News & Analysis
Cold fusion experimentally confirmed
R Colin Johnson
3/23/2009 8:43 PM EDT
PORTLAND, Ore. — U.S. Navy researchers claimed to have experimentally confirmed cold fusion in a presentation at the American Chemical Society's annual meeting.
"We have compelling evidence that fusion reactions are occurring" at room temperature, said Pamela Mosier-Boss, a scientist with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (San Diego). The results are "the first scientific report of highly energetic neutrons from low-energy nuclear reactions," she added.
Cold fusion was first reported in 1989 by researchers Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, then with the University of Utah, prompting a global effort to develop the technology. Normal fusion reactions, where hydrogen is fused into helium, occur at millions of degrees inside the Sun. If room temperature fusion reactions could be realized commercially, as Fleishchmann and Pons claimed to have achieved inside an electrolytic cell, it promised to produce abundant nuclear energy from deuterium--heavy hydrogen--extracted from seawater.
Other scientists were unable to duplicate the 1989 results, thereby discrediting the work.
The theoretical underpinnings of cold fusion have yet to be adequately explained. The hypothesis is that when electrolysis is performed on deuteron, molecules are fused into helium, releasing a high-energy neutron. While excess heat has been detected by researchers, no group had yet been able to detect the missing neutrons.
Now, the Naval researchers claim that the problem was instrumentation, which was not up to the task of detecting such small numbers of neutrons. To sense such small quantities, Mosier-Boss used a special plastic detector called CR-39. Using co-deposition with nickel and gold wire electrodes, which were inserted into a mixture of palladium chloride and deutrium, the detector was able to capture and track the high-energy neutrons.
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| Silvered Dewar calorimeter used by Navy researchers to detect neutron emissions from a cold fusion process. |
The plastic detector captured a pattern of tiny clusters of adjacent pits, called triple tracks, which the researchers claim is evidence of the telltale neutrons.
Other presenters at the conference also presented evidence supporting cold fusion, including Antonella De Ninno, a scientist with New Technologies Energy and Environment (Rome), who reported both excess heat and helium gas.
"We now have very convincing experimental evidence," De Ninno claimed.
Tadahiko Mizuno of Japan's Hokkaido University also reported excess heat generation and gamma-ray emissions.
All three research groups are currently exploring both experimental and theoretical studies in hopes of better understanding the cold fusion process well enough to commercialize it.
Research funding was provided by the Department of the Navy and JWK International Corp. (Annandale, Va.).
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bauermlb
3/24/2009 4:59 PM EDT
Not again! The fact is that neutron metrology is very difficult, and most chemists are clueless about the nuances. With all the electro-chemistry going on, I am skeptical about the thermal energy balance, as well.
(I was at ORNL for the first round of claims(Fleischmann/Pons), and work on the metrology aspects of verification efforts, radiological and thermal, which showed no cold fusion.)
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CECR
2/3/2011 12:47 AM EST
What we really need is a clean, dense, always available source of energy. There is a possible source that needs to be investigated, but it threatened very powerful people.
It is a bit dense but people should Google the document mitcfreport.pdf and read at least part of it. Then call your representative and congress critters asking for a full inquire on the material in that document. The fraud in '89 was not on the part of Pons and Fleischmann.
If you are interested in what drives the reaction there is a paper / Hypothesis that has been reviewed by multidisciplinary groups at MIT labs, Amherst, kilpatrick townsend and several other Ph.D's. LISTEN to the power point at
http://www.brillouinenergy.com/BE25Tec.PPS at least once before reading
http://www.brillouinenergy.com/GodesIE82.pdf
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motti2
8/5/2011 7:52 PM EDT
The person/ scientist who did the NEUTRON instrumentation is a long time nuclear particle physicist Dr. Larry Forsely.
He is not a chemist, too bad for you. He took some time to assemble the correct neutron instrumentation, startling a few years back with merely particle track plastic for collision recording of the neutrons traversing the plastic as neutron event recorder. FWIW Dr. Pam Mosier Boss is a superb electrochemist.
It appears BOTH the Navy team described here and Rossi in Italy have reproducible rates, even Pons and Fleischman had the physics but at too low rates to convince assholes, and excess heat is not a prerequisite for proving cold fusion, nuclear reaction / radiation or transmutation is proof, some at high rates, some like P&F in the earliest discovery a very low rate.
And yes the theory has not caught up with the experiment, and some who are vocally opposed are either ignorant, conflicted by either research money or prestige career issues.
Future of physics and science marches onwards, and yes with teams here the name of the physicist who did the neutron instrumentation you are clueless about but he has been working with the navy team in san Diego for over ?6 years, with a tiny budget.
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Ed_nickname
3/24/2009 7:13 PM EDT
There is no statement about rate. How many neutrons per how much material per how much time???
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newidea99
3/26/2009 4:05 PM EDT
This is incredible news maybe now we will take cold fusion seriously again! I have been following a company that has been working along the same lines. They are called
EnergeticsTechnologies.com , 2 independent labs have replicated their results as well. Additionally, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)
has analyzed the process they call SuperWave Fusion. Please check this out and let me know what you think.
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kicker24
4/2/2009 2:06 PM EDT
It is the best 1st April article, I've read this year! Just to remind to stundents who believe in all these stories. The high temperature like in the Sun one need to get two nucleus interact with each other. At room temperature the probability of such interaction is too low to be of any use. Chemical reaction has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the nuclear reaction.
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gusspoon
4/6/2009 2:47 PM EDT
I can't see where the extra neutron comes from?
Helium requires 2 and deuterium only has 1
If Deuterium is morphing into Helium it looks like a 1 for 1 exchange?
The only way I can possibly visualize cold fusion is; If somehow the the Gluon field is disturbed enough to to null the strong force and pop something loose from the Nucleon. This would most likely be a repulsion of Protons and not a Neutron. Deuterium would not be the, likely, medium of exchange.
Now whether a Photon field is capable of performing such and act I have no idea! If it were then I suspect someone would have performed the experiment and documented it.
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pcarbonn
4/26/2009 5:55 AM EDT
The arguments on both sides of the cold fusion debate are nicely summarized on Alternapedia : http://en.alternapedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion_(nuclear_energy)
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Gwylbert
4/26/2009 7:47 AM EDT
Regardless of PERSONAL OPINIONS, there remains the fact that Neutrons just dont get up and move because they don't like their neighbours and that Helium just doesn't appear out of nowhere!
Highly regarded laboratories around the world are providing some evidence that there is excess heat. (please see Thermodynamics for the morons that are to silly to realise that they can be wrong ) I believe that Galileo was wrong and so were some very great scientist in history that funnily enough we now revere and quite happily tout as the greats.
No matter how we want to put it there is evidence pointing straight towards Cold fusion being somewhat of a reality. ( please see Akram's Razor and once again for the morons, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a DUCK!
The truth is that no one understands the process and it will take some time for physics to meld the process into their thought processes but no matter how you want to take it something is happening that is reported to give us Helium, Stray Neutrons and Gamma Rays and all of this from good old water..... HMMMMMMMM!!!
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Gwylbert
4/26/2009 8:31 AM EDT
For those wondering i am not some crack pot that believes the enormous amount of rubbish that people spew out as being over unity or anything like that. I spent my time in Astrophysics but no matter what you say it is not easy to produce Gamma rays from water, sure you can produce X-Rays from a roll of sticky tape but this just doesn't fit.
For Physicists to believe that they have all of the answers to the inner workings of the universe they are seriously deluded. Sure the models and the results that the researchers have provided don't fit but truthfully Copernicus didn't really fit the Ptolemeic model either.
This doesn't fit our model of the universe so it is rejected without a flinch but to those that think outside the box there is a world of possibilities out there to discover.
21st Century physics is really an infant of the Universe as a whole and until we gain a greater understanding of the most fundamental world we are all in the dark.
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lysdexia
4/28/2009 6:22 AM EDT
gusspoon, shut up. It's He-3.
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asdasdsa45646456
4/26/2010 9:23 PM EDT
@Gwylbert - Occam's Razor
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cbr900rr1
4/27/2010 2:13 PM EDT
Isn't Fleischmann a butter, or margarine ?
And no way, the Gluon field is not going to the deterium field for anything.
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Jimelectr
4/28/2010 12:41 AM EDT
Well, I'm not up on those gluons and such, but it seems like if we could extract even a fraction of the rest energy of matter, our energy shortage would be history. E = m*c^2 gives about 2.5*10^10 kW*hr for every kilogram of matter (check my math). The devil is in the details of how to extract it, if that is even possible.
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KingofthePaupers
5/1/2010 9:26 AM EDT
Jct: Japan Telephone announced a couple of decades ago that they had replicated the Pons-Fleishman experiments 5 times with 100% success. That I never heard about it again went a long way to convince me that cold fusion was suppressed so they could gouge us on oil, another reason I never worried about running out of oil.
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KingofthePaupers
5/1/2010 9:34 AM EDT
"Other scientists were unable to duplicate the 1989 results, thereby discrediting the work."
Jct: And when you think of humanity crucified by high oil prices for the past 2 decades, one can only be shocked by the depths of financial depravity in these people and their incompetent or lying scientists for depriving the world of a cheap source of energy. At least the names of the perpetrators can be engraved on the tombstones.
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aquitaine
5/6/2010 4:59 AM EDT
Yep, that's right, it's all a vast grand conspiracy to supress new forms of energy. After all, those guys selling perpetual motion machines have been saying it for years as well so it MUST be true. Right....... :P
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resistion
2/3/2011 1:22 AM EST
This should drive home the need to always challenge optimistic predictions. What's emitted, electrons? Alpha particles? Neutrons? Charged particles should be easiest to catch.
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resistion
2/3/2011 1:30 AM EST
Have they ruled out all possible chemical reactions? New fuel cells can still be exciting.
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yohanc
2/4/2011 2:21 AM EST
What we really need is a method of an efficient energy generation - not a real fusion. If it generates lots of energy in easy way, it is another break-thru in science.
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double-o-nothing
2/4/2011 5:13 AM EST
If neutrons are involved, then it's only an isotope change, with weight loss. Has that been checked?
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StephenJ
8/7/2011 1:26 AM EDT
I tend to agree with Occam. Definitely something unexplained happening here, but what is it? Quantitative Data proves theorems, and these experiments are an open system with Oxygen and Hydrogen being electrolytically released.
Q1. If this is a Deuterium reaction then why does it "require" Lithium Hydroxide"?
Q2. If this is a Deuterium reaction the why does it "require" alkaline (low Deuterium concentration)conditions?
Q3. pure Palladium is not used for Hydrogen purification (passing Hydrogen through a metal membrane for Weather Balloons or Gas Chromatographs, et al) because it undergoes a phase change above Pd(1):H(1.7). Helium is immobile in Pd lattice. Pd
A1. Reaction is Deuterium + Lithium-6 + 2x Helium-4.
A2. Electroplating e.g. Copper on Stainless Steel will inject Hydrogen and Alkali Metal ions into the Stainless Steel lattice. In aqueous solution, lower the hydrogen conc (pKa) and higher voltage/ current density favors plate out of alkali metals.
A3. Palladium, as soft as Gold, is also alloyed with Silver, which does not affect Hydrogen transport. Defects can cause more than one proton to share an interstitial location. Electrode analysis and geometry needs to be included. For steady state: diffusion rates of Li and He needs to be documented.
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