Palladium-Deuterium Loading

Figure 8. Experimental evidence of nuclear reactions produced by high-density charge clusters (HDCCs) (a) HDCC strike on a deuterium-loaded palladium foil (b) X-ray analysis of the crack illustrated above, showing new materials produced.

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 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. 

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