Tue Apr  4 13:22:04 1989
Message : #144896    From: jon@cernvax.UUCP
Group	: NETSCI.Physics
Length	: 735 words
Subject : Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion

MSG-ID: <967@cernvax.UUCP>
Posted: 31 Mar 89 14:17:58 GMT

Org.  : CERN, Geneva, Switzerland


This is a summary of a talk given by Professor Fleischmann at CERN, Geneva
on Friday 31st March. I should point out that I am a computer programmer and
not a physicist or a chemist, so therefore not all my understanding of the
facts may be 100% correct, but I kept notes so hopfully the following will
make some sense. Also this was strictly a scientific seminar, no questions
were allowed on the non-scientific aspects of the talk. In fact the camera
crews of various TV stations were asked to leave before the talk began.
But they were given a chance to interview Professor Fleischmann after the
seminar.

  It has taken Prof. Fleischmann and his collegue 5 years to get this far
and they had hoped to keep the experiment secret for about another 18 months
so they could be 100% certain of the results. But the results where "leaked"
(This was news to me, any confirmation?), and then they had the "awful news
conference", as he called it. They also funded the experiment privately
because they didn't think anyone would give them money for such a mad idea.

  The equation in the at the  palladium cathode is as follows

     D2O + e- <=> Dabs + OD-

     Dabs <=> Dlattice

     Dabs + D2O + e- <=> D2 + OD-

     Dabs = Absorbed Deuterium

     Dlattice = Deuterium in the Palladium lattice

     The deuterium in the lattice is very mobile.

He then said something that I quite didn't understand and gave the figure
of 0.8eV. I think this is the potential of the deuterium in the lattice.
This 0.8eV is equivalent to a pressure of 10^27 atm for gaseous deuterium.

The QM of the s-electron density of the Deuterium is VERY strange and is
not understood.

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 / cm3. They managed to detected
neutrons, gamma-rays and 5 fold increase in the tritrium in the heavy water.
They didn't manage to get a energy spectrum for the neutrons.

They calulated there are 10^4 neutron producing events/sec but to account
for the energy released there must be 10^13 events/sec, this means that
the prefered reaction path does not produce neutrons. They do not know
what this path is but lithium was being mentioned.

The efficiency of their cell is "miserable" and their best result was 111%
of breakeven (i.e. 100% => power in == power out), but they predicte that
with a properly designed cell their efficiency could be over 1200%, i.e.
10 times out what you put in.

It takes 3 months to charge a cell before it starts to produce anything.


That's the end of my notes, now for some editorial comments.

I personally could see nothing wrong with his explanation of the phenomena,
there is no known chemical reaction which can produce the amounts of energy
involved. It has to be nuclear fusion. Whether or not this is going to have
any practical use is still to be seen, as Prof. Fleischmann said a lot of
work now has to go into understand why and how this is happening. There
were some very worried theoretical physicists leaving the hall after the
talk, and there were mumbles about rewriting the theory of quantum mechanics.

The are going to be a hell of a lot of papers on cold fusion in the next
years!!

*---------------------------------------------------------------*
|								|
| Jon Caves		{world}!mcvax!cernavx!jon		|
| Division DD,		jon@cernvax.cern.ch			|
| CERN CH-1211, 						|
| Geneva 23,		"Quote? I haven't got time to think     |
| Switzerland.		   of a quote!"                         |
|								|
*---------------------------------------------------------------*

Tue Apr  4 13:22:47 1989
Message : #144939    From: ethan@ut-emx.UUCP
Group	: NETSCI.Physics
Length	: 846 words
Subject : section of preprint from Fleischmann and Pons

MSG-ID: <11727@ut-emx.UUCP>
Posted: 3 Apr 89 21:35:35 GMT

Org.  : The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

A few people have asked for copies of the preprint.  I have sent
them, but do not really have time to send more.  On the other hand
there has been a lot of questions regarding details of the experimental
setup.	I'm going to take a minute to quote liberally from the preprint
to pass on such information as it contains.  One thing it does not
contain is any clear information on control experiments that would
obviously eliminate chemical effects (such as using hydrogen instead
of deuterium).	That's not to say that they didn't do them, but for
whatever reason they choose not to mention them.

"In the work reported here D+ was compressed galvanostatically into
sheet, rod and cube samples of Pd from 0.1 M LiOD in 99.5% D2O + 0.5%
H20 solutions.	Electrode potentials were measured with respect to
a Pd-D reference electrode charged to the alpha-beta phase equilibrium.
We report here experiments of several kinds:

1) Calorimetric measurements of heat balances at low current densities
(=1.6mA cm^-1) were made using a 2mmx8cm Pd sheet cathode surrounded by
a large Pt sheet counter electrode.  Measurements were carried out in Dewar
dells maintained in large constant temperature water bath (300K), the
temperature inside the cell and of the water bath being monitored with
Beckman thermometers.  The HEavy Water Equivalent ofthe Dewar and contents
and the rate of Newton's law of cooling losses were determined by addition
of hot D2O and by following the cooling curves.

2) Calorimetric measurements at higher current densities were carried out
using 1, 2 and 4 mm diameterx 10 cm long Pd rods surrounded by a Pt wire
anode wound on a cage of glass rods.  The Dewars were fitted with resistance
heaters for the determination of Newton's law of cooling losses; temperatures
were measured using calibrated thermistors.  Experiments with rods up to 2cm
in diameter will be reported elsewhere.  Stirring in these experiments (and
in those listed under 1) was achieved, where necessary, by gas sparging
using electrolytically generated D2.  Measurements at the highest current
density reported here (512 mA cm^-2) were carried out using rods of 1.25
cm length;  the results given in Table 1 have been rescaled to those for rods
of 10 cm length.

3)  The spectrum of gamma rays emiited from the water bath due to the (n,gamma)
reaction 1H+n(2.45MeV) into 2D +gamma(2.5MeV) (vii) was determined using a
sodium iodide crystal scintillation detector and a Nuclear Data ND-6 High
Energy Spectrum Analyzer.  The spectrum was taken above the water immediately
surrounding an 0.8x10cm Pd-rod cathode charged to equilibrium; it was corrected
for background by subtracting the spectrum over a sink (containing identical
shielding materials) 10 m from the water bath.

    The neutron flux from a cell containing a 0.4x10cm Pd rod electrode was
measured using a Harwell Neutron Dose Equivalent Rate Monitor, Type 95/0949-5.
The counting efficiency of the Bonner-sphere type instrument for 2.5MeV
neutrons was estimated to be ~2.4x10^-4 and was further reduced by a factor
~100 due  to the unfavorable configuration (the rod opposite the BF3 filled
detector).  The background count was determined by making measurements 50m
from the laboratory containing the experiments: both locations were in the
basement fo a new building which is overlain by 5 floors of concrete.  In
view of the low counting efficiency, counting was carried out for 50 hours.
Measurements on a 0.4x10 cm rod electrode run at 64mA cm^-2 gave a neutron
count 3 times above that of the background.

4)  The rate of generation/accumulation of tritium was measured using similar
cells (test tubes sealed with Parafilm) containing 1 mm diameter x 10 cm
Pd rod electrodes.  Measurements on the D/T separation factor alone
were made using an identical cell containing a 1 mm diameter x 10 cm Pt
electrode (this measurement served as a blank as the H/D separation factors
on Pd and Pt are known to be closely similar).	1 mL samples of the electrolyte
were withdrawn at 2 day intervals, neutralized with potassium hydrogen
phthalate and the T-content was determined using Ready Gel liquid scintillation
"cocktail" and a Beckman LS 5000 TD counting system.  The counting
efficiency was determined to be about 45% using standard samples of
T-containing solutions.  The beta decay scintillation spectrum was
determined using the counting system.

    In these experiments standard additions of 1 mL of the electrolyte
were made following sampling.  Losses of D2O due to electrolysis in these
and all other experiments recorded here were made up using D2O alone.
A record of the volume of D2O additions was made for all the experiments.

    In all of the experiments reported here all connections were fitted
Kel-F caps and the caps were sealed to the glass cells using Parafilm.

   Results for the mass spectroscopy of the evolved gases and full
experimental detials for all the measurements will be given elsewhere."
--
 I'm not afraid of dying     Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas
 I just don't want to be     {charm,ut-sally,ut-emx,noao}!utastro!ethan
 there when it happens.      (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
    - Woody Allen	     (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

These must be my opinions.  Who else would bother?
Tue Apr  4 13:22:31 1989
Message : #144920    From: ted@dante.nmsu.edu
Group	: NETSCI.Physics
Length	: 2385 words
Subject : cold fusion report

MSG-ID: <188@opus.NMSU.EDU>
Posted: 3 Apr 89 01:32:27 GMT


I was able to attend the pons lecture in utah in the main hall.  i also
discussed the lecture with a number of people afterwards and have
the following impressions/corrections to the original posting in sci.physics.:


			  Electrochemically Induced Fusion


			       By Dr. B. Stanley Pons

	    Dr. Pons  began with a brief history of the work began by he
	    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  "electrochemical 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 (again 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 cube was 1cm3.  the experiment consisted of running
the electrolysis at 250 ma / cm2 for several weeks/months with no
results.  the current was cut to

next morning the cube of palladium and the electrolysis cell were gone.
a nearby geiger counter was also ruined.  pons used the word 'vaporized'
several times, but i wonder if what happened is really just that the pd
melted, and consequently could no longer hold hydrogen.  at the density
quoted (1 atom D for each atom Pd), this would cause, at the least, a
vigorous mechanical explosion, and much of the molten palladium would be
spattered, if not atomized.

since no detailed calorimetric data was kept for this experiment (and
apparently the remainder of the cube is also not available), it is
only tantalizing, and cannot be used in any way but anecdotal.	it is
true that the chemical energy contained in the hydrogen saturated cube
was not sufficient to even completely melt the cube, it is not clear
that the reaction was not caused by boiling some part of the electrolyte
with attendant local heating, melting and mechanical/chemical exploscion.
this is, however, perhaps the most viscerally interesting story released
so far.

the current apparatus uses pd rods of varying diameters from 1mm to
5mm.  pons stated that work had also been done with larger diameters.
the electrolyte is 0.1 M lithium deuteroxide formed by dissolving the
pure metal in the d2o (to avoid h contamination).  precharge time
is on the order of weeks for rods of this size.

	    Current apparatus  uses a Pd rod in 0.1M D2O in a cell which
	    has been  widely seen in the media.  It consists of a Pd rod
	    surrounded by  a Pt  coil in a special made glass container.
	    There are  openings for  charging and  adding D2O, measuring
	    temperature, and  heaters.	 The use  of  rod  gives  better
	    control of the surface to volume ratio.  During electrolysis
	    of the D2O the following reactions take place:


			    D2O + e-   <--->   Da + OD-
				  Da  <--->  Dlat
			   Da + D2O + e-  <--->  D2 + OD-

	    where Da is deuterium adsorbed on the surface of the Pd rod,
	     and Dlat is deuterium diffused into the lattice of the Pd.

	    Before the	surface of  the electrode  is saturated with Da,
	    the D  diffuses into  the lattice  of the  Pd.  The evidence
	    suggests that  the deuterium  diffuses into  the lattice  as
	    deuterons and  electrons.  The electrons go to the k band of
	    the lattice.

	    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.

it is  of course impossible to attain such physical pressures in pd, where
physical strength of materials would limit the pressure to approximately
4000 atmospheres.  the figure of 10**27 if the equivalent pressure needed
(assuming van der wahls gas) to attain this electrochemical potential.  one
possible reason that this effective pressure can be attained without serious
problems because the electrons from the D are also in the lattice, although
they are separated from the deuterons.

there is also considerable doubt on the part of several electrochemical
experts i have spoken with on this matter.  they state that without
careful poisoning of the surface of the palladium, it is difficult to
achieve such electrochemical potentials.  there was no mention of special
surface treatment in pons talk, and it is very difficult to avoid considerable
contamination of the surface.

	    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 as  10**4 n/s.	This  is 3X  higher than

tritium detection was by sampling the electrolyte and determining a beta
spectrum.  the energies of the betas indicated tritium.  the neutrons
were detected using a harwell detector as well as by detecting secondary
gammas from the surrounding light water bath.  gamma spectra indicated
a clear peak at 2200 KeV.  unfortunately NONE of these measurements weree
corrected back to specific source intensities.	it is also not clear that
the tritrium measurements were not considerably in error due to residual
tritium trapped in the palladium.
	    background and  was  considered  statistically  significant.
	    However, the  reactions to	produce tritium  and 3He  do not
	    explain the amount of heat produced.

no detections of He3 were possible since the solubility is so low.  the
detection of on the order of 10**4 to 10**6 atoms of a non radioactive
gas is non trivial.  apparently they have done some preliminary mass
spectroscopy.  anomalously, he4 WAS detected.  the D-D fusion which
produces He4 + gamma is normally very rare.  the gamma has a 15-17 Mev
energy which is considerably outside the range shown on the spectrum
in pons talk.

	    In this  same vein,  he pointed  out that  their experiments
	    indicated that  the heat  produced was  proportional to  the
	    volume of  the electrode  used, not  the surface area of the
	    electrode.	   This  indicates   that  the	process  is  not
	    electrochemical in	nature.   An energy density of 26W/cc of
	    electrode was  calculated.	 One experiment  produced 4MJ of
	    heat in 120 hours.	He reiterated that this could not be due
	    to any known physical or chemical process.	Since the fusing
	    of deuterium  is only  part of  the overall reaction scheme,
	    other as  yet unknown processes produce the rest of the heat
	    which  is	detected.    Dr.  Pons	believes  these  unknown
	    processes must be nuclear processes.

unfortunately, as was made clear by the cluttered table momentarily shown
during the talk, the highest power density was acheived at high current
densities, while the best efficiency was attained at low current densities.
no mention of temperature coefficients was made.  also, the higher
efficiencies were only extrapolated assuming recovery of the energy due
to recombination of the electrolysed oxygen and deuterium.

	    He also  surmised that  the  deuterons  existed  in  the  Pd
	    lattice as	a low  temperature plasma  which is  shielded by
	    electrons.

	    Dr.  Pons  then  answered  several	questions  from  Faculty

	    members (there  were no  microphones in  the room  with  the
	    graduate  students	where  I  was).    The	content  of  his
	    responses are summarized below.

	    This reaction  is diffusion  controlled, with  the diffusion

this is unfortunately inconsistent with the pre-charge times quoted.
of course this figure is for diffusion in the alpha state, while the
deuterons are in the beta phase.  pons stated that he expected the
diffusivity to be nearly equal for both phases, but that he had not
confirmed this.
	    coefficient for deuterons in Pd given as 10^-7 cm^2/s.

others have said that this is a very conservative figure and that
diffusion at a poisoned surface would likely predominate.

	    The production  rate of  tritium was  found to match that of
	    the neutrons.

as mentioned above it is very doubtful that this conclusion can be reached.

this would be very significant given the expected cross sections for the two
dd fusion reactions at higher temperatures.

	    Although the  cross-section of  Pd is too small to allow for
	    significant reaction  with energetic  neutrons, it may react
	    with neutrons back-scattered from the heavy water.	No assay
	    of the  Pd electrodes  has	been  undertaken  to  check  for
	    activation by-products of Pd.

no assay has been completed.  pons stated that he has sent several of the
electrodes out for testing.  the mean free path of 2.5 MeV neutrons in
heavy water is about 20cm, which combined with the low density of neutrons
should preclude detectable residual activation of the palladium.

	    The ignition/vaporization  of  the	initial  experiment  was
	    caused by  a steep	concentration  gradient  of  D+  as  the
	    current  density   was  decreased.	   This   gave	rise  to
	    compression (even  greater than  *normal*) as the D+ species
	    moved out  from the  lattice in  a radial  direction.   This
	    "shock" resulted in the vaporization.

this is COMPLETELY hypothetical at this point.	the formation of a shock
in a diffusion situation is also unbelievable.	this shock should also
be formed when the current is turned on, but that would contravene the
observed pre-charge phenomenon.


	    No 2.45Mev neutrons were detected.	He speculated that these
	    neutrons may be consumed by reaction with Li:

			7Li + n + 2.45MeV ---> 3T + 3He + n
			   6Li + n ---> 3T +3He + 4.5MeV

the pertinent cross section of lithium in the electrolyte for this
reaction is MUCH to low for this happen

	    The concentration  o

	    greater than  0.67 (deuterons/Pd  atoms) and is estimated to
	    be 1.0  -  1.2.    They  are  believed  to	cluster  at  the
	    octahedral sites  in the  Pd (Pd  has a  face centered cubic
	    crystal structure).

	    In looking	for products of fusion, 3He was not seen but 4He
	    was.   Part of  the reason	for not seeing 3He is due to the
	    apparatus  used   (apparently   not   very   airtight)   and
	    instruments used.

see above comments.  even if the apparatus is airtight, this many atoms
would be extraordinarily hard to find.
	    Other metals  (which  were  not  specified)  were  tried  as
	    electrodes but  no heat  was detected.   Radiation	was  not
	    monitored.


	    No experiments  have been  carried out in magnetic fields to
	    determine quadrupole  effects.   He admitted  that spin-spin
	    interactions could have an effect.

	    The reaction  is diffusion controlled.  In a 0.4 - 0.5mm rod
	    with X=10^-7 cm^2/s, the time required to start the reaction
	    is [ (0.2)^2 / X ].

this does not jibe with the announced pre-charge times.  we should also
be watched for a precharge time dilation effect (i.e. as the amount of
time without confirmation increases, the pre-charge time may also be
observed to increase, apparently without bound.  this is a p.r. effect).
:-)

	    He did  not know the effective mass of the electron carriers
	    in the Pd matrix.

the snide comment here was that he 'hoped that it is about 200'.  this
refers to the possibility of heavy electron catalyzed fusion similar to
muon catalyzed fusion.	this is not possible since the heavy electron
effect is due to electrons hauling lattice disturbances along with them
when traveling free in a metal lattice.  the point of muon catalyzed fusion
is that since a muon is so much more massive than an electron, the effective
diameter of a muon containing atom is much less than for a normal atom.
if the deuterium exists in pd as a plasma, then this effect would not
be pertinent.

	    He felt  that the  addition of  hydrostatic pressure  to the
	    cell would	have a	negligible affect  on the  rate  of  the
	    reaction.  The potential gradient at the D2O Pd interface is
	    on the  order of  10^12 V/m.    This  gradient  can  not  be
	    achieved in gas or vacuum phase conditions.

this has implications regarding both the pumping of D into the pd lattice
and ionization of the D.

	    They have recently achieved a 1W in 10W out energy ratio.


these energy ratios are extrapolated after assuming that a fuel cell
anode is used to recombine the evolved deuterium.  actual power out/
power in is about 1.11 .  considerable amounts of energy are stored as
separated heavy water.

	    Essentially no  neutrons or  tritium are  detected until the
	    fusion process begins.


	    He jokingly  predicted that  100 years  would be  needed  to
	    bring this technology to commercial use.

	    He admitted that the results were just as puzzling to him as
	    they are to many others.  He openly admits that much more work
	    is needed to understand this phenomenon.  (He did not seem to
	    resent any questions, and was honest in his responses.)

	    He ended  his talk	with a	WARNING.   Please do  not DO NOT
	    attempt to	repeat this  experiments until you have

	    journal  articles  or  have  consulted  with  Drs.	Pons  or
	    Fleischman directly.  The initial experiment which vaporized
	    is no  joke.   Please consult  with them  or  wait	for  the
	    articles to  appear before	you begin  a possibly  dangerous
	    experiment.  Please act responsibly in this regard.


in particular if you try this, avoid

a) large electrodes
b) sharp corners
c) powdered electrodes
d) sharp changes in current
e) extremely high current densities
f) experiments with D-T or T-T reactions

the reason for the last is that these reactions are expected to occur
10**3 or 10**4 times more quickly than D-D reactions.  10**4 W/cm3 is
very dangerous.

if you are trying these experiments, careful calorimetry and accounting
of evolved gases must be done.	just running an open cell without good
heat flow measurements is worthless.  keep neutron and gamma detectors
handy and treat the experiment as a low grade radiation source and a
serious chemical hazard at the same time.  be ready for radiation flashes
and chemical or other small scale explosions.  no data yet exists indicating
that dangerous levels of radiation will be observed, but there is no sense
in being a famous dead person.	still less in being a kind of famous near
dead bald person.

pons and fleischman paper will be publised soon in the journal of
electroanalytical chemistry.  i have reason to believe that the contents
of the paper will not answer many questions that his seminars will not.

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