Deuterium cold fusion

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. 

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. 

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... 

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). 

In a much-publicized study in 1989, Pons and Fleischmann claimed to have observed cold fusion of nuclei of deuterium (heavy hydrogen, D) within palladium electrodes that were being used to electrolyze D2O. Had this been the case, what other electrode materials might also have shown the same phenomenon ... 

Fusion - [SIZE ENLARGEMENT] (Vol 22) -cold [FUSION ENERGY] (Vol 12) -deuterium [DEUTERIUM AND TRITIUM - DEUTERIUM] (Vol 8) -dye intermediates from [DYES AND DYE INTERMEDIATES] (Vol 8) -of tritium [DEUTERIUM AND TRITIUM - TRITIUM] (Vol 8) -vanadium m reactors [VANADIUM AND VANADIUM ALLOYS] (Vol 24)... 

Several years ago, there was much discussion of a cold fusion process involving electrolysis of deuterium containing water with palladium electrodes. Independent investigators have had little luck duplicating the experiment and the original developers cannot reliably reproduce their results. 

On March 23, 1989, the University of Utah held a press conference that shook the energy world. Electrochemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced reproducible cold fusion 10% more energy released than supplied. They passed an electric current through palladium and platinum wires in a container of heavy water and lithium sulfate. Cold fusion is nuclear fusion at ambient temperature. When the two hydrogen atoms in a water molecule are replaced with deuterium (called heavy hydrogen because it has one proton and one neutron), it is called heavy water. 

Hydrogen ions can diffuse into the interstitial wells between atoms in many metals to form solid solutions MH, or ordered metal hydride phases. Such materials are technically useful for the storage and purification of hydrogen, but absorbed H may also lead to unwanted brittleness in steel and other construction metals. The interesting material problems and the possible technical applications have led to large efforts over many years in studies of hydrogen absorbed in metals and its diffusion mechanisms. Lately, the promise of cheap energy from cold fusion of deuterium in metal hydrides has made most materials scientists aware of this field of research. 

Fleischmann, M. and Pons, S. (1990) Calorimetry of the paUadium/deuterium system. 1st Annual Cold Fusion Conference Proceedings, p. 1. 

Kunimatsu, K., Hasegawa, N., Kubota, A. et al. (1993) Deuterium loading ratio and excess heat generation during electrolysis of heavy water by a palladium cathode in a closed cell using a partially immersed fuel cell anode, in Frontiers of Cold Fusion (ed. H. Ikegami), Universal Academy Press, Tokyo, pp. 31-45. 

In March 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons reported their discovery of cold nuclear fusion. They announced that during electrolysis of a solution of hthium hydroxide in heavy water (DjO) with a cathode made of massive palladium, nuclear transformations of deuterium at room temperature can be recorded. This announcement, which promised humankind a new and readily available energy source, was seized upon immediately by the mass media in many countries. Over the following years, research was undertaken worldwide on an unprecedented scale in an effort to verify this finding. 

It is evident that fusion reactions become possible only at very high temperatures, and they are therefore called thermonuclear reactions. It is assumed that the deuterium cycle (a) prevails in the sun and in relatively cold stars, whereas the carbon cycle (b) dominates in hot stars. In the centre of stars densities of the order of lO g/cm and temperatures of the order of 10 K may exist, and under these conditions other thermonuclear reactions become possible ... 

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