Posted on 05/27/2008 1:35:26 PM PDT by Red Badger
On May 22, researchers at Osaka University presented the first demonstration of cold fusion since an unsuccessful attempt in 1989 that has clouded the field to this day.
To many people, cold fusion sounds too good to be true. The idea is that, by creating nuclear fusion at room temperature, researchers can generate a nearly unlimited source of power that uses water as fuel and produces almost zero waste. Essentially, cold fusion would make oil obsolete.
However, many experts debate whether money should be spent on cold fusion research or applied to more realistic alternative energy solutions. For decades, researchers around the world have been simply trying to show that cold fusion is indeed possible, but they´ve yet to take that important first step.
Now, esteemed Physics Professor Yoshiaki Arata of Osaka University in Japan claims to have made the first successful demonstration of cold fusion. Last Thursday, May 22, Arata and his colleague Yue-Chang Zhang of Shianghai Jiotong University presented the cold fusion demonstration to 60 onlookers, including other physicists, as well as reporters from six major newspapers and two TV studios. If Arata and Zhang´s demonstration is real, it could lead to a future of new, clean, and cheap energy generation.
In their experiment, the physicists forced deuterium gas into a cell containing a mixture of palladium and zirconium oxide, which absorbed the deuterium to produce a dense "pynco" deuterium. In this dense state, the deuterium nuclei from different atoms were so close together that they fused to produce helium nuclei.
Evidence for the occurrence of this fusion came from measuring the temperature inside the cell. When Arata first injected the deuterium gas, the temperature rose to about 70° C (158° F), which Arata explained was due to nuclear and chemical reactions. When he turned the gas off, the temperature inside the cell remained warmer than the cell wall for 50 hours, which Arata said was an effect of nuclear fusion.
While Arata´s demonstration looked promising to his audience, the real test is still to come: duplication. Many scientists and others are now recalling the infamous 1989 demonstration by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, who claimed to produce controlled nuclear fusion in a glass jar at room temperature. However, no one - including Fleischmann and Pons - could duplicate the experiment, leading many people to consider cold fusion a pseudoscience to this day.
But one witness at the recent demonstration, physicist Akito Takahashi of Osaka University, thought that the experiment should be able to be repeated.
"Arata and Zhang demonstrated very successfully the generation of continuous excess energy [heat] from ZrO2-nano-Pd sample powders under D2 gas charging and generation of helium-4," Takahashi told New Energy Times. "The demonstrated live data looked just like data they reported in their published papers [J. High Temp. Soc. Jpn, Feb. and March issues, 2008]. This demonstration showed that the method is highly reproducible."
In addition, researchers will have to repeat the experiment with larger amounts of the palladium and zirconium oxide mixture in order to generate larger quantities of energy.
via: Physics World and New Energy Times
The quantum tunneling effect is already accounted for by standard quantum mechanical scattering theory. Basically, the chance of a tunneling occuring is related to the height and width of the potential hill that the particle has to climb. Since the repulsion of the protons creates a particularly strong hill, high particle velocity is required to get the particles close enough that tunneling happens reasonably often.
We already know, given detectable fusion at lower (but still hot) energies, that some tunneling is occuring, since we can detect any fusion at all. However, the rate at which tunneling occurs drops quickly with lower temperatures. At the temperatures of this experiment, given standard theory, the tunneling should be so unlikely that it is undetectable.
Quantum tunneling is not a mystery to physicists. Lots of semiconductor devices that have been around for decades (Schottky diodes) exploit the effect reliably. If cold fusion is real, there is definitely tunneling going on, but it would have to be happening in a different way or under different conditions than we currently know about.
I dunno. “Physics Professor Yoshiaki Arata of Osaka University” - this isn’t some hack claiming cold fusion in a garage. If it is duplicated based on the peer reveiwed research, it could be real, in which case it is a VERY big deal.
What happens when he injects regular (or even better deuterium stripped) hydrogen? Comparing that to the deuterium result should show whether it is a nuclear reaction or if it just a natural result of hydrogen reacting chemically with the palladium and zirconium oxide. I could see how hydrogen might just be reducing the oxides. I don't remember if that is supposed to be create or absorb heat.
“Show me the neutrons.”
If 2 D2 —>> 1 He4
Why would you expect any neutrons to be released?
Thank you for the excellent explanation.
Who knows the background of the named sources?
Congressman Billybob
Exactly. You can fuse D-D without neutrons, but it will emit other particles. D-T, you get neutrons, and also T-T.
There should be photons emitted as well.
I think it’l be the particles that do the heating, as in fission.
I’d not want to get on a plane with either of these two on board.
Sea water is approximately 0.15% deuterium. I don't know how easy it is to extract, but I think that a combination of steam+centrifuge would make it straightforward. If there's a net positive heat from whatever these guys are doing, you could have a "cold fusion" deuterium breeder reactor.
Actually, H.G. Wells wrote a story called “The World Set Free” at about that time (1914) which did make reference to nuclear bombs, or at least a bomb that was highly recognizable as one. The only thing that he really got wrong (besides the name of the metal used) was that he anticipated it would take about a week for the bomb to emit its energy after being dropped. This actually made them less destructive than a real A-bomb, but still would make a city uninhabitable if a few slow burners were dropped in strategic locations. He was inspired through the knowledge that Radium generated energy in this slow manner. It was actually cited as the inspiration by the man who did theorize the Uranium chain reaction.
Not the first public demonstration of cold fusion, but the first in Japan.
Not true. A US group a year or so ago duplicated Fleischmann and Pons experiment and detected fusion directly (by measuring the tracks etched into a detector chip by high-energy alpha particles that could ONLY have come from a fusion process).
There's a video and paper summation on the web. Don't know if that was ever linked on FR.
If you consider "track etch" dosimetry an "available particle spectrometer", then it's been done (and with positive results).
Well of course!
That’s what we need the flux capacitor for!
Was a neutron detector present for the demo?
Even if it became proven, workable technology in short order, the RATS would make it illegal to “drill this well”, too.
MIT also held a symposium on cold fusion a few years ago.
And while the reported results were mixed, after reading a few of the reports you come to the conclusion that it’s nowheres near as cut and dried as alot tend to say.
Something is going on. There have simply been too many attempts that have had spurious results, ie: too much heat, to simply discount it entirely.
Wonder Warthog, if I remember correctly they reported that they detected tracks by etching, but didn’t report fluence or spectrum.
If I’m wrong, can you link me to the report? I may not have seen the same one you did.
Hitachi had, at that time, more PhD's employed that any other company in the world - 19,500.
I was in the computer division and had great respect for Hitachi's technical technological prowess.
If cold fusion is a valid process, I have no doubt that the Japanese are as capable of exploiting the phenomenon as any country on earth!
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