a new heavier element. Researchers did this by bombarding bismuth-204 with heavy ions of chromium-54 in a cyclotron. The reaction follows Bi-209 + Cr-54 + neutrons = (fuse to form) Uns-262 + an alpha decay chain. 

Most of the chemical and physical properties of imniloctium (hassium) are unknown. What is known is that its most stable isotope (hassium-108) has the atomic weight (mass) of about 277. Hs-277 has a half-life of about 12 minutes, after which it decays into the isotope seaborgium-273 through either alpha decay or spontaneous fission. Hassium is the last element located at the bottom of group 8, and like element 107, it is produced by a cold fusion process that in hassium s case is accomplished by slamming iron (Fe-58) into particles of the isotope of lead (Pb-209), along with several neutrons, as follows ... 

Today, physical chemistry has accomplished its great task of elucidating the microcosmos. The existence, properties and combinatory rules for atoms have been firmly established. The problem now is to work out where they came from. Their source clearly lies outside the Earth, for spontaneous (cold) fusion does not occur on our planet, whereas radioactive transmutation (breakup or decay), e.g. the decay of uranium to lead, is well known to nuclear geologists. The task of nuclear astrophysics is to determine where and how each species of atomic nucleus (or isotope) is produced beyond the confines of the Earth. 

In a survey dealing with palladium electrode, it is not possible to avoid mentioning the cold fusion controversy, started in 1989, where Pd electrode played and plays a central role. Hundreds of papers relating to palladium electrode are dealing exclusively with cold fusion and related subjects. The status of cold fusion was summarized in [104], recently. 

These were bold and simple statements. To put them in a modern context, the discovery of triphenylmethyl combined the novelty of something like bucky balls with the controversial nature of something like polywater or cold fusion. Thus Gomberg was soon to find that the triphenylmethyl problem was attractive and complex enough to occupy him and many others for a long time. A first period lasted until about 1911 when the phenomena observed had been clarified to the satisfaction of a majority of the research community. Theoretically, little understanding was possible before the advent of the electron pair bond and, in particular, theory based on quantum mechanical concepts. This meant that the theory available... 

Not to be confused with the cold fusion of deuterium purportedly achieved by chemists in Utah in 1989 using nothing but heavy water in an electrolysis cell. This claim of cold nuclear fusion was later shown to be untenable (see page 188). 

By the end of1989 cold fusion was discredited by all but a minority of true believers (who were still pursuing it over ten years later), and scientists emerged with embarrassment, indignation - and a renewed appreciation of the unique properties of palladium. 

Rutherford, Radiation from Radioactive Substances (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1930). The woeful tale of cold fusion, and the precedent in the work of Pareth and Peters, Is recounted In F. Close, Too Hot To Handle (Princeton Princeton University Press, 1991). 

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