The cold fusion reheated

1991/04/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Fisika
• Energia

Even some claimed that the problem of cold fusion was frozen, lately it has regenerated a great debate. In the United States, the University of Utah brought together 150 physicists to unveil their latest research on cold fusion. Pons and Fleischmann were expected there (the first to promulgate this phenomenon), but they did not appear.

Orthodox physicists had strict questions prepared for the pioneers of cold fusion, Pons and Fleischmann, and made ironic smiles for not appearing the couple.

But the smiles were abandoned when they knew the essays carried out at the University of Hawaii. There, in addition to the heat, they have obtained helium atoms that can be a consequence of a true fusion reaction. Bruce E. in the essay of Hawaii. The physicist Liebert has achieved a possible fusion reaction by heating the bath of deuterium salts and electrolysis around 264ºC. When the current passes, the temperature rises approximately 70ºC without apparent justification. According to Liebert, there is an authentic fusion reaction or there are reactions that we do not know and that must be studied.

Edward Cecil, of the Colorado School of Mines in the city of Golden, also published his results. Based on the essays of Pons and Fleischmann, Cecile has used very fine sheets of titanium dipped in deuterium. Alternatively these metal sheets have been cooled with liquid nitrogen and have been heated at room temperature.

By passing the current by placing the particle detector, the device has been emitted 24 times. Therefore, it has received charged particles.

According to Cecil, they are heavier than protons or hydrogen nuclei, but smaller than the nucleus of the helium atom 4. They can be tritium nuclei (as announced by Pons and Fleischmann) or helium 3 nuclei formed by fusion of deuterium atoms. Cecile clarifies that the titanium sheet should be very fine for particles to escape. When using titanium rods or palladium, the material is too thick and the results are not clear either.

Mr. Cecil is the one that most appreciates in these trials is that the energy of particles released by cold fusion is 3 or 4 MeV. This is because it is much higher than the energy normally released in deuterium nuclei.

Physicist George Chambers, who works at the Washington Naval Research Laboratory, has presented similar results. The most surprising thing is that: The physicist at the University of Texas, Kevin Wolf, who has always been very skeptical in these debates, has obtained positive results. Kevin Wolf, Howard Menlove and Stephen Jones rehearsed in a Colorado mine to ensure that the particles recorded did not come from cosmic rays.

Liebert and his team exercise control at the University of Hawaii. Two electrolysis will be performed. In the container of the one, the bath will be rich in deuterian salts, as in the original essay and in that of the other will only exist simple hydrogen. The appearance of helium 4 in the electrodes of the first elktrolisis demonstrates the fusion of deuterium nuclei.

It seems, therefore, that the cold fusion has begun to warm up again and we will have to devise the proper theory for this phenomenon.