Scientists have made a sensational statement, seemingly had a good reputation and it is quite credible. Have moved to the U.S. from the UK member of the Royal Society and former president of the International Society for electrochemists Martin Fleischmann had an international reputation earned by participation in the discovery of surface- enhanced Raman scattering. Co-author of the opening of Stanley Pons led the Department of Chemistry, University of Utah.
The source of cheap energy.
Fleischmann and Pons claimed to have forced the deuterium nuclei fuse with each other at ordinary temperatures and pressures. Their ... However, the water was not simple, but heavy, D. 2. O, the cathode was made of palladium and of the dissolved salt included lithium and deuterium. Through the solution for months without stopping passed a constant current, so that at the anode, oxygen, and at the cathode - a heavy hydrogen. Fleischmann and Pons supposedly discovered that the temperature of the electrolyte is periodically increased by tens of degrees, and sometimes more, while giving a stable power supply capacity. They explained the arrival of nuclear energy released by nuclear fusion of deuterium.
Palladium has the unique ability to absorb hydrogen. Fleischmann and Pons have believed that within the crystal lattice of the metal atoms of deuterium is so much closer together, that their nuclei fuse into helium nuclei of the main isotope. This process occurs with the release of energy which, according to their hypothesis, warmed electrolyte. The explanation is quite simple and bribed persuaded the politicians, journalists and even chemists.
Physicists make clear.
However, nuclear physicists and specialists in plasma physics in no hurry to beat the drums. It was they knew that two of the deuteron, in principle, can give rise to a nucleus of helium -4 and high-energy gamma -ray, but the chances of such an outcome is extremely small. Even if the deuterons enter into a nuclear reaction, it is almost certain to end production of the tritium nucleus and a proton or neutron, and the emergence of the nucleus of helium- 3, and the probabilities of these transitions are about the same. If you really are inside the palladium fusion, it must generate a large number of well-defined neutron energy ( about 2.45 MeV). They are easy to detect, either directly (by means of neutron detectors ) or indirectly ( such as a collision of a neutron with a nucleus of heavy hydrogen to be gamma- quanta with energy 2.22 MeV, which again gives in registration). In general, the hypothesis of Fleischmann and Pons could be confirmed using standard radiometric equipment.
However, this did not work. Fleischman used a connection at home and persuaded employees of British Nuclear Centre at Harwell check it out ... Harwell supersensitive detectors disposal of these particles, but they did not show anything! . The same conclusion was reached, and physics from the University of Utah. The staff at MIT tried to reproduce the experiments Fleischmann and Pons, but again to no avail. So no surprise that the application for a great discovery was subjected to a crushing defeat at the conference of the American Physical Society ( AOS), which was held in Baltimore May 1 of that year.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
From this blow, Pons and Fleischmann have not recovered. In the New York Times article appeared devastating, but to the end of May, the scientific community has concluded that the claims of chemists from Utah - either a manifestation of extreme incompetence, fraud, or elementary.
But there were dissenters, even among the scientific elite. The eccentric Nobel laureate Julian Schwinger, one of the founders of quantum electrodynamics, as believed in the discovery chemists from Salt Lake City, in protest canceled my membership in the AFI.
Nevertheless, academic career Fleischmann and Pons finished - quickly and ignominiously. In 1992 they left the University of Utah and the Japanese money continued his work in France, has not yet lost, and this funding. Fleishman returned to England, where he lives in retirement. Pons gave up U.S. citizenship and settled in France.
Pyroelectric cold fusion.
Cold fusion devices at the desktop is not only possible, but also implemented, with several versions of. For example, in 2005 researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles failed to start a similar reaction with deuterium in the container, inside which was created electrostatic field. Its source is a tungsten needle, connected to a pyroelectric crystal of lithium tantalate, cooling and subsequent heating which created a potential difference of 100-120 kV. The field strength of about 25 GW / m fully ionized deuterium atoms, and so it dispelled the nucleus, which in a collision with a target of erbium deuteride, they gave rise to the nuclei of helium -3 neutron. The peak neutron flux was about 900 neutrons per second ( several hundred times higher than typical background values). Although this system has potential as a neutron generator, to speak of it as an energy source can not be. These devices consume much more energy than it generates: the experiments of scientists in California in one heating - cooling cycle lasting a few minutes allocated approximately 10.8 J (11 orders of magnitude less than needed to heat a cup of water by 1 ° C.
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