Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!udel!eplrx7!wyant
From: wyant@eplrx7.UUCP (wyant)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion,sci.physics
Subject: Yet another summary of the APS cold fusion session
Keywords: cold fusion, APS, session, Jones, Pons, neutrons
Message-ID: <314@eplrx7.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 89 21:19:09 GMT
Followup-To: alt.fusion
Lines: 246
Xref: santra alt.fusion:929 sci.physics:6523


      Allow me to offer another perspective on the cold fusion session.
 This is intended to amplify on some of the comments made by Jon Webb
 and Andreas Nowatzyk in prior summaries in this newgroup.  I hope to
 also answer some of the questions seeking more details and a perspec-
 tive of where to look next.  So far, the best popular account of the
 session that I have seen is in the May 3 issue of the Wall Street Jour-
 nal.
 
      Four of us from DuPont Engineering Physics attended the APS spe-
 cial session on cold fusion Monday evening, May 1.  While we all hold
 degrees in physics (nuclear, atomic, solid state, thermodynamics), we
 were all in the process of becoming "instant experts" in cold fusion.
 One problem with the P&F claim is that their method spanned many dis-
 ciplines so that no one person could easily make an assessment (science
 has become quite specialized).  So many papers were contributed that a
 second cold fusion session was scheduled for Tuesday, though Tuesday's
 session appeared anticlimatic.  Both special sessions ran from 7:30 pm
 until midnight.  Abstracts should be available and the sessions were
 videotaped for possible distribution.  The talks by theorists were
 attempts to discover a mechanism by which cold fusion could occur.
 Many of the domestic experimental talks (Caltech, Harvard, MIT, Stan-
 ford, Yale - Brookhaven National Lab, Oak Ridge, AT&T) were negative on
 cold fusion.
 
      Most of the excitement came from the four invited talks given at
 the opening of the Monday night session.  Originally, Fleischmann was
 invited to appear, then suggested that either he or Pons would likely
 appear. Last week, Fleischmann said that he and Pons were too busy with
 their appearance before Congress and preparation for the Electrochemi-
 cal Society meeting to accept the APS invitation.
 
      The four invited speakers were S.E. Jones of BYU (an experimental
 physicist), J. Rafelski of Arizona (a theorist and collaborator with
 Jones), S.E. Koonin of Caltech (a nuclear theorist and collaborator
 with Lewis), and N. Lewis of Caltech (a chemist).  Three kinds of cold
 fusion were under consideration: muon catalyzed fusion, fusion without
 muons but with reaction rates typical of muon catalysis, and excess
 heat production fusion (P&F, or PFH [Pons-Fleischmann-Hawkins] from
 their electrochemical journal paper).  All of the invited talks were
 presented at a breakneck pace.
 
      Jones presented his evidence for cold fusion without muons, which
 relied on an unusual method for separating his measured neutron flux
 from the natural background neutron count.  Jones had worked in the
 area of muon catalyzed fusion and was familiar with low fusion rate
 events.  To answer some critics, he had simplified his electrochemical
 "soup", tried both Pd and Ti electrodes, and tried to improve his back-
 ground measurements.  Jones also distanced himself from the excess
 energy claims of P&F.  The questions after his talk challenged him on
 the statistical significance of his neutron measurements.
 
      Rafelski talked about possible mechanisms for cold fusion without
 muons.  For fusion to occur, two deuterons (or light nuclei) must get
 close enough for their nuclear wavefunctions to overlap significantly.
 He discussed possible methods for achieving this, but said that an
 unusual cooperation of events (non-equilibrium cooperative phenomena)
 would have to occur in order to see a detectable fusion rate.  Many
 details of the conditions inside a metal were unknown or very complex.
 He saw no way to get a fusion rate high enough to get more energy out
 than what had been put in, but his studies will continue.
 
      Koonin was more hostile about the prospects for fusion.  He exam-
 ined the fusion mechanisms, listed their possible signatures, and noted
 that none of these had been reliably seen outside of Utah.  He stressed
 that favorable conditions for fusion in a metal were very sensitive
 (exponentially) to the separation between nuclei.  Koonin discussed how
 to get those favorable conditions, but was not sure if a metal could
 generate these conditions.  He discussed possible enhancements, but
 said that he saw no way to get a high enough fusion rate to obtain the
 P&F result.  He could not rule out the Jones result, but would not pur-
 sue this study any further unless there was more experimental evidence.
 Koonin complained that "we have suffered enough from the delusions and
 incompetence of Pons and Fleischmann".  Discussions with Hagelstein at
 MIT had convinced Hagelstein that his "optical phonon" mechanism is
 wrong.
 
      The major report was made by Lewis, who headed a large team of
 chemists, physicists, and material scientists from Caltech.  They had
 set up seven different trials of the P&F experiments, with differing
 electrochemical solutions, Pd rods (both cast and drawn), sensitive
 neutron and gamma-ray detectors (e.g., "second most sensitive neutron
 detector in the world" with a detection limit of 100 neutrons per hour;
 P&F reported 1.2E4 neutrons per hour), tritium analysis, and mass spec-
 trometry.  One of the Pd rods was the same electrode from which Texas
 A&M claimed to have realized fusion neutrons.  None of these trials
 showed any evidence above background of any fusion or excess heat
 (calorimetry precision to 6%).  With these null results, Lewis began a
 closer examination of the P&F method.
 
      As best he could, without the cooperation of Pons, Lewis told of
 his efforts to recreate the method used by P&F to arrive at their
 fusion claim.  The P&F claim rests on three observations: excess neu-
 trons at 2.2 MeV, (4)He production, and excess heat.  Each observation
 was dealt with in order and shown to be a result of poor attention to
 detail.
 
      The neutron spectra as presented by P&F shows a peak at 2.2 MeV
 (Lewis et al looked from a few keV to 30+ Mev).  The neutron detector
 used by P&F was not very efficient and may not have the resolution
 implied by the plots in the preprints.  Taking the plots at face value,
 however, the resolution of the detector should be sufficient to distin-
 guish between the (n,g) gamma-ray energy of 2.226 MeV fusion neutrons
 and other possible sources more precisely.  The spectra, as shown, has
 a peak at 2.20 MeV, which is very near the 2.204 MeV decay of a (214)Bi
 isotope that is part of the (222)Rn decay sequence.  Utah has slightly
 higher background radiation than many places in the U.S and has active
 uranium mining.  Also, P&F showed only this single peak rather than a
 larger spectrum which might permit a better assessment of background
 activity and associated radiation peaks.  Two later talks also pointed
 out the very good agreement between the P&F neutron peak and the 2.204
 MeV radon product.
 
      The (4)He production, as reported by P&F, is a factor of 10 too
 high for the heat being produced.  Lewis did speak with Walling at Utah
 about his mass spectroscopy technique.  Apparently, Walling looked only
 for (4)He and not for any other associated masses which could be used
 to help identify the source of the He (i.e., distinguish between air
 from the electrochemical cell versus ambient air in the room).  An
 enhanced concentration of He is common in many chemical labs using He
 as a calibration gas or from other sources.
 
      Finally, the heat production issue was addressed.  The recognized
 expert on calorimetry was a guy from the National Bureau of Standards
 who retired in 1970(?).  He wrote a paper carefully detailing many of
 the difficulties of accurate calorimetry and how to avoid them.  For
 example, electrolysis involves the local generation of heat, through
 ohmic loss and dissociation-recombination, which must be equalized,
 usually through stirring.  Pons said (in response to a question from
 someone at Los Alamos who was relaying the question from Lewis) that
 since the cell was generating so many bubbles, he did not think that
 stirring was necessary.  Measurements made by the Lewis team showed a
 temperature gradient in the operating cell.  The thermocouple used by
 P&F to measure the temperature was placed close to the anode, and in a
 relatively warm region of the cell.  Pons also said that he assumed
 that all of the dissociated gas need not be counted because it left.
 But his cell was almost closed, and recombinations were likely to be
 occurring.
 
      The biggest problem was in the heat or power budget.  Pons assumed
 that the effective voltage delivered to the cell for ohmic heating was
 0.5 V.  Thus, by measuring the current, the heat delivered to the cell
 due to electrical power as ohmic heating can be calculated.  By measur-
 ing the temperature of the cell, the total heat generated can be calcu-
 lated.  Technically, such an electrochemical cell will cool off from
 room temperature (a fusion refrigerator?); it is the difference between
 the measured cooling and the expected cooling which leads to the excess
 heat production.  However, the assumed 0.5 V is not sufficient for Pd.
 Lewis measured between 3 and 8 V total for the seven experiments they
 had tried, or a minimum of 0.8 V for ohmic heating which depended on
 the conditions of the electrode (surface and size). And, since the tem-
 perature measurement is taken near a relatively warm anode, those meas-
 urements are high.  Thus, the excess heat budget is due to poor
 calorimetry.
 
      Lewis' talk was given a long applause, and a few questions asking
 about details (e.g., hood explosion, condition of the Pd rods).  Lewis
 made a strong contrast between the lack of cooperation of Pons and the
 very good cooperation by everyone else.  He provided a list of ques-
 tions to the visiting members of the press, since this claim has ini-
 tiated a new era of peer review through press releases.  When Lewis,
 the last of the four invited speakers, left, about 40% of the room
 left.  He seemed to have provided a "tour de force" refutation of the
 P&F claim for cold fusion. P&F are expected to make their next public
 appearance at the Electrochemical Society meeting next week (Monday,
 May 8 in Los Angeles).
 
      The spring APS meeting draws about 1500 registrants, mostly physi-
 cists and graduate students from academia.  The cold fusion session had
 seating for 2500 (I counted), slightly less than 1800 were in atten-
 dance (an estimate), and 40% of those left after the invited talks.
 During the remaining contributed talks, people were continuously eva-
 porating.  We left at 11:00 pm, with an hour of talks yet to go,
 because we did not want to get locked out of the parking garage.
 
      Yesterday evening on the radio, I heard part of a short interview
 with Huggins, the material scientist at Stanford Univ, who also claimed
 to have obtained excess heat production.  Huggins pointed out that P&F
 had never said in their publications that the electrical power into the
 cell was assumed.  In fact, the P&F preprints do not specify how the
 power was measured.  Lewis pointed that out as well by noting that Pons
 first told the congressional committee that the fraction of electrical
 power which showed up as heat was assumed.  Lewis said that through his
 investigations, he knew that Pons had estimated the ohmic heating of
 the cell, and that Pons knew that Lewis knew.
 
      In the opinion of our little group, the errors in calorimetry by
 P&F was the crucial factor which determined the judgments about their
 cold fusion claims.  I recall talking with a friend with the physics
 department from Yale at the meeting, who told me about the results from
 the Yale - Brookhaven experiment.  He said that whatever is generating
 the heat, based on their experience in New Haven, it wasn't nuclear.
 There was no suggestion that the heat measurements by P&F might be
 wrong.  In this forum, and from the company chemists, everyone insisted
 that P&F were too good and respected to have made mistakes in
 calorimetry.  Lewis was the first to make a serious case that the
 unique claim of excess heat production by P&F came from poor
 calorimetry.  That was the new piece of the puzzle and seems to be the
 decisive factor.
 
      This chapter on cold fusion is far from over, though alot of the
 excitement is gone.  While it appears that the P&F result is going to
 be difficult to explain, the Jones result still has a possibility.
 Jones has been involved in refining his experiment, in response to cri-
 ticism, and is try to identify the crucial components of his electro-
 chemical "soup".  While the theorists could not fully support Jones'
 claim, they could not conclusively exclude it either (the P&F claim
 required many orders of magnitude more fusion events than the Jones
 claim).  The experiments as reported were formulated according to the
 P&F prescription, so I hope that a few of these will be converted to a
 trial of Jones.
 
      There was a minor attempt to examine the Italian result which
 claimed neutron production from a Ti electrode and deuterium gas, but
 there are not enough details to do a careful analysis (I am told more
 details will be discussed soon at an upcoming scientific society meet-
 ing in Italy).  One of the theorists at the session noted a report of
 fusion neutrons from a deuterium saturated metal rod fired (e.g., shot)
 at a concrete wall by some Russian group about 10 years ago.  Another
 way to enhance the closeness of deuterium in a metal hydride is through
 ultrasound (high frequency sound can make shock waves in a material).
 
      The possibility of fusion by means other than a high temperature
 plasma remains an interesting area for scientific pursuit.  It will be
 equally interesting to see the response of P&F at the Electrochemical
 Society meeting to these charges of poor calorimetry.  We also still
 have the working model which Pons has promised to send to Los Alamos
 for analysis.  And, I still don't know much about the European claims.
 What will definitely hurt us all is "chemist-bashing" or "arrogant phy-
 sicist" jokes (and not just because I am a physicist working for a
 chemical company).  While the competition for grants or the prospect of
 significant financial gain can distort the usual conservative style of
 science where honesty is paramount, the majority of chemists remain
 hardworking and careful.
 
      Perhaps we should consider firing certain university presidents or
 public relations officers.
 
 
 
                                    Patrick Wyant
                                    Engineering Physics Lab
                                    E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
                                    Wilmington, DE  19880-0357
                                    *!uunet!eplrx7!wyant