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From: fusion@zorch.UU.NET
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Submission for Alt.fusion
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Date: 3 Apr 89 09:32:57 GMT
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			The View from Here:
			___________________

Section 1: Foundations and Preconditions:

People have known for some time that some metals and alloys are
capable of storing remarkably large quantities of hydrogen at or near
room temperature. (Many, if not all, of the Platinum group; Titanium;
La5Ni are all examples. La5Ni, in fact, can store hydrogen at a
density that compares with the density of liquid hydrogen. Too bad
it's 5 Lanthanums to 1 Nickel.)

Here's a quote from something that was posted to sci.physics by
paf@unixprt.UUCP (Paul Fronberg), about Palladium:

 >
 >from "Guide to Uncommon metals" by Eric N. Simons
 >
 >One of the most remarkable properties of the metal is its ferocious
 >absorption of hydrogen, which it readily takes up, to the extent of
 >about 800 times its own volume at room temperature. This makes it
 >highly valuable as a diffusion barrier for the production of small
 >vlumes of extremely pure hydrogen.  In the same way septa or membranes
 >of palladium are now embodied in electrolytic cells for the separation
 >of hydrogen isotopes by electrolytic migration.
 >

It occurred to some people that if a metal were filled with Deuterium
rather than Protium, a modest number of fusion reactions could
conceivably occur.

There are three possible fusion reactions involving only Deuterium:

2 Deuteriums combine to form a Tritium and a Proton. The Tritium then
decays, with a halflife of something like 12.8 years, giving off an
electron and becoming Helium-3.

2 Deuteriums combine to form Helium-3 and a Neutron (the Neutron then
decays, with a halflife of something like 512 seconds, giving off an
electron and becoming a Proton)

2 Deuteriums combine to form Helium-4. This is rather much less
likely, as far as I know. It is, on the other hand, rather pleasant,
because it results only in charged particles, which are easily handled
and don't make the reactor 'hot'. (Neutrons are nasty critters.)

I believe that all of these give off gamma.


NOW: at least two groups proceed, apparently with private and/or
out-of-pocket funding, to build devices intended to explore the
possibility of fusion in metals at "room temperature". Some months go
by. The two Utah groups (Brigham Young University and University of
Utah (Pons) in collaboration with Birmingham, England (Fleischman))
obtain some results.  They both submit papers, which are scheduled for
publication in Nature or Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, in
late April and/or early May.

Meanwhile, word gets out. Oooops!

The two Utah groups are obliged to tell people what they have found.
There is at least one press conference, and (several?) internal
colloquia. FROM THESE ITEMS, and from preprints of the papers, various
things begin to emerge. Again, from a posting to sci.physics, this
time from ch-tkr@wasatch.UUCP (Timothy K Reynolds) [I've made minor
grammatical and spelling corrections]:

 >
 >Dr. Pons began with a brief history of the work began by
 >himself and Fleischman.  Initially, their interests were in
 >the development of a metallic hydrogen material for use as a
 >semiconductor.  They realized that immense pressures were
 >required in a lattice for this to occur.  However, they
 >theorized that it would be possible to bring about the
 >equivalent of this immense pressure by electrochemical
 >methods.  From these initial musings, they also considered
 >whether this "eletrochemical pressure" could be used to fuse
 >like nuclei (Deuterium).
 >
 >The initial experiment used a cube of Pd (size not stated) in D2O at
 >high current density (magnitude not stated).  A Geiger counter was used
 >to detect any radiation from the fusion reaction of D.  However no
 >radiation was detected.  The experiment was discontinued by reducing
 >the current density, and shortly thereafter (overnight I think is what
 >he said) the experimental apparatus was vaporized.  Left approximately
 >1/10 of the initial Pd.
 >

The researcher (Pons) stated that he and his group could not
convince themselves that any chemical energy source was
capable of providing the amount of energy released in their
experiments. If the description here is accurate, I could
well believe it!

Please note that the report says that they turned down the current
density fairly abruptly. Some sources have suggested that the
Deuterium inside the Palladium, no longer under electrochemical
pressure, attempted to leave, and in the process generated a region of
extremely high Deuterium density near the surface. Here, fusion
reactions presumably occurred, creating lots of neutrons, gamma, and
heat.  Whether the description is accurate, I couldn't say. There is
mention, toward the end of this summary, of a peculiar and extremely
exothermic phase transition in Palladium Hydrides...

Further items:

1) The Brigham Young University group finds some evidence for fusion
reactions. They do NOT see ANYTHING LIKE "breakeven", reporting
instead 10^-13 watts from their apparatus.

2) Again, quoting Timothy K Reynolds -

 >
 >Dr. Pons explained a control experiment where they used a closed
 >cell to detect tritium (else some tritium would be lost as by
 >exchange with D2O).  Tritium was detected, and its concentration
 >increased over time.  Also the neutron flux was measured at
 >10**4 n/s.  This is 3X higher than background and was considered
 >statistically significant.  However, the reactions to produce
 >tritium and 3He do not explain the amount of heat produced.
 >
 >The production rate of Tritium was found to match that of Neutrons.
 >

(As far as I understand it, the amount of heat corresponds to
about 10^9 times as many reactions as they have neutrons to
explain. That's a very large discrepancy.)

3) The Pons and Fleischman group detect Helium-4, but not
Helium-3. This is a mystery to me (and, as near as I understand
it, to them) at this time. (Further information later in this
summary.)

4) The University of Utah group reports one thermal runaway, as
mentioned above, and several other experiments which apparently
generated enough heat that they are unable to explain it away by any
non-thermonuclear means. This is odd. They say that they had to
'charge' the system for some months, and that once it was 'charged',
it gave off copious amounts of heat for about 120 hours. (For
'copious', one reads "on the order of 4 megajoules"...) They
calculated 26 watts/cc of electrode material. [Your humble
correspondent calculates this to mean that they had about 1/3 of a cc
of electrode. Could be off, though.]

As mentioned, the number of neutrons they are seeing, which as far as
they are aware should indicate the number of fusion reactions, is only
a billionth of what it would take to explain this amount of energy
output. Can you say "Oops!"? On the other hand, it clearly isn't
chemical. 26 watts/cc for 1 hour, I could maybe think about believing,
maybe, but not for 120, no way. 4 MILLION Joules out of some stupid
little piece of stuff that's not even a cubic centimeter? Give me a break!

Anybody have the data on the energy density of the Hydrogen spin-flip
reaction? Can that even conceivably be taking place here? (I think
Deuterium may not do that, but I'm too long out of school, and don't
really remember.)

5) The [fusion] reaction seems to be diffusion limited. Dr. Pons
apparently stated that the diffusion rate for Deuterium in Palladium
is on the order of 10^-7 cm^2/sec.

6) Several apparently unfounded rumors appear, to wit: that someone at
Los Alamos has duplicated the work, and lost a lab bench doing so,
that someone at Princeton has duplicated the work, that someone at
CalTech has duplicated the work. Los Alamos, at least, appears to have
denied the part of the rumor that mentions them. (This observer
believes that the 'lost lab bench' is probably the result of people
playing "telephone" about the thermal runaway in Utah.)

7) The price of Palladium appears to be climbing rapidly, unless we
are being bamboozled by April Fool reports.


SOME FURTHER EXPLANATIONS and OTHER ITEMS:

1) The electrolyte in the cells seems to have been heavy water
(typically 99.5% D2O, if you get high-quality stuff) with something
very much like household lye dissolved in it to make it conduct
electricity; the 'lye' actually has lithium instead of sodium, and has
deuterium instead of hydrogen, thus making it LiOD instead of NaOH.

If you want to think of that another way, it's D2O with one of the
Deuteriums replaced by a lithium. [I have one report that it was LiOH,
and one report that it was LiOD. Not that it makes a hell of a lot of
difference, at this level, as far as we know.]

2) If this observer correctly understands what is going on, both
groups report that the effect is a volumetric one; that is, the
reactions are NOT just taking place at the surface of the Palladium,
but involve Deuterium that has migrated INTO the crystal lattice.
Certainly, the Pons/Fleischman group reports that it's
volume-dependent. Moreover, the claim is that before the Palladium
surface is saturated with D, the D starts to migrate into the
interior. Odd, but not terribly so.

3)Quoting again from Timothy K Reynolds:

 >
 >Dr. Pons stated that the potential of this electrochemical
 >couple is 0.8V.  In terms of pressure to get the same degree of
 >difference in chemical potential = 10**27 atmospheres.
 >

Apparently, the 'electrochemical pressure' encourages considerable
amounts of Deuterium to take up residence inside the crystal lattice
of the Palladium. Still, the Palladium is a solid and it is fairly
dense, so it takes a fair amount of time for the Deuterium to get in
there.  People are reporting 'charging times' on the order of months.

4) DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME, KIDS!! Neutrons have this annoying
tendency to get into things and make them radioactive. If you want
your gonads to glow in the dark, make sure the benchtop is at the
right height for you...

5) Possible explanation for the presence of Helium-4: At least one
source has suggested that a fusion reaction involving one Deuterium
and one Lithium results in 2 Helium-4s, and could be going on. This
observer does not know whether Lithium can get inside the Palladium,
but it is always possible that it is merely getting into the surface,
and the reaction could be taking place there. (In the low atomic
numbers, many different reactions are known to take place. The
reaction that has been suggested for this explanation: Lithium-6 plus
Deuterium gives Beryllium-8, which then decays with remarkable
promptness [nanoseconds?] to 2 Helium-4s.)

6) Neutrons are not the only thing coming out of these reactions! Many
(if not all) of them give off Gamma as well. In fact, a distinctive
Gamma spectrum is one of the significant signatures for fusion, just
as a distinctive Neutron spectrum is.

7) Palladium seems to have a small cross-section for activation by
fast Neutrons, but could be activated by slower ('thermal') Neutrons
coming back out of the heavy water (which is a good Neutron moderator,
as witness the excellent Canadian fission reactor system, "CANDU").
Apparently the University of Utah group has not yet attempted to assay
their electrodes, to see whether any activation has taken place.

8) Again, quoting Timothy K Reynolds,

 >
 >No 2.45 MeV Neutrons were detected. [Dr. Pons] speculated that these
 >Neutrons may [have been] consumed by reactions with Lithium, as
 >follows:
 >
 >		7Li + n + 2.45MeV --> 3T + 3He + n
 >		6Li + n           --> 3T + 3He + 4.5MeV
 >

Not bad work, if you can get it. The concentration of Lithium in the
electrolyte has not, as far as I can tell, been specified. As to
isotopes, if my hazy memory is correct, there are roughly equal
amounts of Lithium-6 and Lithium-7 around in nature. I could be wrong
about that, though.

9) In a report from CERN, where Dr. Fleischman apparently lectured,
there is a claim that the Quantum Mechanics of the Deuterium
S-electron density is bizarre and not well understood. (Someone, I
don't know who, has speculated that the Deuterium exists within the
Palladium lattice as a sort of plasma. Nifty, if true.)

10) Also from CERN, fusion reactions and slightly different figures. 

This information comes from
Jon Caves {world}!mcvax!cernavx!jon (or jon@cernvax.cern.ch)
Division DD
CERN CH-1211
Geneva 23
Switzerland.

 >
 >In the lattice the following nuclear reactions occur
 >
 >   2D + 2D -> 3T + 1H + 4.03MeV
 >
 >   2D + 2D -> 3He + n + 3.77Mev
 >
 >Their first experiment was with a palladium cube, this finished when
 >the cube ignited, in the nuclear sense. The conclusion of this is that
 >this reaction does not fail safe. When it starts to run hot it runs
 >very hot.  The cube almost burnt down their fume cupboard. But at
 >least the effects are not quite as serious as a meltdown of a fission
 >reactor.
 >
 >They then tried sheets before finally trying rods. These rods a 10cm
 >long and have diameters of 1mm ,2mm and 4mm. The best results are with
 >the 4mm rod therefore the reaction is dependent on volume as opposed
 >to surface area, it also seems to be dependant on temperature.
 >
 >After 100 hours the measured output was 5MJ/cm^3. They managed to
 >detect Neutrons, gamma, and a 5-fold increase in the [amount of]
 >Tritium in the heavy water. They didn't manage to get an energy
 >spectrum for the Neutrons.
 >

Too bad, too. Would have been nice to see a 4.5MeV peak...or maybe to
miss one.

11) If, in fact, something is catalyzing a T+p path about 10^9 times
as much as the 3He+n path, then the lack of Neutrons could be
explained fairly easily. But what would cause that much of a
differential? Moreover, I don't know whether they are detecting
appropriate Tritium levels.

12) Several people (Ron Merrill of BIX included) have mentioned a
curious fact: so far as we are currently aware, no attempt was made to
run a control with water instead of heavy water. It seems that the
researchers have decided that chemistry just cannot be responsible for
the amount of heat they are seeing. It would be nice, nonetheless, to
see a control hit!

13) The Brigham Young University people, who are seeing 10^-13 watts
output, apparently cannot understand the University of Utah results.
Different experimental setups, maybe? I still, alas, haven't seen
preprints of either paper, though I understand that scanned versions
of at least one are around the net somewhere.

14) Marvin Weinstein (BIX again, I think) mentions "...a known,
somewhat peculiar, phase transition [that] occurs in Palladium Hydride
(that is what this stuff is), which is powerfully exothermic and could
explain strange fires." Apparently occurs when the Palladium absorbs a
large amount of Hydrogen. Presumably also occurs with Deuterium?

Could this possibly explain the initial 'meltdown' in Utah? How
powerfully exothermic is this thing, and how does the Deuterium
version differ from the Protium version? All unknown to me at this
time.

15) Several people, including Leo Schwab, have wondered about the long
charging time. Can it be that the U of U people have invented a new
sort of battery? Seems unlikely - I would presume that much of the
heat generated in electrolysis, if that is indeed what is going on,
would just be conducted away, and that the excess O2 would be bubbled
off. This should be calculable, anyway. Lee Rimar (BIX) claims that in
fact you have to heat the Palladium to get the Hydrogen back out
(under ordinary circumstances), which argues against the 'battery'
hypothesis on at least one level.


			...and that's how it looks from here,
		Sunday night, 3 April 1989, on the Net, thriving
		on chaos and confusion. Hope this summary has
		been of some use to someone. Sorry it's so
		disorganized.

						Jon Singer