This is a re-post of an article published May 19, 2019 by Vitaly Alekseevich Kirkinsky at REGNUM in honor of the 30th anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion.
A remote report by the leading technologist of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, named after Academician V. S. Sobolev, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Vitaly Alekseevich Kirkinsky presented “Cold nuclear fusion and transmutation of elements: experiments, theory, patents, natural manifestations” at the conference “Cold fusion – 30 years: results and prospects”, held in Moscow on March 23, 2019.
“Cold fusion – 30 years: results and prospects” held in Moscow on March 23, 2019.
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I became interested in cold fusion right after 30 years ago when the radio news of electrochemists Martin Fleishman and Stanley Pons at the University of Utah, USA, was announced on the radio. They argued that during electrolysis of lithium salt solutions in heavy water, a yield of neutrons and excess energy of about 1 watt was observed at the palladium electrode, as well as an increase
in tritium concentration in the solution, which, in their opinion, was caused by nuclear fusion of helium from deuterium. This did not fit into the existing ideas of physicists at all, since such reactions could only be carried out at enormous energies. The opinion was that this data was the result of an error or a fraud. There were very serious arguments in favor of this: no products of nuclear reactions were detected, an increase in the tritium content could be caused by its accumulation upon evaporation of heavy water, and the energy release should have been accompanied by a huge neutron flux.
According to the accepted theory, the implementation of thermonuclear fusion requires temperatures of more than 100 million degrees. The fundamental idea of plasma heating and confinement in toroidal chambers placed in a magnetic field – TOKAMAKs was proposed by academicians A. D. Sakharov and I. E. Tamm 70 years ago. The practical implementation of this idea ran into extreme technical difficulties. According to Academician E.P. Velikhov, more than $ 40 billion has already been spent on these works in our country. Russia is participating in the ITER international fusion reactor development program, $20 billion is planned to be spent on the first stage only. By 2027, it is planned to build an experimental reactor and begin experiments with plasma, which can give the answer – whether it will be possible to create the necessary conditions for thermonuclear combustion. If successful, the test results will be the basis for the project even larger – a demonstration thermonuclear reactor DEMO. The DEMO experience in turn will serve as the basis for the design of the first experimental industrial station. However, even if all the scientific and technical problems in half a century can be solved, there are big doubts about the economic feasibility and safety of obtaining energy in fusion reactors.
Given the enormous cost of the project, the life of the reactors due to the strong neutron flux, judging by the experience of operating less powerful tokamaks, will be only a few months. Neutron-free reactions require even higher plasma temperatures and much more expensive reactors.
According to the technical conditions, the thermonuclear reaction can be maintained only in large-volume reactors. A single filling of the working chamber of the reactor with a volume of 830 cubic meters. meters with a mixture of deuterium and tritium will cost more than a billion dollars. Only due to the decay of radioactive tritium monthly losses amount to more than $ 160 thousand. Tritium requires atomic reactors. Diffusion of deuterium and tritium through the walls of the reactor or microcracks can lead to the formation of an explosive mixture with atmospheric oxygen and the explosion of a reactor with serious consequences.
The possibility of implementing nuclear fusion at low temperatures could open up tremendous prospects for energy.
About a hundred groups around the world tried to reproduce the experiments of Fleischmann and Pons [30]. The most convincing results were obtained in Japan [31–33]. Yoshiaki Arata and Yui-Chang Zhang found an excess heat yield of 200–500 MJ / cm3 and the formation of a significant amount of helium in a deuterated palladium black placed in a closed palladium ampoule, which served as a cathode for 5,000 hours of electrochemical experiments. It should be specially noted that the Helium-3 / Helium-4 ratio in the experimental products was 4–5 orders of magnitude higher than atmospheric. Similar experiments were replicated in the laboratory of the Electric Power Research Institute in the USA [34]. The release of excess heat and its correlation with the release of tritium and helium was confirmed. The ratio of Helium-3 / Helium-4 in the products of the experiments was 44,000 times higher than atmospheric.
These and many other results were not published in peer-reviewed journals, but mainly in the materials of international and national conferences. Official science considered them unreliable. Even 23 years after the first report of a new phenomenon in the obituary about the death of Martin Fleischman in the authoritative journal Nature, it was written:
“… cold fusion is now regarded as one of the most famous cases of what the chemist Irwin Langmuir called pathological science: science of things that aren`t so.”
The main reason for the persistence in ignoring the new scientific direction was the impossibility of a theoretical explanation of the experimental data. As the whole history of the development of science shows, new phenomena are recognized only after the conditions for their reliable reproduction are found and a theoretical explanation is given on the basis of the fundamental laws of nature. Building a theory of the phenomenon is an essential stage of a major discovery. For this reason, the development of the theoretical foundations of the mechanism and kinetics of nuclear reactions in condensed matter at low energies is no less important than the detection and confirmation of anomalous phenomena. For practical use in the energy sector, it is necessary to increase the intensity of nuclear reactions by a factor of millions in comparison with the first experiments, which is extremely difficult to implement without a theoretical understanding of the phenomenon.
Since 1989, more than a hundred works have been published in which the most diverse hypotheses have been expressed about the causes of the “Fleischmann and Pons effect.” Links and their classification is given by us in [2, 5]. Most authors were limited to assumptions made in qualitative form. In a survey [35], the theorists of the United States and Russia concluded:
“Despite considerable efforts, it was not possible to create a theory of cold nuclear fusion that quantitatively or even qualitatively describes experimental results. Models in which it is stated that they have solved this task are far from achieving the goal. ”
At many subsequent international conferences, it was noted that the creation of the theory of nuclear reactions in condensed matter is a task of paramount importance.
Experimenters carried out and still conduct experiments mostly by the inefficient trial and error method. At the 9th Beijing Cold Synthesis Conference in 2003, I asked Martin Fleishman a question; what, in his opinion, is more important for the development of this direction: experiments or theory? He answered briefly: “Both” .
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From the very beginning of our research, we set as the main task the development of the theory of nuclear reactions at low energies, combining this with experiments.
The problem of overcoming the Coulomb barrier is covered in articles published in Europhysics Letters [2, 3], a monograph [5] and a number of articles in International Conference Materials [6, 7, 10–12].
Our model of the mechanism of nuclear reactions is based on taking into account the dynamic screening of proton (deuteron) charges by external electronic orbitals of metal atoms. Both semiclassical and quantum mechanical models were used. Several hundred thousand numerical experiments were carried out using molecular dynamics methods at random initial positions of deuterons during their diffusion in the crystal structures of a number of metals, which showed how close they are to each other. It turned out that, although the average distance between them is approximately the same as in the D2 molecule – 0.74 Ǻ, several percent of the pairs come closer to a distance of less than 0.1 Ǻ, up to 0.01 Ǻ. At such distances, nuclear fusion occurs due to the tunnel effect, which is calculated according to the formulas generally accepted in quantum mechanics. Calculations using these models for the first time allowed us to obtain quantitative data on the probability and rate of nuclear reactions of hydrogen isotopes in a number of metals: palladium, titanium, lanthanum, alpha- and gamma-iron [5–8, 11, 12, 14].
Together with the theoretical physicist of Altai State University, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences A. I. Goncharov, we performed a computer simulation of the behavior of hydrogen atoms in a medium of free electrons in metals [13]. A previously unknown phenomenon has been discovered: the formation of unsteady complexes of protons or deuterons with orbits of electrons rotating around them in varying size and shape. In size, they are 3–4 orders of magnitude smaller than a hydrogen atom and only one order larger than a neutron. We called them miniatoms or quasineutrons. Due to their electrically neutrality, in a short time of their existence, they can freely move in the crystalline structures of metals and approach the nuclei of hydrogen or metal isotopes at distances at which nuclear interaction occurs due to the tunnel effect. This solves the key problem of overcoming the Coulomb barrier. The calculated reaction rate between deuterons in palladium deuteride taking into account the formation of miniatoms is 6 orders of magnitude higher than previously obtained on the basis of the model of dynamic deformation of electronic orbitals.
Our calculations allowed us to find ways to intensify nuclear reactions of deuterium in the crystal structure of metal hydrides. It was possible to find a nontrivial and effective way to intensify nuclear interaction due to isostructural phase transitions, the probability of overcoming the barrier at which increases significantly, which increases the rate of nuclear fusion by several orders of magnitude.
The reasons for the extremely strong (tens of orders of magnitude) attenuation of neutron and hard gamma radiation during nuclear reactions in metal hydrides and deuterides at low temperatures are justified in comparison with thermonuclear processes in plasma. This is due to the mechanism of nuclear reactions occurring through the intermediate stage of the formation of miniatoms. The characteristic features of such reactions in metal hydrides (deuterides) and their effect on radioactive radiation are considered in [21]. It has been shown that nuclear fusion energy is released mainly in the form of softer – X-ray radiation, which, when absorbed in metals, fuel, reactor and cooling system leads to their heating. This is a very practical feature of nuclear reactions in condensed matter, since protection against x-ray radiation with the help of screens is not difficult and is well developed in scientific and medical devices.
The theoretically calculated emission of excess energy in the process of the α-β transition in palladium deuteride was verified by us together with the thermochemical measurement expert V. A. Drebushchak in experiments on the SETARAM DSK-III scanning calorimeter using a specially developed technique. The results of eight series of experiments showed that during the sorption-desorption of deuterium in a fine-crystalline palladium powder, an excess energy of more than 1 W per gram of palladium deuteride is released, while in similar experiments with a light isotope of hydrogen, no anomalous effects were observed. These results were published by us in the Europhysics letters [4] and in the materials of the international conference [9].
Based on the theoretical and experimental studies, a method and device for energy production were developed, for which two Russian patents [26, 27], Eurasian and European patents [28, 29], each of which includes more than 20 private inventions, were obtained.
Their main features are the use of nanopowders of specially selected metals and intermetallic compounds, which, when saturated with deuterium or ordinary hydrogen, undergo isostructural transformations with a change in composition with a change in temperature or pressure.
In Fig. 1 shows a diagram of the device according to patent [26] with a priority date of August 3, 1992.
The installation includes two interconnected steel vessels 1 and 2 with valves 3 and 4 and pockets in which electric heaters 5, 6 and thermocouples 9 and 10 are placed. Outside the vessels there are copper tubes 7 and 8 with cooling fluid. A fine-crystalline metal (Me) is placed inside the vessels, whose hydrides or deuterides undergo an isostructural transition with temperature. Compressed hydrogen, deuterium or their mixture is fed from the connected cylinder 16 to one of the vessels until complete saturation, then the heater is turned on and the valve opens to connect to the second vessel, outside of which cooling water is passed. After a while, the heater of the second vessel turns on, and the process goes in the opposite direction. The cycles of sorption-desorption are repeated many times.
In Fig. 2 shows a diagram of a deuterium heat generator according to patents [27, 28] together with a system for measuring energy balance.
Designations in Fig. 2: 1 – the inner cylinder of the reactor, 2 – the outer cylinder of the reactor, 3 – the cooling casing, 4 – the working volume with the working substance, 5 – shutter, 6 – pressure nut, 7 – dust filters, 8 – locking seal block, 9 – flange joints with a vacuum system and a shut-off valve, 10 – thermal insulation, 11 – heating elements, 12 – coolant, 13 – seals, 14 – pressure nut of the cooling sleeve, 15 – supply and control system for the flow of coolant, 16 – thermocouple measuring unit, 17 – thermostat combined thermocouples s, 18 – power supply, 19 – transformer, 20 – thermocouples, 21 – thermocouple temperature sensor of the liquid entering the heat exchanger, 22 – thermocouple temperature sensor of the liquid leaving the heat exchanger, 23 – Watt-hour electric meter of active energy.
A general view of the manufactured installation is shown in Fig. 3
32.7 g of specially prepared fine crystalline palladium with a particle size of 20 to 100 nm were placed in a 308 cm3 volume heat generator reactor. After evacuation to ~ 1 Pa, from 700 to 2600 ml of gaseous deuterium obtained from heavy water were introduced into the reactor. Measurements were carried out both at constant temperature and pressure, and with cyclic temperature changes from 50º to 600ºC. The energy consumed was measured by the voltage and current strength in the heater, and the released energy was calculated by the heat capacity and the mass of water heated in the heat exchanger. The results of experiments on the dependence of excess energy on temperature are presented in the graph (Fig. 4) [18].
The relative excess energy averaged ~ 23% with maximum values up to 35% of the expended energy, which corresponds to the emitted power of ~ 20 Watts per gram of palladium or 1 kW per gram of deuterium. The maximum excess power was ~ 600 watts. The total amount of excess energy released is ~ 100 MJ, which is 2500 times higher than the energy of possible chemical reactions in the reactor. This proves that excess energy is due not to chemical, but to nuclear processes. The energy release, which is 25–35% higher than that consumed, was confirmed in a series of experiments with cycles of heating and cooling the reactor.
Evidence of nuclear reactions in the reactor is an increase in neutron and gamma radiation fluxes when the temperature rises to 400ºC and decreases to the background level during cooling (Fig. 5 and 6) [21].
The measured increase in radioactive radiation does not exceed variations in the natural cosmic background, but the possibility of reproducibly changing their level depending on temperature proves that nuclear reactions occur in the reactor.
The observed intensity of radioactive radiation is many orders of magnitude lower than in thermonuclear reactions in plasma for the equivalent release of total energy, which has been repeatedly noted in all studies of cold nuclear fusion. Nevertheless, it should be said that safety issues, especially when working with plasma plants for cold nuclear fusion, require further serious study.
Even more convincing evidence of nuclear reactions was obtained by examining the contents of the reactor after a series of 65 experiments.
The analysis of the initial palladium and products obtained after the whole series of experiments was carried out by two methods of atomic emission spectral analysis at the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the SB RAS. In the first of them, developed by VMK-Optoelectronics, the “wake-up-blowing” method at the Potok installation with electric arc excitation, the samples were mixed with especially pure graphite at a ratio of 1:50 and after grinding in a mortar they were fed into an electric arc. Five parallel samples were measured by comparing the intensities of 2–3 spectral lines with standards of known composition.
In another method, atomic emission spectral analysis with inductively coupled ISP-AES plasma, IRIS used solutions previously prepared by dissolving the test substances. We also used laser mass spectral analysis of MS-AES at the IONH RAS using an EMAL-2 instrument. The isotopic composition of palladium was also determined at the IGM SB RAS by the mass spectral method with inductively coupled ICP-MS plasma.
A comparison of the results of analyzes performed by the methods used allows us to come to the following conclusions [19].
1. During the interaction of gaseous deuterium with a number of elements – impurities in the initial palladium: Li, Be, B, C, F, Mg, Si, S, K, Ca, Ti, V, Fe, Co, Ni, Zn – their transmutations were observed that are described by generalized nuclear reactions:
with the release of significant energy w, calculated from the increase in mass defect (Table 1).
2. For 15 elements in which a similar reaction would lead to a decrease in mass defect: Ge, As, Y, Cd, Sn, Sb, La, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb , Lu, Pt, Hg, Pb, Bi, Hf, Ta, a change in the content of elements within the error of spectral analysis methods does not occur.
3. A significant (by two orders of magnitude) increase in the silver content in the product of experiments is most likely due to the reaction of palladium isotopes with high-energy protons — products of a nuclear fusion reaction from deuterons.
4. The isotopic composition of the palladium product of the experiments within the accuracy of the analysis of ICP-MS (± 1%) is identical to the original.
5. The estimate of the energy released during nuclear reactions of the synthesis of helium isotopes from deuterium and due to the transmutation of impurity elements approximately corresponds to the total energy released in the entire cycle of experiments.
The geological evidence of nuclear reactions of hydrogen in the core of the Earth are: high heat flux from a nucleus of 13 ± 3 TW recorded by geophysicists, unexplained by known causes; abnormal ratios of isotopes of He, S, Fe and others in rocks of deep origin and associated hydrothermals; high contents of heavy Fe isotopes in iron meteorites – the remnants of metal nuclei of asteroids (analogues of planetary nuclei) The energy release in nuclear reactions of hydrogen, observed in experiments, in terms of the mass of the nucleus, is much higher than the heat flux from it, and the current energy estimates of the hydrogen content in the core are sufficient to ensure the total heat flux of the Earth over many billions of years. The melting of silicate rocks caused by the heating and formation of water when hydrogen enters the mantle leads to the formation and rise of giant magmatic masses — plumes, an increase in the Earth’s radius and the breaking of its upper hard shell — the lithosphere into large plates. The arrival of hot magmas to split cracks leads to the formation of areas of elevation of the level of the asthenosphere (partially molten layer) and the sliding of plates from them under the action of gravitational forces. Chips of compression occur in the areas of plate collision and subduction zones are formed — plate immersions or mountain systems are formed during the thickening and deformation of the lithosphere. The mechanism that drives lithospheric plates is discussed in detail in my previously published article and monograph [23, 24]. At that time, the reason for the warming up and expansion of the Earth was unclear. Our subsequent work found that the reason for this is the energy released during nuclear reactions of hydrogen in the Earth’s core. The rise of large plumes in the continental regions, which originated on the border with the core, causes outpouring of basaltic magma, an example of which are gigantic Siberian traps in thickness. The processes occurring under the influence of nuclear reactions in the Earth’s core are ultimately the root cause of the origin of many magmatic and hydrothermal ore deposits, in particular nickel, platinum, palladium, gold and others. The reactions of cold nuclear fusion and transmutation of elements are the main energy source of global geological processes.
Theoretically and experimentally established, as well as confirmed by natural facts, the possibility of synthesis and transmutation of elements not only in stars, but also in terrestrial conditions, is of fundamental importance for geochemistry and cosmochemistry.
Currently, studies of nuclear reactions at low energies are intensively conducted in many countries of the world, hundreds of articles and dozens of patents have been published, and international and national scientific conferences are held annually. Unfortunately, this branch of science in our country has not yet received government support. Work on this topic is associated with risk, so it was not included in the research plans and was not funded. The publication of works that run counter to traditional ideas is extremely difficult, and in Russian magazines – until recently, it was actually banned. The lack of articles in leading journals was the reason for rejecting applications at the RFBR – an alternative source of funds for basic research. For 30 years, not a single cold fusion project has been supported.
It is also worth noting that the formation of this direction coincided with two decades of perestroika, which very seriously affected the financing of science. Private investors are not interested in investing in projects that do not guarantee quick returns. For these reasons, we conducted expensive studies at our own expense. Almost all groups working on this subject were in the same position. Many of them disbanded, and some researchers went abroad. The continuation of such a scientific and technical policy will lead to a technological lag in our country. The success of the Russian enthusiasts will not be enough for development. Russia will have to pay to foreign patent holders for each kilowatt-hour of energy produced by the new technology.
IA REGNUM, providing authors with the opportunity to popularize their developments, makes an important contribution to the development of this breakthrough direction.
Details:
1. Kirkinsky V. A., Novikov Yu. A. 1997. The problem of nucleosynthesis in geological processes. In the book. “Earth sciences on the threshold of the 21st century: new ideas, approaches, solutions”, Moscow, Scientific World, p. 85.
2. Kirkinsky V. A., Novikov Yu. A. 1998. Theoretical modeling of cold nuclear fusion. Novosibirsk, 48 p.
3. Kirkinskii V. A., Novikov Yu. A. 1999. A new approach to theoretical modeling of nuclear fusion in palladium deuteride. Europhysics Letters, v. 46, No. 4, pp. 448−453.
4. Kirkinskii V. A., Drebushchak V. A., Khmelnikov A.I. 2002. Excess heat release during deuterium sorption-desorption by palladium powder palladium deuteride. Europhysics Letters, v. 58, No. 3, pp. 462−467.
5. Kirkinskii V. A., Novikov Yu. A. Theoretical modeling of cold fusion. Novosibirsk, Novosibirsk State University, 2002, 105 p.
6. Kirkinskii V. A., Novikov Yu. A. 2002, Hydrogen Isotopes of Numerical Computation. Experiment in Geosciences, v. 10, No1, pp. 51−53.
7. Kirkinskii V. A., Novikov Yu. A. 2003. Numerical calculations of cold fusion in metal deuterides. In the book: “Condensed Matter Nuclear Science” (Proceedings of the ICCF-9, ed. By Xing Z. Li), pp. 162−165
8. Kirkinskii V. A., Novikov Yu. A., 2003. Freedom of the Earth’s interior. In the book: “Condensed Matter Nuclear Science” (Proceedings of the ICCF-9, ed. By Xing Z. Li), 166−169, 2003.
9. Kirkinskii V. A., Drebushchak V. A., Khmelnikov A.I. 2003. Experimental evidence of heat output during deuterium sorption-desorption in palladium deuteride. In the book: “Condensed Matter Nuclear Science” (Proc. Of the ICCF-9, ed. By Xing Z. Li), pp. 170−173.
10. Kirkinskii, V. A., Novikov, Yu. A. 2004. Modeling of dynamic screening effects in solid state. Europhysics Letters. Vol. 67, N 3, pp 362−367.
11. Kirkinskii V. A., Novikov Yu. A., 2006. Calculation of nuclear reaction probability in a crystal lattice of lanthanum deuteride. In the book “Progress in condensed matter nuclear science.” Editor A. Takahashi, World Scientific Publ. Co., Proc. of 12th Conference on cold fusion.
12. Kirkinskii V. A., Novikov Yu. A., 2006. Calculation of nuclear reaction probabilities in a crystal lattice of titanium deuteride. In the book “Condensed Matter Nuclear Science”. Editors: P. Hagelstein and S. Chubb. World Scientific, Proc. of the ICCF-10, pp. 681–685.
13. Goncharov A I., Kirkinskii.V. A., 2006. Theoretical modeling of electron flow action on probability of nuclear fusion of deuterons. In the book “Progress in Condensed Matter Nuclear Science”, Editor A. Takahashi. World Scientific Proceedings of 12th conference on cold fusion.
14. Kirkinskii V. A., 2008. Estimation of geofusion probability. In the book: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (ICCF 13), Moscow, pp. 674−678.
15. Kirkinskii V. A., Khmelnikov A. I., 2008. Setup for measuring of energy balance at interaction of metals and hydrogen isotopes gas at high temperatures and pressures Proc. of the 13th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (ICCF-13), Moscow, p. 43–46.
16. Kirkinsky V. A., 2015. Experimental evidence of nuclear reactions in the Earth’s core. Proceedings of VESEMPG-2015. P.270-275.
17. Kirkinsky V. A., 2015. Nuclear hydrogen reactions as a source of energy for the Earth’s core. Proceedings of VESEMPG-2015. P.276−281.
18. Kirkinsky V. A., Khmelnikov A. I., 2016. Results of measurement of excess energy in a deuterium heat generator. Materials of the 22nd Russian Conference on Cold Transmutation of Cores of Chemical Elements and Ball Lightning, p. 105−115, Moscow.
19. Kirkinsky V. A., Khmelnikov A. I., 2016. Transmutation of elements in a deuterium telogenerator: preliminary results. Materials of the 22nd Russian Conference on Cold Transmutation of Cores of Chemical Elements and Ball Lightning, p. 116−123. Moscow.
20. Kirkinsky, VA, 2016. Nuclear reactions of the synthesis and transmutation of elements in the Earth’s core, Proceedings of the 22nd Russian Conference on Cold Nuclear Transmutation of Chemical Elements and Ball Lightning, p. 125−135, Moscow.
21. Kirkinsky V. A., 2016. Neutron and gamma radiation in a deuterium heat generator in connection with the problem of the mechanism of nuclear reactions at low energies Materials of the 24th Russian Conference on Cold Transmutation of Nuclei of Chemical Elements and Ball Lightning, p. 91−100, Moscow.
22. Kirkinsky V. A., Natural evidence of nuclear reactions of synthesis and transmutation of chemical elements in the Earth’s core. Materials of the 25th Russian Conference on Cold Transmutation of Cores of Chemical Elements and Ball Lightning, 2019 (in press), Moscow.
23. Kirkinsky V. А., On the physicochemical mechanism of global tectonic processes. Geology and Geophysics, 1985, No. 4, p.3−14.
24. Kirkinsky V. A., The Mechanism and Cyclicity of Global Tectogenesis. 1987, Novosibirsk, Science, 71 p.
25. Kirkinskii V. A., 1994. Tritium, helium and free neutrons. (The method of obtaining energy, as well as helium, tritium and free neutrons and devices for its implementation). International application published under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). PCT / RU93 / 00174 International Application Number. MKI G21 B1 / 00 G21 G4 / 02. International publication number WO 94/03902. 17.02.94, 30 s.
26. Kirkinsky V. A., 1996. Patent of the Russian Federation No. 2 056 656 for the invention “Method for producing free neutrons”. Priority date August 3, 1992 Published in the bulletin “Inventions, Trademarks” March 20, 1996, No. 8, part II, p. 267-268.
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This is a re-post of an article published May 19, 2019 by Vitaly Alekseevich Kirkinsky at REGNUM and presented the 30th anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion.
Modifications to the cold fusion energy reactor designed by Tadahiko Mizuno have dramatically increased excess heat production. Thermal power output of the cell is now able to exceed the air-flow calorimeter’s heat removal capacity of 1 kilowatt.
When the input is 300 Watts heat, thermal power output is estimated to be between 1 – 3 kilowatts. This is based on the fact that Prof. Mizuno heated his room in Sapporo last winter with the cold fusion reactor, and he felt the room’s temperature to be as warm as when using a 3 kilowatt electric heater.
Tadahiko Mizuno’s R20 reactor heats a room in Sapporo. Graphic from Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.
The jump in power occurred after he placed the heater that regulates the reaction at a new location inside of the cell, as well as new and different applications of pressure to the reactor.
But he also changed the way he made the active cathode material.
Nickel-mesh physically rubbed with palladium rod provides the reactant
Previously, to produce active nickel-mesh cathodes Prof. Mizuno, lead researcher at Hydrogen Engineering Application & Development HEAD, had been using glow discharge to “erode the center of the palladium electrode and sputter palladium on the nickel mesh”. This method could reliably generate 232 Watts excess heat with 248 Watts input, but it took months of applying the discharge to complete an active cathode. He needed a new method of applying palladium to the nickel-mesh.
Old cruciform design used glow discharge to prepare the cathode for reaction. Excess heat was reliable, but the whole process took months. Graphic from Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.
Electroless deposition gave good results, but the chemical solution was expensive. So, Prof. Mizuno started physical rubbing a palladium rod on the nickel-mesh to save money.
Three separate nickel mesh pieces are prepared by rubbing “vigorously” with a palladium rod. A careful WARNING is included: the procedure should take place in a glove box or appropriate facility as the fine particles of nickel dust are toxic and pose a health danger. Only those “skilled in the art” should attempt reproduction.
Using a glove box for safety, a palladium rod is rubbed one way, and then, 90 degrees the other way until 15-20 milligrams of palladium is deposited. Graphic from Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.
The three mesh are carefully weighed during rubbing until 15-20 milligrams of palladium is deposited on each mesh. Then, the three mesh are stacked and rolled up. Inserted into the steel cylindrical reactor, they are unrolled inside, and spring-out against the cylinder walls.
Three palladium-rubbed nickel mesh against the interior walls of the reactor. Graphic from Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.
This new method of cathode preparation is faster than glow discharge, however, first attempts to activate the mesh saw excess power results dropping to 12 Watts, about 12% excess heat, a marginal result.
Heat regulates the reaction
Then, in this last year, Prof. Mizuno changed the design. A sheath heater was installed inside the center of the cylindrical reactor R20.
Sheath heater now sits symmetrically in the center of the cylinder of the R20 design, heating the unit internally. Graphic from Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.
That design change, along with “changes in the methods and pressures”, has “apparently enhanced the reaction, producing the results shown in Fig. 6.”
The R20 power results raw (in gray), and adjusted for heat loss through the walls of the calorimeter (in orange). Graphic from Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.
Jed Rothwell was surprised at the result of moving the heater. He says, “I might have moved it inside just to reduce overall input power, but I had no idea that might increase output.”
Observations on this system has led to some important conclusions.
“First, the excess heat should be an exponential function of absolute temperature,” says Mizuno. “Second, the deuterium concentration in nickel affects the amount of excess heat. Third, the influence of deuterium pressure is small. Also, excessive heat generation requires treatment of the nickel surface. Also, there is a need for dissimilar metal layers. That’s all.”
The R20 is described as the “latest and most effective reactor”. After two hours of operation, it provides a stable ~250 Watts thermal excess power output when the input is a 50 Watt heater, and power generation can continue indefinitely.
However, an input of 300 Watts thermal will produce heat overwhelming the lab’s air-flow calorimeter heat removal capacity. There is an effort to test the R20 reactor in a bigger calorimeter in time to report definitive power output levels at ICCF-22 in September.
Air-flow calorimeter withstands scrutiny
The air flow calorimetry Prof. Mizuno used to measure the heat from the R20 has not changed since the report last year. Calorimeter specifications are described in detail in the previous paper Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel [.pdf], which was presented at the ICCF-21 conference. Jed Rothwell, who has worked with Mizuno for over 30 years, invited the CMNS community to help find weak spots, and he has investigated every critique. So far, the calorimetry appears tight.
“Jed’s contribution is huge,” says Prof. Mizuno. “He looked at and analyzed my experimental results in detail, and gave me appropriate advice. He also corrected my dissertation, corrected my analysis errors and corrected sentences. I think Jed is a collaborator.”
Tadahiko Mizuno has shared specific details of these successful experiments in his papers and he is encouraging those “skilled in the art” – and with the proper equipment and protection from toxic nickel dust – to replicate the results. He promises to help replicators, too.
Jed Rothwell has heard from several people planning or starting replications. “Some of them seem to be trying new approaches,” he says. “I am following Dennis Cravens and one other closely. I think they are sticking to the protocol, except that one of the reactors is considerably smaller, so the mesh is only 2″ wide. I hope that has no effect on the results. We’ll see.”
Dr. Dennis Cravens, LENR researcher from New Mexico, is one of those who plans to replicate the active nickel-mesh cathode material process, though he’ll use a different calorimeter.
“Yes, I will be trying a replication in a general way,” he says. “But I have no real support in that effort so it may take some time. I have built an air-flow system using controlled temperature intake. But I have never been comfortable with air-flow systems after using one for checks of molten salt systems. They provide many “targets” for others to “throw darts at” and the questions and “advice” never ends. I am presently assembling a 1 meter long Seebeck for a future attempt.”
Hope is regulated with reality, and Jed Rothwell sums up the feeling of someone who has seen great news come and go, without a technology materializing.
“Once again, cold fusion barely survived. If this cannot be replicated, it may not survive. I do not know of any other approaches that could be widely replicated,” he says. “Without widespread replication, the field will surely die.”
“I hope this can be replicated.”
Says Prof. Mizuno, “I think the most important thing is to know how to generate the excess heat. In addition, it is important that there is a control factor.”
Earthquake almost ended research
Less than one year ago, Tadahiko Mizuno almost quit research after 29 years when a damaging earthquake hit the lab, destroying sensitive equipment.
“The earthquake in the early morning of September 6 was awful”, recalls Tadahiko Mizuno. “The damage was severe; the central part of the SEM is not usually fixed in order to not sway around from earthquakes. This caused a disaster, and the central electron tube hit the surrounding stand and broke. Repair cost is a lot of money. Other than that, machinery was broken. I was unable to work for several months.”
Dennis Cravens started a GoFundMe page and brought the CMNS community together to fundraise just enough cash to clean-up a bit, and continue operations.
“It was an outpouring of help by many in the field,” says Dr. Cravens. “We all have had set backs and often feel alone, alienated, ridiculed and sometimes think of giving up. If we can help each other, we just may have a chance to change the world in a good way.”
As a thank-you, Prof. Mizuno gave small reactor to the community, though not the new nickel-mesh version. Sindre Zeiner-Gundersen, who has been getting his PhD while working with Drs. Leif Holmlid and Sveinn Ólafsson on ultra-dense hydrogen, is now in preparation to test the reactor.
Says Zeiner-Gundersen, “Mizuno is one of the leading scientists in this area and brings great research, results and provides data to the field. He is a true pioneer. The reactor I have is a closed system and should produce excess heat just by applying deuterium and heat to the materials inside. ”
“I’m finishing the last programming on calorimetry and construction of the calorimetry system now, so I will be testing this fall.”
Of course, the small funding from the CMNS community has ran out this past February and Mizuno says, “Now I am testing with debt. The amount is 30 million yen. If this remains the case, I have to leave the company in a couple of months.”
But if replications confirm the kilowatt effect, funding won’t be a problem, and Prof. Mizuno isn’t waiting around. He’s put reactors that he calls HIKOBOSHI in the hands of users, for other labs to independently test.
“I rented and sold 12 CF furnaces to Japan and overseas. They are collecting data and having a lot of data, I am going to announce the data.”
“I have named these reactors as HIKOBOSHI. This means the star Altair. I also like that I feel the meaning in Japanese, which is to “flood the lights”. Hiko is also the last kanji notation of my name.”
Had Tadahiko Mizuno not continued research, this breakthrough bump in kilowatt power would have been unrealized. Now when the world needs a zero-carbon option, the HIKOBOSHI reactor is a step closer to fulfilling that mission.
Dennis Cravens says, “You are guided by your experience and your gut and I only hope that others follow their dreams and come to a greater understanding of the process and possibly, just possibly, find the key to a reliable working system. “
The 22nd International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science on the 30th Anniversary of the Announcement of Cold Fusion in Assisi, Italy. To register, go to https://iscmns.org/iccf22/
Dr. Sveinn Ólafsson is the guest on the Cold Fusion Now! podcast with Ruby Carat. Dr. Ólafsson works with a form of Rydberg matter called ultra-dense hydrogen which could be related to the cold fusion/LENR reaction.
Dr. Ólafsson received his Ph.D. from Uppsala University and is currently a research professor at the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences at University of Iceland. He had a career in hydrogen storage before Andrea Rossi sparked his interest in cold fusion.
“In the evenings, I just started to read”, says Dr. Ólafsson, “and I googled, by chance, ‘dense hydrogen‘, and up came Leif Holmlid. ”
He describes how Dr. Leif Holmlid was researching Rydberg matter and discovered a new state of “ultra-dense hydrogen”.
“What was so intriguing was the short distance between two protons that he claimed. I started contact with him shortly after that, and that is the start of any experimental work I have done in this field.”
“He’s been the only guy doing this, except with a few graduate students initially, but he retired a few years ago. Since then, he has been alone, and after I contacted him, there was two of us then in the beginning, and then Sindre came later.”
Drs. Sveinn Olafsson (L) and Leif Holmlid (R). Photo from Experimental Techniques for Studying Rydberg Matter of Hydrogen by Sveinn Olafsson from the 2019 CF/LANR Colloquium at MIT
“He uses a very common techniques which is time of flight spectroscopy, or sometimes time of flight mass spectroscopy. This is widely used in all kinds of chemistry experiments. “
“What is different here, is that Leif has a different production unit of ions – or sample – which he is studying. So he was initially just interested in the Rydberg states of atoms, and this whole time, he has been improving techniques to study that.”
“And by chance he noticed that the time of flight was too short, actually, so that started the ultra-dense hydrogen.”
In time of flight, he is referring to is the time it takes a particle from the sample region to be ejected and travel down a tube to a detector some distance away after being stimulated by a laser. Dr. Ólafsson explains the process.
“What the laser is doing, since it has wavelength of say 1 micron, it’s actually letting zillions of electrons and protons to oscillate. So it’s joggling something there, and these millions of particles somehow react and something flies out.”
Time of Flight Set-up. Slide from Experimental Techniques for Studying Rydberg Matter of Hydrogen by Sveinn Olafsson from the 2019 CF/LANR Colloquium at MIT.
“The time-of flight is measured initially in the normal state of hydrogen Rydberg matter. When the laser breaks up these clusters, the individual atoms travel apart because of the positive charges. Some times of flight are so short, that the energy, or the closeness of these two entities, is so close, they would have to be 2.3 picometers apart initially – that is the ultra-dense state.”
“But also at the same time, you can see they were close at normal chemical distances also. So you can see both the normal state and the dense state using the same instrument. What is different is that in one case you’re having time of flight in microseconds, and the next you have time of flight in nanoseconds, or that range.”
“Time of flight is a technique used in normal chemistry all the time. You hit it with a laser and these chemical entities fly apart, usually just 5 eV, and that’s it. ”
“Leif is using the energy of 630 eV, which is quite high, and no chemist or physicist will accept that you have such bonding distance, or bonding energy, in any molecule, or any states, because quantum physics says that state is unbound and not stable.”
Leif Holmlid was using higher laser energy stimulation to perform a common experiment, and it turns out that his choice of sample catalyst may have led to the surprising outcome of an ultra-dense state for hydrogen.
Dr. Ólafsson says, “Before that, he had been studying different easy metals like potassium which is easy to study and easy to produce Rydberg states, and I think by chance, he used catalysts that could do similar things to hydrogen as to potassium.”
“Hydrogen has a very high ionization energy compared to potassium and all these alkali metals, so it is very strange that you could make a a Rydberg state of hydrogen just by catalysts.”
“Leif started first with a common catalyst, the one making all this plastic waste that you find in nature now. This catalyst is one the steps of making polyethylene plastics.”
“So there are tens of millions of tons of this catalyst made every years, just to make plastics. But if you put some styrene in, then you’re changing some atoms on that molecule. That catalyst is usually a very hollow material, or nano-porous, so you basically have a huge surface area in the catalyst, which just makes the production better.”
Graphic of Rydberg formation. Slide from Experimental Techniques for Studying Rydberg Matter of Hydrogen by Sveinn Olafsson from the 2019 CF/LANR Colloquium at MIT.
“Basically this is a nano-porous surface, and what is probably going on is that hydrogen is adsorbed on that surface, and we’ve been discussing that this is just a special surface where you can prime the hydrogen to have a Rydgberg state as the lowest energy due to the potassium ions which are on the surface also.”
“This is a mixture of ironoxide – rust – and potassium, and it’s well known that when you put oxide surfaces with potassium, the three electrons from potassium forms a kind of electro-gas on top of the surface. “
“So this has never been studied or calculated because it’s very complicated to do it since the orbit of the Rydberg state is huge. It would make the Rydberg atom in a Rydberg state, which has a circular orbit with high quantum numbers – if it is an atom.”
“You can not do that easily to hydrogen, but on the surface, you could make a joint cooperation between the surface and the hydrogen. These may join up on the surface and give us the first states of this process, which is just the normal hydrogen Rydberg matter which is the feeding matter for the ultra-dense state.”
“You have this feedstock which is the normal hydrogen Rydberg matter, and through some excitation, it’s actually more thermodynamically stable to go into the other phase, but not so greatly, so that can obviously form some thin layers on top of metals, and that has been seen in experiments of ultra-dense state, which has so many forms creeping on the surface, and can even live for days if you leave it in the chamber there.”
“It’s actually fairly easy to prove this is true between two protons in a course of quantum physics, and I totally agree on that viewpoint.”
“But nobody knows what you can say if you are trying to do this with, say 15 or 19 particles, because that theory is not so easily solved. It’s not so easy either to say that it is not possible.”
“Most people use the simple way out and say it’s impossible and nonsense, because they are using so simple a model; they are not using multi-particle physics.”
For the ultra-dense state of hydrogen, Dr. Ólafsson says that “it’s always in that range of 2.3 pm. Leif reports that sometimes it’s a little bit less, and sometimes higher. He has given indication that this material has different spin states.”
“The only problem with is that the theory describing it is an empirical model, so it has no support from quantum calculations. It is describing his results, so we can say there are excited states which are a little bit longer distances and so on.”
“Since Leif Holmlid is the only man who has been doing this, we are replicating some parts of his work, but so far, we have not been studying the 2.3 picometer much. We’ve only been studying the ultra-fast breakup, when we have a higher time of flight. It’s not actually a bound state, but it’s actually flying out with much higher energy.”
Slide from Experimental Techniques for Studying Rydberg matter of Hydrogen by Sveinn Olafsson from the 2019 CF/LANR Colloquium at MIT
“At the moment we are just trying to catch up with Leif. We have put the labs together, and we are trying to replicate some of his work, because according to him, we are the first experimentalists who have contacted him and tried to replicate things.”
“It’s actually a nice story to tell that I had applied for some money from the Icelandic Research Council here, and the main argument from all the reviewers was that “nothing has been published except him, and, if this were to be true it would possibly be quoted in the highest scientific journals’. So actually it was a catch-22; they believe all these claims are so wonderful, that somebody must have already studied it, but nobody has! It’s not good to be #2 in applying.”
“I managed to get funding, it was from a Technological Development fund. They are less bound to what science is and is not.”
Asked if he thought that ultra-dense hydrogen could be behind the cold fusion reaction, Dr. Ólafsson said that was his original thought when he saw Leif’s research.
“I thought, this is so close, this must be cold fusion. But it is so complicated a behavior, and of course, getting experiments in cold fusion and experiments in Leif’s research, to join up is of course difficult because they’re in different surroundings.”
“When I contacted Leif and asked him if he thought this was possibly behind cold fusion, he was skeptical, and didn’t want to be linked to the cold fusion thing.”
“But I managed to make a simple calculation with this distance of 2.3 picometer and some simple assumption, and it gave me that the rate of this distance could be enough. But it has one problem, because if you have this tunneling mechanism at this distance, like muon-catalyzed fusion, then you should still see the same result. In other words, you should get radioactive neutrons and protons. So these particles trying to tunnel in close to each other, that is not the right physics [for cold fusion].”
“But Rydberg matter and ultra-dense physics gives us the opportunity to study multi-particle interactions. In a sense, it tells us, if there is a link (between LENR and ultra-dense hydrogen), then it’s a multi-particle tunneling or interaction which could be making cold fusion signals.”
“I don’t know any samples without a crack or opening. Foil has cracks and so on, so you don’t know. I think there is nothing denying that ultra-dense hydrogen is in all cold fusion experiments.”
After being schooled in ultra-dense hydrogen production, Ruby asked Dr. Ólafsson how it was working with graduate student Sindre Zeiner-Gundersen in Norway, who received the test reactor from Tadahiko Mizuno last year.
“Well Sindre is not quite so young a student, he’s in his 30s, so that makes the game easier, you could say! Sometimes, he’s the student, and sometimes, I’m the student.”
“Since we are building one lab in Norway, and one lab in Iceland, which is a little bit different lab, he’ll makes something in his lab, and I catch up with that, and I do the same here, vice versa. ”
“And then we are traveling to each other’s lab, and I’ve been here three years already, and a PhD should be over in three years, but we have the problem of wanting to see more, and do more. So we are always joking ‘when will he finish his PhD?’!”
“It’s a nice thing when you have started in a different field, and one day you kind of get bored, when you start doing the same thing over and over again.”
“So the main reason for me to join this field was out of curiosity, and to see what could be done differently from these nickel and palladium-type experiments.”
“And I think along this way, from 2011 to 2019, you read so many different fields, that you are suddenly becoming not an expert, you know something of everything in the end, and that has been the most enjoyable part of this project.”
“But I’ve still been doing a bit of what I’ve always done. Like I have projects at CERN with a large international group, where we meet up once a year and do a well known technique. It’s not cold fusion, but it’s nice.”
“And there’s another project here which I take part in where we try to find catalysts for ammonia production, so it’s a little bit of everything.”
Dr. Ólafsson’s colleagues have followed the journey. He says, “At the moment they’re so used to it – seven years later! They just smile, yeah, yeah, yeah…”
“I gave a talk last week at the Icelandic Physical Society about what is going on in this field here. And my closing words were, ‘If you’re confused, you’re not alone, I’m also confused as you’.”
“I was just presenting experimental facts, and strange ones. ”
“I think scientists are much more open – until they have read the applications – and then they get scared!”
Dr. Irina Savvatimova is one of the giants of Russian LENR research able to attend the 30-year celebration organized by the Coordination Council on the Cold Nuclear Transmutation Problem of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RANS).
Dr. Savvatimova is a pioneer of the glow discharge method to generate LENR and her group was one of the first to report transmutation elements from this type of experiment. She is also a research scientist at the Scientific Industrial Association LUCH working to generate isotopes for nuclear medicine.
Participants in the conference of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences “Cold fusion – 30 years: results and prospects” on March 23, 2019 in Moscow. From left to right: A.S. Sverchkov, L.V. Ivanitskaya, A.V. Nikolaev, A.A. Kornilov, A.I. Klimov, I.B. Savvatimova, A.G. Parkhomov, A.A. Prosvirnov, V.I. Grachev, S.N. Gaydamak, S.A. Flower.
She had already been working with glow discharge experiments and had defended a thesis on changing the structure and physico-mechanical properties of materials irradiated with hydrogen and helium ions when she heard about the announcement of Drs. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.
She quickly switched gears and began researching cold fusion, along with two new collaborative partners.
In this exclusive interview, Ruby asks Dr. Irina Savvatimova about her first experiments and the early history of CMNS research she experienced.
IS At this time, I was investigating the behavior of materials under irradiation with hydrogen and helium ions with an energy of less than 1 Kev as applied to the first wall of a fusion reactor.
The anomalous effects of changing of the density of various types of defects by optical, electron transmission and auto-ion microscopy were detected. The formation of irregular clusters of vacancies and interstitial atoms, an increase in the dislocation density by orders of magnitude, the formation of pores in the volume and blisters on the surface were founded. An increase in the diffusion rate by a factor 4–5 diffusion coefficients was discovered.
Studies of changes in
the creep rate of metals and alloys under irradiation with hydrogen and helium
ions were also of interest, since these changes in ion irradiation conditions
correlated with available creep data under the conditions of reactor
irradiation of these materials.
I talk about this in such detail, because I immediately thought that an interesting result, what Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons performed as Cold Fusion, could be obtained in a gas discharge – but not in electrolysis. I was ready to conduct experiments, because there was the real gas discharge installation in working condition, the palladium and other materials, as well as the hydrogen and deuterium gases. The parameters of the gas discharge to give the maximum anomalous effects of changes in the structure and properties were also determined.
Then I got a telephone call from Jan Kucherov on March 24, at the same time of discussion with my colleague V. Romodanov, about the possibility of working on Cold Fusion at our institute. He believed that no one would be interested.
Jan Kucherov asked permission to see the installation of the gas discharge, which I used at the time.
Fig 14 The glow discharge schematic, a double-walled quartz
vacuum chamber with Mo anode and a cathode. Graphic LOW ENERGY NUCLEAR REACTIONS:TRANSMUTATIONS by
M. Srinivasan, G. Miley and E. Storms
I asked him: “Will we do Cold Fusion?”. After a pause, he replied:
“Yes.”
The next day, Jan Kucherov and Alexander Karabut came to see the
installation.
By this time, all three of us had already defended dissertations and had some experimental experience.
Yan Kucherov and Alexander Karabut worked with high-power plasma installations, but their wish to conduct experiments on that equipment was not supported by the head of the laboratory, who feared an accident. So I was lucky to start working with such team of like-minded people.
We agreed that we would begin work with the existing gas discharge installation which I had already worked with. Devices for measuring radiation were found in other laboratories of the institute. A week later, we had measurement systems with gas-discharge – helium-3 sensors for neutrons detecting, radiometers with ZnS scintillators calibrated using a Pu-Be neutron source, and recording devices and oscilloscopes that made it possible to distinguish neutron signals from other pulses.
The first series of experiments on palladium was successful. We registered neutrons. It was very exciting. We could not sleep at night. Experiments on other materials (Mo, stainless steel ..) gave the smaller quantitative effect. It was understandable, because a smaller amount of deuterium could be absorbed under the same conditions. The qualitative picture was repeated when we changed the material of sample – the object of irradiation by deuterium.
Graphic: Hal Fox’s news service Fusion Facts named Yan Kucherov, Alexander Karabu and Irina Savvatimova Fusion Scientists of the Year 1992.
The head of my laboratory, Babad-Zakhryapin, reported on the first positive results of the experiments at the scientific council of the Institute a couple of weeks after the start of the experiments. A couple of months later, we tried to publish an article in the journal Successes of Physical Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Further experiments have deepened research on the measurement of radiation by all methods available to us.
Later we learned that many groups in Russia began trying to conduct experiments on Cold Fusion, using their own techniques and/or improving electrolysis, for example, and subsequently applying plasma electrolysis.
For example, a group led by Academician B.B. Deryagin recorded neutrons during the splitting of heavy water ice back in 1986. Andrey Lipson worked with B.B. Deryagin, and later, he continued this research in CF field.
Another very vivid example is Academician A.N. Baraboshkin. Official science took a very wary direction of Cold Fusion, but A.N. Baraboshkin ventured to fund a Cold Fusion project from the funds of the Electrochemistry Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences and tried to unite several groups of researchers from different institutions, among them was our group. Funding was very modest, but the fact that the Academy of Sciences supported our research helped us.
Baraboshkin organized a section on cold fusion at the all-Union seminar “Chemistry and Hydrogen Technology” (Hydrogen-91, Zarechny) in 1991, which was attended by representatives of the Ural Polytechnic Institute, Institute of High-Temperature Electrochemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Ekaterinburg, Institute of Physics- Tsarev V.A. Lugansk Machine-Building Institute – PI Golubnichy and B.I. Guzhovsky from VNIIEF Sarov, and A. Lipson of the Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
V.F. Zelensky, Director of Kharkov Physico-Technical Ukrain, Ukrain, also actively supported this area and he himself participated in experiments.
Yuri Bazhytov founded the firm “Erzion”. He experimented with plasma electrolysis in confirmation of his Erzion theory. Yuri Bazhutov was the main organizer of the 24 Russian conferences and this is his great merit.
Since 1990, seminars have begun to be held in academic and industry institutes. And since 1991, a seminar has already operated at the Peoples’ Friendship University under the guidance of N.V. Samsonenko (now passed the 90th seminar). Activity in this area has increased.
The All-Union seminar “Hydrogen-91”, where there were more than half of the works devoted to studies on cold fusion, most of the participants had worked in this direction a long time.
The first All-Russian Conference was held in 1993. The proceedings of this conference were held under the name Cold Nuclear Fusion, and later the conference was called Cold Fusion and Nuclear Transmutation. Before the first Russian conference, a conference was held in Belarus, where we had an opportunity to report the results of work.
I want to tell about many groups which conducted own successful investigation in this area. I am not sure that it is possible at this time.
Now a lot of research groups work in LENR direction.
RUBY What have been some of the transmutation products you’ve discovered?
IS Ihad experience with a glow discharge for more than 10 years before the CF, work has already been done on studying changes in structure and properties, so for me the study of transmutation was just a more in-depth comprehensive study of the process. The study of the elemental and isotopic composition showed the appearance of elements – that were absent before the experiments – in the sample material and the structural parts of the discharge chamber.
Changes in the elemental and isotopic composition were also tested in different laboratories and institutes by all possible methods. Analysis of the elemental composition on an electron microscope (EDS) revealed the preferential location along the boundaries and sub-boundaries of the grains, where additional impurity elements that were not present in the sample – and elements in the discharge chamber that weren’t there before the experiment. This effect was discovered by our colleague Alexei Senchukov when analyzing samples using a Hitachi electron microscope. He significantly increased the duration of the recording of the spectra, which had not been done before by anyone. Tuning the device to identify specific elements, it was found that various impurity elements can be localized in different places (Transaction of Fusion Technology –ICCF-4,1993// ANS, December 1994// Savvatimova et al, Cathode change after Glow Discharge, 389-394).
The such elements as Sc, V, Cd, In, P, Cl, Br, Ge, As, Kr, Sr, Y, Ru are never present in the discharge chamber, butthese elements were found in the Pd foils after experiments with different ions (H, D, Ar) almost always.
Changes in the isotopic composition of samples irradiated with hydrogen and deuterium were studied by mass spectrometry, Secondary Ions Mass-spectrometry, Spark Mass-spectrometry, Thermoionisation Mass-spectrometry. Several elements were observed using SMS with an isotope ratio deviating from the natural isotope abundance by a factor of two or three, such as 6Li/7Li;10B/11B; 12C/13C; 60Ni/61Ni/62Ni; 40Ca/44Ca; and 90Zr/91Zr. Deviation from the natural ratio of Ag isotopes 109/107 as 3/1 to 9/1, natural composition is 1/1) in palladium cathode. The significant change of the Pd isotopic composition was observed using SIMS also.
So, the elemental and isotopic structure of the cathode materials before and after Glow Discharge (GD) experiments were analyzed by EDS, SNMS and SMS. The isotope shift tendency in Pd and Pd alloys and Ag was observed. The comparison of the quantity of impurity elements change and generation was made.
The four same groups of
certain impurities were repeatedly formed after Deuteron irradiation in similar
conditions: light – with masses of 6, 7 10, 11 19, 20, 22; of middle masses
near 0,5 matrix element; (± 10) of matrix element – Cd, Sn, Ag and of heavy masses
(120 -140) Sn, Te, Ba).
The quantity of additional impurities, which was found after ion irradiation in Pd and Pd alloys, can to show in the following row with decreasing: Pd, alloys PdPTW, PdNi, PdRu, PdCu.
The qualitative correlation of the maximum increase of impurities in the cathodes with the minimum heat output during GD experiment was noticed for temperature interval less 200oC (ICCF-7).
Later, similar studies on
changes in the elemental and isotopic composition were carried out on titanium
(ICCF-10).
However, all the effects of
transmutation with an increase in the content of individual elements up to 100
times or more, with a change in the isotopic composition, could not convince
critics that such changes were a reality.
Only an experiment with radioactive material could convince these people, so it was another happy occasion when John Dash invited me to Portland State University to conduct research with uranium.
As a result of this work, we were able to show the presence of alpha, beta and gammas. The alpha activity of Uranium increased after irradiation with hydrogen and deuterium ions about 2-4 times, and beta and gamma emission increased from 10 to 60%.
Emission registration on films during glow discharge experiments ICCF-9 [.pdf]
Along with the fascinating increase of alpha activity, an increase in the amount of thorium (EDS) and a decrease in uranium is observed by chemical analysis (MIT) and by observing the intensity of peaks in the spectra of characteristic radiation of uranium (x-ray data) decrease.
The first publications of these results were reported to ICCF-3 (1992), ICCF-4(1993) and Russian Conferences and Seminars, Russian “Letters in Journal of Technical physics” 1990
Possible Nuclear Reactions Mechanisms at Glow Discharge in Deuterium ICCF-3 [.pdf]
Cathode Material Change after Deuterium Glow Discharge Experiments ICCF-4 [.pdf]
Photo from Proceedings of ICCF-3 Frontiers of Cold Fusion. ICCF-3 Group photo, 1992.
The presence of low-energy nuclear reactions was confirmed by the GD low-energy influence. Some observations were:
– Significant increase in additional elements
ranging 10 -1000 times was found.
– Isotopic deviation in materials (Pd, Ti, W, and
U) and the increase in the additional impurity elements from 2 up to 100 times
was discovered.
– The majority of the newly formed elements, found
after the GD switch off were found in certain local zones (“hot” spots, micro
melting points) on the cathode material surface.
– Post-experimental isotopes with masses of 169,
170, 171, 178, and 181 (less than W and Ta isotopes) were found with the help
of TIMS.
– The isotopic changes continue to occur for at
least 3–5 months after the GD exposure. Separate isotopes with masses less than
W and Ta isotopes have grown by factors ranging 5–1000 times.
– The change in alpha, beta, gamma radioactivity
caused by the GD was observed in Uranium.
.The correlation between X-ray emission data and the thermal ionization mass-spectrometry. Data for the same isotopes is shown in the W foils. The comparison of the mass spectra and the gamma spectra shown to the existence of Yb and Hf, isotopes in W after experiments in Deuterium.
Graphic REPRODUCIBILITY OF EXPERIMENTS IN GLOW DISCHARGE AND PROCESSES ACCOMPANYING DEUTERIUM IONS BOMBARDMENT (ICCF-8) by I.B. Savvatimova, 2000.
The collection of effects confirms availability of nuclear transmutations under exposure to GD (Glow Discharge) low-energy ions bombardment in materials and in other processes.
The GD low-energy influence can be used in new power engineering and new technologies (e.g., isotope production). The described effects should be paid more attention to.
I studied structural changes and the physico-mechanical properties of materials under irradiation with hydrogen, deuterium and helium ions in a plasma discharge with hydrogen ion energies of less than 1 keV deuterium as applied to the first wall of a thermonuclear reactor. These studies were carried out at a gas discharge installation.
I studied these changes because presumably 95% of the ions bombarding the first wall of a thermonuclear reactor should have had H and D ions with energies of less than 1 keV.
Anomalous effects have been observed. Including, there was a blackening of the X-ray film located outside the discharge chamber. However, everyone said that this was not possible with ion energies of less than 1 KeV.
Graphic from REPRODUCIBILITY OF EXPERIMENTS IN GLOW DISCHARGE AND PROCESSES ACCOMPANYING DEUTERIUM IONS BOMBARDMENT by
I.B. Savvatimova ICCF-8 2000
RUBY Could you describe the design of the experiments you performed, what metals you’ve used for cathodes, and how you’ve measured?
The greatest number of experiments was carried out on palladium. After the first experiments the studies were conducted on an EDS electron microscope.
The presence of low-energy nuclear reactions in Glow discharge was confirmed by formation in W (tungsten) of isotopes with mass less than matrix mass (ytterbium and hafnium with 169 -178 masses)
– Significant increase in additional elements ranging 10 -1000 times was found (– Isotopic deviation in materials (Pd, Ti, W, and U) and the increase in the additional impurity elements from 2 up to 100 times was discovered.
– The majority of the newly formed elements, found after the GD switch off were found in certain local zones (“hot” spots, micro melting points, microexplosions) on the cathode material surface.
Graphic from Nuclear Reaction Products Registration on the Cathode after Glow Discharge ICCF-5 by I.B. Savvatimova and A.B. Karabut 1995
– Post-experimental isotopes with masses of 169, 170, 171, 178, and 181 (less than W and Ta isotopes) were found with the help of TIMS.
– The isotopic changes continue to occur for at least 3–5 months after the GD exposure.
Separate isotopes with masses less than W and Ta isotopes have grown by factors ranging 5–1000 times.
– The same energy peaks in gamma-spectra occur during and after the GD current switch-off.
– The Significant change in alpha, beta, gamma radioactivity in uranium after GD in Deuterium and Hydrogen was observed.The increase of alpha, beta, gamma-emission are kept without change during of the duration of measurement – 1 year (after 2, 4, 5, 12 months)
– Post experiments weak gamma, X-ray and beta- emissions were detected.
(2) The correlation between the gamma and X-ray emission data and the thermal ionization mass-spectrometry data for the same isotopes is shown in the W foils.
The comparison of the mass spectra and the gamma spectra points to the existence of the following isotopes Ytterbium and Hafnium: 169, 170, 171m, 172, 178
(3) The collection of effects confirms availability of nuclear transformations under exposure to GD low-energy ions bombardment in materials and in other processes.
(4) The GD low-energy influence can be used in new power engineering and new technologies (e.g., isotope production). The described effects should be paid more attention to.
RUBY It’s been speculated that some of the transmutation elements found are from a fusion – and then fission – reaction. Is that probable in your mind?
IS Yes, of course. Some variants of possible reactions are in our articles.
RUBY You have found transmutations of elements in localized spots, and also at grain boundaries. What does this experimental evidence tell you in regards to a theory of this reaction?
ISYes, it is true. The majority of the newly formed elements, found after the GD switch off were found in certain local zones (“hot” spots, micro melting points, micro-explosions) on the cathode material surface.
It is clear that low-energy plasma initiates the processes of nuclear transmutations.
There are many theories and hypotheses, with the help of some of which, one can explain a part of the observed anomalies. But in the real material there are a lot of processes being performed, and it is very difficult to take into account all of them. Therefore, a single theory or hypothesis cannot explain the whole set of processes.
So in places where defects and inhomogeneities accumulate, there can be a change in the density of the of bombarding ions and a change in the electric field strength to high voltages leading to a microexplosion. In the resulting pores in the process of ion bombardment, the pressure can increase to hundreds of atmospheres. Grain boundaries can trigger an acceleration effect. This is if you approach the explanation from the standpoint of interactions at the macro level.
RUBYWhy is this research so important for the world?
IS These studies in the field of “subliminal (as my colleague Rodionov Boris says) energies” could help to understand many natural phenomena and solve the problems of contamination of the planet with radioactive waste, as well as help in the intensification of many technological processes. It is also possible to use this knowledge to expressly predict the behavior of materials under irradiation conditions.
Apparently, the society is not yet ready to use LENR processes for solving energy problems. The society, or those who rule it, does not need a success in solving the energy problem on the planet.
For a while I did not have the opportunity to work in the direction of Cold Fusion. I was engaged in a project to develop targets for the generation of isotopes for nuclear medicine.
If the situation allows, then I would like to apply the Cold Fusion tricks to solve real-world projects that could be useful now.
RUBY Could you say a bit what it was like to work with Drs. Karabut and Kucharov? Describe their contribution to condensed matter nuclear science.
ISI thank fate that it developed so that we began to work together and everyone was able to do something that was not able or did not know another. Result – the general inventions and patents, good publications. Jean-Pierre Vejie after our reports at a conference in Donetsk visited our laboratory. He was present at an experiment. After the visit to laboratory He suggested to publish our article in Physics Letters. At that time He was some of their editors of this magazine. We well supplemented each other at the initial stage of work.
If collaboration was continued slightly longer, perhaps progress would be more considerable.
Alexander Karabut (right), then the interpreter Natalia Famina (center right), Ludwik Kowalski (center left), and Irina Savvatimova (left) in Japan, December 2006.
Yan Kucherov knew better than others nuclear physics and was an arbitrator in these questions. Its first hypotheses of simultaneous course of processes of synthesis and disintegration are reflected in the publication at a conference in Nagoya. A.Karabut modernized the glow discharge installation for estimation of thermal effect. They competently gathered a measuring chain for registration of neutrons and gamma. Later Karabut could decipher possible decay chains in gamma spectra. This results was confirmed also by mass spectrometry.
RUBY Dr. Savvatimova, can you tell us what you are working on now?
ISFor a while I did not have the opportunity to work in the direction of Cold Fusion. I was engaged in a project to develop targets for the generation of isotopes for nuclear medicine.
If the situation allows, then I would like to apply the Cold Fusion tricks to solve real-world projects that could be useful now.
RUBYWhy is this research so important for the world?
-The collection of effects (alpha, beta, gamma-emission on the uranium) confirms availability of nuclear transformations under exposure to GD low-energy ions bombardment in materials.
– The low energy nuclear reactions (subthreshold nuclear reaction) are exist. These process can be used in the different fields of science and technology. Glow discharge low-energy impact can be used in new power engineering and new technologies (e.g., isotopes production, creating special alloys with improved properties, which cannot be create by other method).
The described effects should be paid more attention to. Unfortunately, the society doesn’t think it needs these achievements now (or part of society).
Understandably, for improvement success and great achievements, the good group of researchers and modern equipment and financial support are necessary.
The great Russian poet written ” It is pity to live in this beautiful time there will be neither you nor me”.
Early papers:
1. Karabut A. B., Kucherov Ya. R., Savvatimova I.B. Physics Letters A, 170, 265-272 (1992).
2. Karabut A.B., Kucherov Ya.R., Savvatimova I.B. Proc. ICCF-3, 1992, Nagoya, p.165. Possible Nuclear Reactions Mechanisms at Glow Discharge in Deuterium [.pdf]
3.
Karabut A. B., Kucherov Ya. R., Savvatimova I.B. Fus.Tech., Dec. 1991, v. 20(4.), part 2, p.294.
4.
Savvatimova I., Kucherov Ya. and Karabut A., Trans. of Fus. Tech.: v.26, 4T (1994), pp. 389-394
5. Savvatimova I.B, Karabut A. B. Proc., ICCF5, Monte-Carlo, 1995, p.209-212; p.213-222 Radioactivity of the Cathode Samples after Glow Discharge [.pdf]
6. Karabut A.B, Kucherov Ya. R., Savvatimova I.B ICCF5, Monte-Carlo, 1995, p.223-226; p.241 Nuclear Reaction Products Registration on the Cathode after Glow Discharge [.pdf]
7.
Savvatimova I.B, Karabut A. B. Poverhnost (Surface), V. 1, Moscow: RAN, 1996, p.63-75;.76-81
9. Savvatimova I.B, Karabut A. B. Mat. 2 Russia Conf. On Cold Nucl. Fus. and Nuclear Transmutation. -Sochy, Sep. 19-23 1994, Moscow, 1995, page 184.
For more on the work of Dr. Irina Savvatimova, go to this list of papers, or, search the LENR Library Archive at lenr.org.
The 22nd International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science ICCF22 convenes September 8-13, 2019 in Assisi, Italy. To Regsiter, go to the International Society of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science website at iscmns.org.
This is a re-post of a modified google-translated article by Sergey Tsvetkov published April 8, 2019 at REGNUMhttps://regnum.ru/news/2606951.html. Any use of materials is allowed only if there is a hyperlink to REGNUM news agency.
The prototype of the Soviet prospective cold fusion reactor on deuterated titanium was created in May 1989 by the head of the institute of the USSR Minsredmash NIKIET N. A. Dollezhal. The collapse of the USSR delayed the revolution in global nuclear energy by almost 30 years.
A report by Sergey Alekseevich Tsvetkov, a member of the Coordination Council of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences on the issue of Cold Transmutation, “My opinion on cold nuclear fusion” at the 30-year-old Cold Synthesis Conference: Results and Prospects held on March 23, 2019 in Moscow.
* * *
Comment REGNUM
Sergey Tsvetkov
Sergey Tsvetkov is a nuclear physicist, a specialist in nuclear reactor physics, the author of a promising project for a cold fusion reactor on deuterated titanium, the development of which began in the Sverdlovsk branch of the Research and Design Institute of Power Engineering (SF NIKIET) of the USSR Ministry of Medium Machine Building.
* * *
“If there was no cold fusion, it should have been invented. ”
My report is devoted to the results that I received in the field of cold fusion in 30 years of work, practically from the very moment when Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced their discovery on March 23, 1989.
Fig. 1. Solemn rally in Zarechny, Sverdlovsk region on the launch at the Beloyarsk NPP them. IV Kurchatov BN-600 fast neutron reactor in April 1980
How it all began. Here, in the city of Zarechny, it all started when the newspaper “Izvestia” on March 25, 1989 published the article “The Discovery of the Century or …” by a famous international journalist, correspondent for the United States and Great Britain, Alexander Shalnev, in which he spoke about a sensational press. conference at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, USA.
Fig. 2. A clipping from the Izvestia newspaper dated March 25, 1989 with Alexander Shalnov’s article “The Discovery of the Century or …”
“THE DISCOVERY OF THE CENTURY OR …”
NEW YORK. (Sob. Correspondent. “News”). ABC began its major news release with a report on a press conference held at the University of Utah. What was announced, and in fact – a sensation. According to Briton Martin Fleischmann and American Stanley Pons, they managed to discover a way to carry out nuclear fusion under the simplest conditions.
If this is so, if further experiments confirm the discovery, then a giant step will be made to the long-standing dream of many scientists – to use fusion as a cheap, reliable and almost safe source of energy. The fusion reaction proceeds with light nuclei, and the fission reaction, which is now used in conventional nuclear reactors, is in heavy nuclei. The advantage of fusion as an energy source is that any water abounds in the deuterium used in this process. Another major advantage – the waste of this process is scanty.
The scientists of the world have long been fighting the problem of fusion. According to the Washington Post newspaper, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent, so that using the most sophisticated and at the same time very cumbersome equipment to create conditions that would resemble those that exist on the Sun in a giant nuclear synthesizer. In the meantime, the result is the following: to carry out such experiments, the energy is spent much more than it is created.
The method of Fleischmann and Pons is extraordinarily simple. This experiment, said the vice-president of the University of Utah, is similar to those conducted by first-year students using two electrodes immersed in a liquid. Scientists themselves say that, according to their forecasts, it will be relatively easy to transform the discovery into a technology that can be used in practical needs – for heat, for example. However, they add, “there is still work to do.”
In American scientific circles, the press conference in Utah did not cause a definite reaction. Attention was drawn to the fact that it was arranged before other scientists were notified of the discovery, and before the discovery report was submitted for publication. It’s unusual.
Secondly, there is a suspicion that the practical benefits of the discovery will be much less than the authors predict. According to Dennis Keef from the University of Berkeley (California), the experiment is worth it to continue on. But, says the scientist, himself a specialist in fusion, it is unrealistic to wait for substantial practical results: after all, the experiments that are conducted still produce a very small amount of heat, which, of course, is not enough to bring boiling water to steam. .
Skepticism, it seems to me, has spread faster than enthusiasm: neither ABC nor other TV companies report on the discovery anymore. Very poorly reacted and print.
A. Shalnev.
Further, a comment was published by Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Boris Borisovich Kadomtsev, a well-known specialist in plasma physics and controlled thermonuclear fusion.
The correspondent of Izvestia asked academician B. Kadomtsev to comment on this message. He said:
“The message from New York is, of course, sensational. But the scientific information in it is too small for any definite conclusions. In order for the fusion reactions to occur, the nuclei must come to a very close distance. To do this, they must have a greater relative speed. Therefore, a very high technique is required for an intensive reaction. Very weak reactions can occur under less extreme conditions. For example, neutron generators use a metal target saturated with tritium located at room temperature. This beam strikes a beam of accelerated deuterium nuclei, which with low probability can react with tritium nuclei. The information of the correspondent is not enough to make a conclusion about the reliability of the discovery. It is only clear that if the reaction actually proceeds, then it is clearly weak, and such a process can hardly be used to generate energy. ”
This small article was duplicated in the Pravda newspaper, and then, publications appeared in the Literary Gazette and many others. In April 1989, in the 15th issue of the weekly “Echo of the Planet”, a large article ” “Cold Thermonuclear” — the discovery of the century?” was published; showing what results were obtained.
Fig. 3. The article “Cold thermonuclear – discovery of the century” in the weekly “Echo of the Planet”, No. 15, April 1989
On the basis of these newspaper publications, already in early April our group in the SF NIKIET was involved in the verification of the results. But we immediately went on our way.
At the same time, at the end of April, a “refuting” statement of the American Physical Society is published, and in May a number of tendentious newspaper publications appear, stating that Fleischmann and Pons’ data are incorrect, that they cannot measure heat, that, in fact, there is no tritium, etc. As they say, “all dogs were hanged on them”. They tried, of course, all this time to fight back . An attempt was even made to create the Institute of Cold Fusion for which a lot of money was allocated. However, the institute did not last long and was closed at the end of 1990. By 1991, pressure was exerted on the troublemakers so that Martin Fleischmann returned to Britain, and Stanley Pons had to resign from the University of Utah and move to work in France, having emigrated from the United States.
On the history of Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons’ harassment, I wrote an article that was published on December 12, 2017 in IA REGNUM entitled “About the pseudo-scientificness of cold fusion: in defense of Martin Fleischman and Stanley Pons’ electrochemists”, in which, I think, I was able to show that it was not a scientific criticism, but a harassment, the initiators of which didn’t disdain from either outright lies or purposeful falsification of results during the reproduction of the experiment. The April “denials” of the American Physical Society and the Massachusetts University of Technology were published a month after the March 23 press conference, while the reaction from Fleischmann and Pons was launched only on the 72nd day. For some reason, at first, nobody paid attention to this circumstance. “Examinations” were frankly “custom-made”, which later became clear, thanks to the investigation of Eugene Mallove. Even the accusations against Fleischmann and Pons, that they held a conference before they published a scientific article and allegedly deceived their co-author Professor Steven Jones, did not correspond to reality.
The main conclusion of my article is
“Cold nuclear fusion is not pseudoscience. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons made a scientific discovery worthy of the Nobel Prize. ”
So I think today, and so we thought in 1989, we are convinced of the correctness of Fleischmann and Pons in their own experiments.
***
On the economics of cold fusion
We now turn to the question: why is it advantageous to engage in cold nuclear fusion for energy?
In preparing the report, I found such a table in the literature.
The way to get energy
kWh/kg
J/g
Times greater than previous row energy
Burning oil (coal)
11.6
42 kJ/g
1
In the fission of uranium-235
22.9 x 10^6
82.4 GJ/g
1,974,138
In the fusion of hydrogen nuclei
117.5 x 10^6
423 GJ/g
5
The energy of a substance according to the formula E=mc^2
29 x 10^9
104.4 TJ/g
247
Tab. 1. The amount of energy released in a certain amount of a substance with different methods of production.
With the complete burning of oil or coal, 11.6 kWh / kg is obtained. When uranium-235 is divided in atomic reactors by 1 kg, almost 2 million times more energy is released than by burning oil or coal. In the fusion of hydrogen nuclei, the energy is 5 times greater than in the fission of uranium-235.
And if you manage to release the total energy of a substance according to Einstein’s formula E = m · c2, then you can get 247 times more energy per kilogram of substance in relation to the fusion of hydrogen nuclei.
Next, I analyzed the estimate of the energy released during the fusion of hydrogen nuclei, and it turned out that the only thermonuclear reaction involving hydrogen that could give such an amount of energy per gram of substance, refers to a pair of tritium-protium. As a result, helium-4 (4He) and 19.814 MeV of energy are obtained:
3H + 1H = 4He + ϒ + 19.814 MeV
This reaction totals 474.936 GJ/g. And we, like Fleischmann and Pons, from the very beginning considered as a source of energy the fusion of deuterium nuclei (d + d reaction), which occurs inside the crystal lattice of a metal
d + d = 3He (0, 82 MeV) + n (2.45 MeV) + 3.270 MeV (1 channel)
= T (1.01 MeV) + p (3.02 MeV) + 4.033 MeV (Channel 2)
This fusion reaction is possible through two channels. The first channel is the formation of helium-3 (3He) with a neutron (n) with the release of 3.27 MeV of energy, and the second channel with the formation of tritium (T) and a proton (p) with the release of 4.033 MeV of energy.
For this classical nuclear fusion reaction, when the first and second channels are equally probable, the amount of released energy per gram of molecular deuterium is 87.45 GJ/g (G is Giga = 10^9), which is much less than given in Table 1 (423 GJ/g).
In their work, Fleischmann and Pons drew attention to the fact that they have tritium (T) recorded, as compared with neutrons, 11–14 orders of magnitude more than with the classical d + d reaction. If we take into account this increase in tritium yield in their reaction, confirmed later by the work of the Indian nuclear scientists, who had 7–11 orders of magnitude more tritium output than the neutron yield, then the energy per gram of molecular deuterium is 96.57 GJ/g . Thus, with this fusion reaction, one gram of deuterium can become a continuous source of heat with a capacity of 3.062 kW for a whole year. It is wonderful.
When we learned about the press conference of Fleischmann and Pons, we, a group of employees of the Sverdlovsk branch of the Research and Design Institute of Power Engineering (NIKIET branch named after N. A. Dollezhal – the famous NII-8), worked with titanium hydride. At that time, we were making a high-pressure hydrogen complex with hydrogen pressures up to 400 atmospheres. We had titanium hydride on hand, and expensive palladium, as they say, had to be searched for. Therefore, we took titanium and decided to test it in our own way by saturating titanium with deuterium from the gas phase. We ordered deuterium and tried to work with it at high pressures.
Fig. 4. Top view of the Beloyarsk NPP in Zarechny. The orange arrow indicates the complex of buildings of the SF NIKIET, inscription “NNF” marked where the group of Sergei Tsvetkov began work developing the cold nuclear fusion reactor in April 1989.
The question arises: why we immediately chose titanium intuitively, and then continued to work with it, despite the fact that Fleischmann and Pons used palladium, which is saturated with deuterium during the electrolysis process to produce palladium-deuteride. Discussing the question of how to intensify the process, we came to the conclusion that we need to introduce as much hydrogen or deuterium into the metal crystal lattice as possible in order to get recorded results on heat and on products of the proposed nuclear reaction. And here the following table helped us (Fig. 5).
Fig. 5. Table of binary hydrides in the periodic system from the book “Metal hydrides”. M. Atomizdat, 1973, p. 11.
Metal hydrides were very well researched in the 1960s. In 1973, we had a fundamental American monograph on this topic (see Metal hydrides. Edited by V. Muller et al. Translated from English. – M .: Atomizdat, 1973. – 432 p.). In this book there is a special periodic table, which shows which metal hydrides can form and in what quantities they can absorb hydrogen (Fig. 5). It can be seen from this table that titanium, zirconium and niobium form binary hydrides in which there are up to two hydrogen atoms per metal atom, and, say, palladium and nickel hydrides per metal atom can absorb no more than one hydrogen atom. Thus, it became obvious the advantage of working with titanium in comparison with palladium: titanium absorbs twice the amount of hydrogen, and, consequently, the fusion reactions could be expected at least twice as much.
We now consider Table 2, in which nickel, palladium, titanium, zirconium and niobium are compared in density, content in the earth’s crust, heat capacity, thermal conductivity and cost of these metals.
Metal
Density g/cm3
How many times heavier is Ti?
Content in earth’s crust,% by weight.
Heat capacity, J/ kmol
Heat conductivity, (300 K) W/(m*K)
Cost as of 09/19/17, USD/kg
Atomic mass, g/mol
Palladium
12.02
2.65
0.000001
25.8
71.8
29191.31
106.42
Titanium
4.54
1
0.57
25.1
21.9
12
47.88
Nickel
8.9
1.96
0.0075
26.1
90.9
11.05
58.69
Zirconium
6.51
1.43
0.0165
25.3
22.7
129.09
91.22
Niobium
8.57
1.89
0.002
24.44
53.7
226
92.91
Tab. 2. Comparison of Pd, Ti, Ni, Zr and Nb according to several characteristics.
It is obvious that titanium clearly stands out against the background of other metals: it is the lightest of all, in the earth’s crust it is the most, its heat capacity and thermal conductivity are rather small, and its cost is low. It is comparable to the cost of nickel, but in terms of its prevalence in the crust, even no attention should be paid to nickel. Thus, it turned out that titanium can and should be used. These were the reasons we had to do titanium.
Most recently, I found my first job in the USSR to saturate titanium with hydrogen. Employees of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, Yu. V. Baymakov and O. A. Lebedev, published an article titled “Titanium and Hydrogen” in the collection “Proceedings of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute” No. 223 for 1963, in which they reported on the thermal effect obtained during the formation of titanium hydride on titanium powder.
Fig. 6. A plot of temperature versus time for heating titanium in hydrogen and a setup diagram for titanium saturation with hydrogen from the article by Yu.V. Baymakov and O. A. Lebedev “Titanium and hydrogen” of 1963.
In the experiment with the formation of hydride, excess heat was recorded in the amount of 16.7 kcal / mol. But the calculated data, which are given in the article:
Fig. 7. Calculation of excess heat generation during the formation of titanium hydride from the article “Titanium and hydrogen” by Yu. V. Baymakov and O. A. Lebedev in 1963
The formation of hydride takes 120 kcal and 103 kcal is spent on the dissociation of hydrogen molecules, that is, the formation of atomic hydrogen. But in the end, all the same, there remains excess heat equal to 14% – this is quite a lot. If we calculate the excess power factor, that is, the ratio of heat expended (120.5 kcal) to excess heat (16.7 kcal), then this will be slightly more than seven. This feature has a titanium, which has been undeservedly ignored in recent studies on cold nuclear fusion.
On the basis of the equipment and materials that we prepared for the high-pressure hydrogen complex, in April 1989, the first experimental setup was created to obtain nuclear fusion reactions in deuterated titanium (Fig. 8).
Fig. 8. The first installation of 1989 for the study of cold nuclear fusion in SF NIKIET. On the left – the high-pressure gas part, on the right – an experimental cell with detectors.
Let me remind you that this story takes place at the Sredmash Research Institute (Ministry of Medium Machine-Building of the USSR), at the Sverdlovsk branch of the Research and Design Institute of Power Engineering (SF NIKIET), which is the site of the experimental reactor of the Moscow NIKIET them. N. A. Dollezhal engaged in the creation of nuclear energy facilities and installations for military and civil purposes.
We expected that we could get very high deuterium pressure, for which a special container was prepared at the facility. It was assumed that we can get a hydrogen pressure of 400 atmospheres. We thought that if we do not get a nuclear fusion reaction at low pressures, then we can achieve a positive effect at high pressure. But this was not necessary. In Fig. 9 that the experimental cell is surrounded by various detectors. We had several systems for measuring nuclear radiation: two detectors were used for gamma radiation, there were track neutron detectors (marked in figure 2).
Fig. 9. Layout of the sensors of the neutron and gamma quanta registration system.
It was a thin mica-muskavit with a diameter of several centimeters with thin layers of uranium-235 and neptunium-237 applied to it. The distance at which these track detectors were located was calculated so that the 2.45 MeV neutrons that Fleischmann and Pons registered were slowed down to such energies when interacting with distilled water as a moderator – (8), so that mica Muskavit to leave their tracks of fission fragments of uranium or neptunium by slow neutrons. Gas-discharge helium-3 counters were also used in neutron detectors (7). Moreover, the detectors for gamma radiation and neutrons were duplicated, for example, up to 15 counters were used in the same neutron detector for neutron registration. Therefore, the registration system was very clear and reliable, with high resolution of neutrons and gamma radiation. The synchronous operation of two sensors independent of each other meant that not random artifacts were recorded, but really neutrons and gamma radiation.
In Fig. 10 shows our very first reactor.
Fig. 10. The first reactor for the production of cold fusion reactions on deuterated titanium, designed in the SF NIKIET in 1989.
A sample of cylindrical titanium hydride with a diameter of 9.5 mm (1) and a length of 70 mm was placed in a stainless tube with an internal diameter of 10 mm. Chromel-alumelic (XA) thermocouples in a sealed stainless steel case with a diameter of 1.5 mm (6, 7) were inserted into the tube on both sides. The entire titanium sample outside the tube was surrounded on all sides by a Peltier calorimeter (2), which was made on the basis of chromel-alumelium thermocouples. The calorimeter was calibrated using an independent heat source, for which, instead of a titanium sample, a model was inserted from a nichrome heater to which current was applied, voltage was measured, its power consumption was calculated. We measured the calorimeter’s response to such heating and thus calibrated it by the excess heat at operating temperatures.
In Fig. 11 shows the results of the first studies obtained on the titanium-deuterium system (Ti-D).
Fig. 11. Studies on the titan-deuterium system, May 19–20, 1989.
This happened on May 19–20, 1989. Here it can be seen that, in addition to excess heat, high temperatures (up to 800ºС and above), gamma radiation and neutrons were recorded. And the letters “n” circled on the graph show the moments of synchronous operation of two neutron sensors located opposite each other. Between the sensors was a titanium-deuterium system.
The experimental results obtained in the spring of 1989 unequivocally proved that the cold nuclear fusion phenomenon exists, and not only in the “palladium-deuterium” system, with which Fleischmann and Pons worked. We were busy saturating titanium from the gas phase. Our idea was that all these reactions take place in those metals and alloys that absorb and release deuterium. That is, we made this reactor in order to obtain the following cycle: saturation with deuterium, then degassing of titanium deuteride — pumping, and neutrons and gamma radiation were also recorded during pumping.
In Fig. 12 shows the results that we have obtained.
Fig. 12. Pressure change, titanium sample temperature and heat flux.
This is where the fun begins. If we compare the heat flux from the titanium sample at the saturation of titanium with deuterium and during the degassing of titanium deuteride – pumping, that is, the release of deuterium from titanium, then the ratio of the heat released during saturation to the heat spent during pumping will be about two (1.96). Thus, when deuterium is absorbed, a lot of heat is released, and when it is pumped out, heat is absorbed, but in smaller quantities. This is the first work that showed that when titanium is saturated with deuterium, excess heat is produced, which is released when titanium hydride is formed and the nuclear fusion reaction accompanies it.
The maximum heat release in the first cycle of experiments reached 39.3W. On one gram of titanium, it generates 2.6 W/g. The value is not very high, but it was received, reliably recorded and well calculated.
According to the results of these works, we made two applications for copyright certificates on the method of performing the reaction of low-temperature nuclear fusion, which was carried out by saturation and degassing. We had a hypothesis that at high saturation of titanium with deuterium, phase transitions occur in titanium deuteride, and at phase transitions the structure of the crystal lattice of titanium changes. And we in our first papers tried to check this hypotheses. It turned out that the majority of neutrons and gamma-rays are recorded at the very moment when the titanium-deuterium system passed through the beta/gamma-deuteride phase boundary of titanium. It is on this way of implementing the nuclear fusion reaction using the phase transition from the beta phase to the gamma phase and back we have applied for copyright certificate.
Further, on the basis of this method, the application “Nuclear fusion reactor” was developed. This application has already proposed to place the titanium-deuterium system under the nuclear reactor under the neutron flux in order to intensify the fusion reactions and get more heat. In the list of authors of the essay of the first article prepared for publication, a team was presented that began to deal with it: Bunkov V.V., Bondarenko N. B., Vlasov V. I., Zlokazov S. B., Kadnikov V. P., Maltsev A. G., Nikiforov A. D., Novikov P. I., Safonov V. A., Shentsev V. M., Tsvetkov S. A
Fig. 13. Abstract of the article “Experimental identification of the reaction of low-temperature fusion in the Ti-D system” 1989.
Contrary to the assurances of thermonuclear fusion specialists that the participants in this study were supposed to be overexposed by neutrons, many of these people are still alive and actively working, and only a few of them died in old age, one of whom was the liquidator of the Chernobyl accident.
Then we did the job of determining the initiation of nuclear fusion reactions in titanium deuteride when exposed to laser radiation. For this, the following scheme was developed. A quartz window reactor was made, a sample of titanium deuteride was placed in this reactor. Then air was pumped out of the reactor and a deuterium atmosphere was created with a pressure of 14 atmospheres. Through a quartz window, a pulsed laser affected the end of the sample inside the reactor, with neutrons and gamma radiation being recorded.
In September 1991, the results of this work were published in the journal of the American Nuclear Society Fusion Technology. At that time, the editor of this journal was George Miley, who suggested that we publish an article.
Fig. 14. The cover of the September issue of the journal Fusion Technology and the first page of the article “Laser-induced cold nuclear fusion in Ti-H2-D2-T2 compositions”.
At the end of this article, calculations were made of a gamma-based creation, which we recorded in the experiment, of a gamma laser.
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A little about yourself, friends and colleagues
I am a nuclear physicist. I have a specialization in “Physics of Nuclear Reactors”. I graduated from the Physics and Technology Faculty of the Ural Polytechnic Institute in Sverdlovsk in 1982. I had a diploma on the subject “Study of thermal decomposition of irradiated and non-irradiated polyimides”. I have two specializations: nuclear reactor physics and isotope separation.
I started working in the Sverdlovsk branch of the Research and Design Institute of Power Engineering in Zarechny, Sverdlovsk Region. The first work on cold nuclear fusion was also carried out there. And then life was so ordered that perestroika began, various incomprehensible events began until the end. As a result, I got into the group of Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Alexei Nikolaevich Baraboshkin at the Institute of High-Temperature Electrochemistry of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Then, in 1993–1995, work began that was funded by the American firm ENECO. To us, they specifically financed the work on the interaction of strontium cerate with deuterium. As a result of this work, we filed an application for the international patent “Methods and devices for producing neutrons from solid-state proton conductors”.
Aleksey Nikolaevich Baraboshkin, together with then-corresponding member Boris Vladimirovich Deryagin, tried to organize and launch the All-Union scientific research program on cold nuclear fusion in 1990-1991. It was developed in sufficient detail. 32 organizations were supposed to participate in it: 12 institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 9 branch institutes of the IEP of the USSR, 8 universities, 5 academicians of the USSR Academy of Sciences and 5 corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences. At that time, they estimated this program at 15 million rubles and plus 3 million foreign currency rubles and planned to carry it out in four years. The draft program is published on the CTIA and CMM website and in the REGNUM news agency. This is about what they managed to do at the Institute of High-Temperature Electrochemistry of the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In 1993, Academician A.N. Baraboshkin held a meeting on this program in order to try to conduct it through the Department of Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences. We gave reports there. I then came with the doctor of chemical sciences Kabir Akhmetovich Kaliev, and we tried to make a demonstration of his work on tungsten bronzes at FIAN. Together with academician A.N. Baraboshkin, they then tried this option. They used tungsten-sodium bronze; sodium was removed by electrolysis at high temperature in a vacuum, as a result of which channels were formed. Then deuterium was let in at room temperature. At the same time neutrons and heat increase were recorded. This work they published in Physics Letters A in 1993.
In 1995, Academician A.N. Baraboshkin died, after which our team broke up, and the “fermentation” began.
In 1996, I had a small business trip to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, where Kabir Kaliev and I repeated his experiments. Using a high-quality neutron sensor, we recorded neutron pulses. They worked out the technology for producing tungsten-sodium bronzes in order to obtain stable results, because in these experiments, instability was first observed, which, as it turned out, was associated with the structure of these bronzes. It was necessary to grow these bronzes very carefully.
After that, I made an attempt to restore and make a new installation with deuterated titanium at the Institute of Industrial Ecology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Yekaterinburg, but it ended in nothing. Then again the Institute of High-Temperature Electrochemistry, UB RAS. There, work was carried out on the electrolysis of molten salts of KCl, LiCl and LiD. They melted at 300ºС, for which an electrode was used, which was lowered into a container with salts. I worked with a titanium electrode and got excess heat. An article was written on this research cycle that was published for a very long time. In the end, it was published in 2005 in the journal “Rasplavy” of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
But then the “struggle for survival” began, where in fact I did not work for a long time, which in 2009 led me to be a junior researcher at the Department of Theoretical Physics and Applied Mathematics at the Ural State Technical University and the Ural Polytechnic Institute in Yekaterinburg.
In 2011, I retired. And then unexpected events began: I was invited to Germany and offered to restore the installation of cold fusion on titanium. I agreed, I came to Nuremberg, and we started working there with private money.
In addition, at this time a number of works was published. Here are the most important from my point of view:
1. Igor L. Beltyukov, Nikolay B. Bondarenko, Arsen A. Janelidze, Mikhail Yu. Gapanov, Konstantin G. Gribanov, Stanislav V. Kondratov, Aleksey G. Maltsev, Peter I. Novikov, Sergey A. Tsvetkov, Vyacheslav I. Zakharov Laser-Induced Cold Nuclear Fusion in Ti-H2-D2-T2 Compositions. // Fusion Technology, 1991, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 234−238.
2. I. L. Beltjukov, N. B. Bondarenko, A. A. Dzhanelidze, M. J. Gapanov, K. G. Gribanov, S. V. Kondratov, A. G. Mal’tsev, P. I. Novikov, S. A. Tsvetkov, V. I. Zaharov. Laser system for Ti-H2-D2-T2 // Physics of metals and metallurgical science, No. 6, 1992, pp. 138−143.
3. K. A. Kaliev, A. N. Baraboshkin, A. L. Samgin, V.S. Andreev, S.A. Tsvetkov. Influence of Electrochemical Treatment on Sodium – Tungstic Bronzes // Abstracts of the International Conference, “Minsk, Belarus, May 25–27 1993, pp. 119−120.
4. S. A. Tsvetkov. Initiation of Cold Energy Fusion // Theses of the international conference, “Possibilities of Ecological Clean Energy Production and Energy Conservation”, Minsk, Belarus, May 25–27, 1993, p. 134.
5. S. A. Tsvetkov, N. B. Bondarenko, I. L. Beltjukov, A. N. Varaksin, A. A. Zivoderov. Calculation of the transitions in the system of Pd-D and cold nuclear fusion // Physics of metals and metallurgical science, Vol. 76, Iss. 4, 1993, pp. 94−97.
7. A. L. Samgin, A. N. Baraboshkin, I. V. Murygin, S. A. Tsvetkov, V. S. Andreev, S. V. Vakarin. ICCF-4, December 6–9, 1993, Lahaina, Hawaii, Vol. 1, No. 4.2.
8. A. L. Samgin, A. N. Baraboshkin, I. V. Murygin, S. A. Tsvetkov, V. S. Andreev, S. V. Vakarin. The Influence of Conducting Solid Electrolytes | Proceedings ICCF-4, December 6-9, 1993, Lahaina, Hawaii, EPRI, Palo Alto, California, Vol. 3; Nuclear Measurements Papers, pp. 5−1 ÷ 5−7.
9. Samgin AL, Finodeyev O., Tsvetkov SA, Andreev VS, Khokhlov VA, Filatov ES, Murygin IV, Gorelov VP, Vakarin SV; 5th International Conference on Cold Fusion, April 9–13, 1995, Monte-Carlo, Monaco, pp. 201-208.
10. S. V. Vakarin, A.L. Samgin, V.S. Andreev, and S.A. Tsvetkov. Influence of sodium chloride tungsten per crystals of the International Conference on Cold Fusion, April 9–13, 1995, Monte-Carlo, Monaco, pp. 227-232.
11. V.A. Khokhlov, E.S. Filatov, A.L. Samgin, V.S. Andreev, S.A. Tsvetkov, A.V. Cherepanov, O. Finodeev. Thermal Effects on the Pd-anode at the saturation of the electrolytic or hydrogen in molten salts // Cold nuclear fusion. Materials 2 Russian conferences on cold fusion and transmutations of the nucleus, Sochi, September, 19−23, 1994, Moscow, RFO, 1995, pp. 117–122.
12. Tsvetkov SA, “Cold Nuclear Fusion Initiatives”, Russian Federation Conference on Cold Fusion , 1996, pp. 281−294.
There have been publications on the interaction with laser radiation. There have been attempts to participate in international conferences. I want to draw attention to the fact that in 1995, when I had the opportunity to go to Monte Carlo to the 5th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-5), we began a correspondence with Martin Fleischmann. In the letter below, he sends me his regards and informs me that they will take over the financing of my trip to ICCF-5. So we met him in absentia.
Fig. 15. Sergey Tsvetkov’s invitation to ICCF-5 with best wishes from Martin Fleischmann dated February 20, 1995.
I can say that from the very beginning we carried out all control experiments with hydrogen very carefully. In the first paper of 1989, we saturated titanium with hydrogen. Excess heat was obtained, but we did not register any nuclear products — neither neutrons, nor gamma radiation. And so we switched to deuterium. On deuterium, the heat additive compared to hydrogen was very large. If hydrogen is a matter of watts, then deuterium is dozens of watts, and today there is a kilowatt of excess heat on titanium.
Stages of development and organization with which I had to work since 1989:
YearOrganization 1989-1993 SFNIKIET 1990−1992 Small enterprise SORUS 1993−1995 IHTEC UD RAS, ENECOUSA 1996 JINR 1997 IPE UrB RAS 1994–2015 RFBR 1997−2017 Rospatent 2000–2001 HCF 2003−2006 IHTEC UrD RAS 2007 RUSNANO, Russian innovations 2007–2009 GFEN, China 2012-2015 AEE AG GmbH, Germany 2012- … Euro patent 2013 European Commission on Energy 2014 NationalInstruments, USA 2014 AREVA, France 2015 AIRBUS Group 2015−2017 UrFU 2017 JSC Russian Railways 2018 ARPA-E, USA 2018 Deneum, Estonia
There are small enterprises and institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the Russian Academy of Sciences. The RFBR (Russian Foundation for Basic Research) is a separate entity. They said that it was necessary to somehow resolve the issue of financing cold fusion research. I can say that I have a unique “achievement” in relations with the RFBR on this issue. From 1994 to 2015, I submitted 30 applications to the Russian Foundation for Basic Research for grants for research on cold nuclear fusion. The only success was received in 2007 under a Russian-Chinese grant, for which we submitted a joint application with Professor Xing Zhong Li from China. He received a grant, but they did not give me one. Professor Li spent three years on this grant, which was associated with the diffusion of deuterium in palladium.
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Comment REGNUM
It turns out an interesting situation: China, Japan, India, South Korea, Italy, the USA, etc. Cold fusion research is needed for solving strategic civil and military tasks, and therefore they finance these works from their scientific and military state budgets, like when in the USSR, and in post-Soviet Russia, especially after the death of Academician A.N. Baraboshkin, for some reason they became absolutely unnecessary and turned into pseudoscience. What does this mean? The question for over 20 years remains unanswered.
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I have not previously said that we performed the molecular dynamics calculation work on the behavior of deuterium in palladium, which also considered phase transitions between the alpha and beta phases in palladium deuteride. If titanium deuteride has three phases, between which there are two interphase transitions, then palladium has only one phase transition between alpha and beta phases. Therefore, the presence of three phases in titanium deuteride suggests that the process in titanium should go better. So it turned out.
Titanium has shown itself to be much better in energy than palladium: in reactors with deuterated titanium, tens and hundreds of watts of excess heat per gram are produced today, while in installations with palladium, milliwatts are still obtained, as in the days of Fleischmann and Pons.
In 2013, at a meeting of the European Commission on Energy, at which prospects for the industrial introduction of cold nuclear fusion installations were discussed, a report was made on the basis of a report by economists from Gazprombank on the use of palladium reactors:
“There is certainly excess heat when using a technological scheme with palladium, but it is too little to create promising power plants. Give us so much heat to steam the turbine, and then we will give you the money. ”
However, despite this conclusion, as Italian physicist Vittorio Violante from the Italian National Atomic Energy Agency (ENEA) told me later, in the same 2013 he received a € 0.5 million grant from the European Commission for his work with palladium, which he worked from 2013 to 2015.
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Vladimir Tsaryov
I would also like to tell about those people who participated from the very beginning in cold fusion research in the USSR and the Russian Federation and with whom I was personally acquainted. The first of them is the head of the department of the Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. P. N. Lebedeva, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics Vladimir Aleksandrovich Tsarev.
Fig. 16. U-turn of the author’s copy of the article in V. Tsarev, Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk Physics Sciences, “Abnormal nuclear effects in a solid body (” cold fusion “). Questions still remain,” published in 1992, with a photo and autograph of the author.
He started very well, was interested in cold fusion and managed to publish, in my opinion, two or three very large solid reviews on cold fusion, about what directions there are, how they are developing. I advise everyone to get acquainted with these fundamental reviews, which describe in detail how it all began. We met at a meeting of the chemistry department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and he gave me his copyright copy of one of these reviews and wrote:
“Someday we laugh at this ?! Or maybe not!”
Fig. 17. The authors of the first open Soviet study on cold nuclear fusion; Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences B. V. Deryagin and Candidate of Chemical Sciences A. G. Lipson.
I want to pay special attention to the work of the group of Academician Boris Vladimirovich Deryagin. Under his leadership was defended the only candidate dissertation on the study of cold nuclear fusion. Its author, Andrey G. Lipson, is called “Electrophysical Processes on Freshly Produced Surfaces of Solids”, defended in 1986, three years before the press conference of Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.
Fig. 18. The cover of the author’s abstract of the Ph.D. thesis of A. G. Lipson “Electrophysical processes on a freshly formed surface of solids”, protected under the supervision of Academician B. V. Deryagin in 1986.
fuIn the experiments of Boris Deryagin and Andrei Lipson with the help of a copper hammer, they used to pick up “heavy” (deuterated) ice (D2O) and at the same time get high-energy electrons and neutrons. As far as I know, this is the only dissertation on cold fusion that has been defended in the USSR and post-Soviet Russia. I also tried twice to start writing dissertations on cold fusion in the Russian Academy of Sciences, but both times it ended at the stage of agreeing on the topic and approving it at the scientific council of the institute.
Unfortunately, Andrei Lipson died early. He and I, at the 7th International Conference on Cold Synthesis in Vancouver in 1998, prepared a report on the necessary conditions for the implementation of cold nuclear fusion. It was assumed that in the interaction with deuterium phase transitions should take place in the solid, and the surface of the solid should be very large. An optimal time for the implementation of a phase transition in deuterium-solid body systems is necessary, that is, in addition to saturation, it should go at a certain speed. If the saturation goes too slowly, then we do not register the products of the nuclear fusion reaction and we cannot say that nuclear fusion occurs at all. At a certain rate of saturation, nuclear fusion products are recorded. We noticed this moment in the first experiment – the background of neutrons in a solid is necessary. This idea was practiced by Andrei Lipson, he had many such works. He worked on KD (2) PdO (4) – in such a complex system. And in the end, he received excess neutrons when a small source of neutrons was placed next to this system. He supplied deuterium there, heated the sample, and neutrons of very large values were recorded.
The presence of oxygen in the “deuterium-solid” systems is also necessary. This condition is required. In our first papers, we noticed that if you add some air to deuterium, then the neutron yield increases dramatically 300 times.
In 1997, I patented a method for obtaining a nuclear fusion reaction with the addition of air to deuterium and in 2000 received a Russian patent. Here we are talking about a specific method of obtaining nuclear fusion using titanium.
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Andrea Rossi
Separately, I would like to tell you about the famous Italian Andrea Rossi, whom I managed to meet in 2012 in Zurich. In Fig. 19 Andrea Rossi gives me an autograph on his patent application for cold fusion. We then corresponded with him. He knows and remembers me.
Fig. 19. Andrea Rosii signs on a copy of his patent, presented to Sergey Tsvetkov.
It so happened that the famous Italian nuclear physicist Professor Sergio Focardi separated from another famous Italian physicist, Professor Francesco Piantelli, and began to independently engage in cold fusion research in the mid-1990s, and in the early 2000s Andrea Rossi joined Foccardi, and they made an operating device for obtaining excess heat in the interaction of hydrogen with nickel. It was demonstrated by them at the University of Bologna in Italy in January 2011.
At first they had a small reactor, then they created a megawatt heat generator in which 132 reactors of small reactors were combined. Hydrogen was supplied to nickel, and water was pumped outside, which removed heat and reached the boiling point and even higher – up to 102–103 ° C. This water then gave out 1 MW of thermal energy due to hydrogen-nickel reactions. Rossi then used gaseous hydrogen. His reactor worked at low parameters, that is, the temperature of the powder that was loaded into the reactor reached only 300–400 ° C.
Then the results of Focardi and Rossi were repeated by researchers elsewhere in the world. After a repetition of experiments such as in Switzerland by a group, by Giuseppe Levi, by Alexander Parkhomov in Russia, carefully read the reports and repeated their work. Remarkably, the person did not like most: they ran “over the tops”, concluded that this could not be, because this could never be. No, he understood the details, successfully reproduced the result and now he is constantly improving the operating parameters of his reactor.
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Cold Fusion – Dual Purpose Technology
In 2009, the report of the US Department of Defense Intelligence Agency “Technology Forecast: Increasing and Gaining Acceptance” was presented on the state of technology for obtaining cold nuclear fusion reactions in various countries around the world. This was not a secret report.
Naturally, the question arose of what is true in this report and what is disinformation. In particular, this report contained the following phrase regarding one of my work on the processing of radioactive waste:
“If nuclear particles can be obtained and elements can be converted using them, then low-energy nuclear reactions can be used to reduce the risk of nuclear waste or to neutralize weapons of mass destruction? 48”
Link 48 points to my work: Tsvetkov, S.A. “Waste Products Transmutation for Nuclear Fusion”, 10th International Conference on Cold Fusion, Cambridge, MA, 2003, [.pdf] from LENR-CANR.org website.
This paper was published in 2006 in the proceedings of the 10th International Conference (ICCF-10), which Peter Hagelstein organized at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I had to make several reports there, and it was one of them, which was called “The possibility of using cold fusion for the transmutation of nuclear waste”. It considered the processing of nuclear waste using fast reactors in the cross section for the interaction of neutrons with cesium and strontium. I considered only two of these radioactive isotopes from the entire spectrum of nuclear waste. On the basis of my experimental data on the number of neutrons registered at cold fusion reactors, I calculated the time for “burning out” radioactive waste and compared it with similar parameters that were obtained in fast neutron reactors. It turned out that for the afterburning of nuclear waste, cold fusion neutrons are more profitable and more convenient to use than fast neutron reactors.
In connection with the report of the intelligence agency of the US Department of Defense, I had a question: why do our military show strange indifference to research on cold nuclear fusion? Perhaps one of the reasons for this situation is precisely the fact that cold fusion neutrons can destroy atomic and hydrogen bombs by transmuting the nuclei of fissile material, making atomic bombs and missile warheads inoperable, in fact disarming the strategic forces of the nuclear powers. This feature makes missile defense unnecessary, deprives the military itself of the huge amount of money they now spend on outdated devices that play the role of scenery in the actions of intimidation of humanity and do not bring any tangible benefit, wasting time and energy, to eventually turn into in the sand.
It is quite obvious that on the Titanium-Deuterium system and its ilk, it is easy to make “hand-grenades” to disable bombs and warheads of missiles. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why our military does not really want to develop cold nuclear fusion, which, however, cannot be said about the American military – just look at the latest US government reports on military research and development in the field of cold fusion.
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Vladimir Balakirev
For many years I have been cooperating with Vladimir Fedorovich Balakirev, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Some time after the appearance of the report by the US Defense Secretary, Vladimir Fedorovich received a letter from the Committee on Energy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, in which he was officially asked to express his opinion on this report, as well as on research on cold fusion in general. The American report stated that there are promising results on cold fusion, everything is fine. And while government funding is not worth it, they say, let the business invest in this area first, and we will see what happens.
Comment REGNUM
Today we know that the situation around cold fusion after the Fleischmann and Pons conference developed from the mid-1990s according to the traditional US scenario: first, risky, high-cost research and breakthrough high-tech developments are implemented with state money, and then a play of their privatization under the guise of living embodiments American dreams such as Bill Gates, Ilon Musk and the like. According to this scheme, military IT-development, pharmaceutical, space, etc. were privatized. Today, the USA does not hide that for the past 25 years the Pentagon, the US Navy, DARPA, the space agency and the largest aviation American corporations have funded work in the field of cold fusion (see for example, a report that is frightening in its frankness (United States Government LENR Energy 2018).
* * *
Vladimir Balakirev wrote a response for the State Duma, in which he argued, and in this I fully support him, that cold nuclear fusion or low-energy nuclear reactions “are fundamental in their essence and are able to lead humanity into a new orbit of existence.”
Fig. 20. Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, State Prize Laureate Vladimir Balakirev.
The letter to the State Duma also listed promising areas for the use of cold fusion, such as:
– obtaining cheap, environmentally friendly thermal and electrical energy;
– single-wire and wireless transmission of electromagnetic energy;
– obtaining all chemical elements and scarce isotopes;
– the use of “strange” radiation;
– obtaining sources of highly targeted x-ray radiation (x-ray lasers).
V.F. Balakirev’s letter to the State Duma on cold fusion is actually only part of a huge correspondence between the Russian government, the Ministry of Defense, the State Duma and the Russian Academy of Sciences with scientists and each other in connection with the publication of the US Department of Defense report on cold fusion. We wrote letters, in response we received answers from the Russian Academy of Sciences, from the Ministry of Defense. The low level of scientific reasoning used by opponents of cold fusion in this correspondence, the obvious commitment of their assessments, combined with the lack of knowledge of the works mentioned in the American report, are worthy of analysis in a separate publication. Their position is unshakable: cold fusion is pseudoscience, the report of the US Defense Department is disinformation, the purpose of which is to direct our weakened intellectual forces along the wrong path.
Before our conference, I met with VF Balakirev. He cannot come from Yekaterinburg, but he said hello to all the participants and signs our welcoming address to colleagues from the USA.
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On the attempt to create a laboratory in the Ural Federal University
Then I started in my alma mater, the Ural Federal University (UFU), organizing seminars on cold fusion. Here is the protocol of one of the seminars at the Department of Technical Physics, in which it is stated that the specialists and the management of the department support this area and talk about the need for public funding.
Fig. 21. Extract from the minutes of the scientific seminar of the Department of Technical Physics from May 25, 2011 on the topic “Single-nuclear nuclear reactions”.
In 2015, the seminars developed into the idea of organizing a laboratory on low-energy nuclear reactions at the Faculty of Physics and Technology of Ural Federal University.
Fig. 22. Title of the presentation of the grant application for the development program of the Ural Federal University.
The head of the laboratory was to be the doctor of physical and mathematical sciences B. V. Shulgin. To organize the laboratory, we applied for projects to receive grants for the development of the university several times. The idea of creating the laboratory was actively supported by the famous theoretical physicist from the Massachusetts University of Technology Peter Hagelstein, who today, March 23, 2019, should open a memorial colloquium for the 30th anniversary of cold fusion in Cambridge in a few hours. Hagelstein gave official consent to become a laboratory supervisor and work in UrFU for at least four months a year.
Then from Yashuhiro Iwamura, a professor at Tohoku University from Japan, who heads the Japanese cold fusion program (NEDO), I also received support for the idea of creating a laboratory in UrFU.
Fig. 23. Famous foreign scientists who supported the idea of creating a cold fusion laboratory in Ural Federal University: left MIT professor Peter Hagelstein and head of the Japanese state program NEDO cold fusion professor at Tohoku University Yashuhiro Iwamura.
European wanderings
In 2012, I managed to get to Nuremberg and organize a laboratory there.
Fig. 25. General view of the laboratory in Nuremberg, Germany, 2012.
I made a new reactor, which used small titanium samples.
Fig. 26. On the left – reactor diagram on the right, in the center – a general view of the reactor, on the right – a working sample.
Collected a new installation. For three years, 62 experiments have been done. The results obtained not only confirmed, but also significantly surpassed the results of previous studies on the titanium – deuterium scheme. An application for registration of a European patent was filed and filed in 2012.
Fig. 27. Application for European patent on the method and device of cold fusion operating on deuterated titanium, from 2012.
It is under review. Twice we were offered to close it and cancel it. But we persist in writing objections. They take time to consider these objections, conduct a new examination and again send us another refusal. But since last year a breakthrough began in the world in issuing various patents on cold fusion, the United States began to officially register patents on cold fusion reactors, I hope that we will “finish off” the European Patent Office and get a patent. Because the Russian patent, which I received in 1997, ended its action in 2017. And the European patent is its continuation.
What results were obtained on this installation? The graph of temperature changes in Fig. 28 shows an abrupt change in the temperature of the sample when the temperature from 590 ° C soars above 1120 ° C when deuterium is injected.
Fig. 28. Temperature change of the sample (6.9 g) with the supply of D2 + 2% air 13.11.2012.
In Fig. 29 shows the change in the pulse counting of the neutron detector. Here you can see the moment of the beginning of the nuclear process and it is clear that at this time the neutron yield is much larger than at the moment of the start of the overlap. The neutron count maximum corresponds to the moment of the second maximum in temperature in Fig. thirty.
Fig. 29. The change in the counting of neutron pulses at the start-up of D2 on sample No. 211.11.2012.
Fig. 30. Sample temperature at titanium deuterium loading 09/14/2015.
I believe that the temperature curve, which is indicated in Fig. 30 in green, is the result of two processes of heat. The first process, shown in blue, is due to the low energy of heat dissipation of the physico-chemical process of formation of titanium deuteride. The formation of titanium deteride gives us Q1 = 84.83 kJ of heat. At the moment of deuterium loading, the second process of releasing additional heat begins, which is Qizb in duration and in magnitude. = 568.25 kJ, and it significantly exceeds the process of hydride formation. It is the second process that is nuclear, that is, its heat is generated due to nuclear processes.
It is possible to determine the amount of deuterium absorbed by changing the pressure of deuterium, which turned out to be equal to 0.4263 g. And for the excess heat of 568 kJ, which is formed as a result of this process, only 5 · 10-6 g of deuterium is needed. This amount of deuterium in relation to the total amount of absorbed deuterium is 1.17 · 10-5 shares. That is, by the amount of released heat there is still a large supply of unused deuterium. This whole process takes only 40–50 minutes. The amount of energy that we spend on absorption in relation to all the heat released is obtained:
(Qizb. + Q1) / Q1 = 7.70
That is, it turns out that only one millionth of the absorbed deuterium is used to obtain the observed excess heat. There is an opportunity to increase this share.
There is one more interesting point to which attention should be paid in these studies. According to calculations, the excess heat that should have been released in these reactions should give the intensity of the neutron source:
Neutron = 3.86 × 10^5 neutron / sec.
But we register:
Ireg = 180 neutron / sec
This is 1869.5 times less than it should be according to calculations. How to explain it?
It is possible that most neutrons are simply absorbed inside the titanium sample, which gives us excess heat. Neutrons remain in the sample and structural materials of the reactor, and only some of them fly out, reach the neutron detector and register with the detector. I have at the moment such a working explanation of all this.
Further in these works secondary signs of cold nuclear fusion were discovered. I have already mentioned that 62 experiments were carried out in Nuremberg. During work we had a break for 4.5 months. At this time, a Geiger counter was left next to the installation, which measured the background inside the room where the installation was located. It turned out that the gamma background around the setup decreased, as can be seen in Fig. 31.
Fig. 31. Change in the pulse count of Gamma Scout from 13.11.2013 to 26.03.2014.
When we made saturation, we managed to increase the gamma background by 6−9%, and here it decreases. And it is clear that it falls off exponentially. And the exhibitor indicates that the process is related to the processes of nuclear decay. There is a scatter of points on the graph, but 6% from the top to the bottom value is nowhere to go – the background has decreased. I calculated the time of effective half-life, and it turned out:
What can disintegrate in the installation? This may be a complex of some elements – this is not one isotope.
Further, when the sample was heated, such an interesting feature was noticed as the change in the power of the external heater.
Fig. 32. Change heater power
The external heater has a certain capacity and heats the sample to 590 ° C. But when deuterium is injected, then a large energy release from the sample begins, and the power of the heater increases. How does it increase? Due to the fact that the temperature of the heater itself and its resistance increase. We used a power source that worked in the mode of maintaining a constant load current, and at the same time the temperature of this heater from an additional heat source increased. Accordingly, the resistance of the heater increases, which leads to a change in the power of the heater, according to my calculations, by 0.64 watts in 43 seconds. This is a fairly sensitive value. Therefore, I had an idea to use this effect to measure the heat from the sample during its saturation with deuterium and degassing. If you calibrate the external heater and install a constant current source, you can measure the amount of heat released from our sample without a Peltier calorimeter or a flow calorimeter.
In the same Nuremberg cycle of experiments, another very interesting mode of continuous release of excess heat was discovered, which I called self-oscillatory. In this mode, the titanium deuteride begins to absorb and release deuterium with a frequency of 0.33 Hz.
In Fig. 33 shows the preparatory steps for starting the system by turning the external heater on and off. The system swayed in this way, before it went into self-oscillatory mode. The sample was completely saturated with deuterium, and then I turned off and turned on the heater. And such a self-oscillating mode can last up to four hours.
Fig. 33. The appearance of the auto-oscillation mode with a frequency of 0.33 Hz on the pressure graph is circled in red.
According to calculations, an excess heat of 360 Watts per 7 g of titanium was obtained. If you count it on a 100-gram sample, you get an excess heat source of about 7 kW. The energy intensity of such a heat source will be 52.2 W / g of titanium, which is higher than the energy release of the WWR-1000 reactor, for which it is 45.5 W / g of uranium. That is, this is a significant heat release that can be converted and used as heat or as electricity.
* * *
In the summer of 2018 in Estonia, I managed to create a new installation (Fig. 34), at which at the maximum an excess heat emission of 500 watts from a titanium sample weighing 35.7 grams was obtained. I started scaling the effect. The result was 12.26 W / g of titanium – this is 4.7 times higher than in the first experiments. It turns out that the amount of heat generated by increasing the mass of the working sample also increases. At this facility, I achieved a process in which there is a constant heat release, while the heat release increases over time. Without adding anything, without touching anything, the system itself enters the self-oscillatory mode when it starts to generate heat.
A few words about the mechanisms of cold nuclear fusion. I found the expression of Albert Einstein, made by him in 1932:
“There is no reason to assume that nuclear energy will ever be obtained. Because for this it is necessary to be able to separate the atoms.”(highlighted by me – S.T.)
Actually, a system of solids (in our case, titanium) and deuterium allows us to separate hydrogen molecules into atoms. This separation mechanism works on the surface, more precisely, the surface works here. The process of titanium saturation with deuterium is carried out in such a way that at first deuterium is adsorbed on the surface, is divided into individual atoms, and individual atoms can penetrate into the titanium lattice. The size of the crystal lattice of titanium is such that the deuterium molecule cannot pass inside. Only if we divide it into individual atoms, then the deuterium in the atomic state quietly passes inside the lattice.
Based on my long research experience, it is possible to formulate the main components of the cold nuclear fusion realization mechanism in titanium:
1. The separation of hydrogen molecules into atoms.
2. Transformation of the energy of individual atoms using heavier atoms.
3. Maxwell distribution of atoms by energy.
4. The effect of the collider.
5. Van der Waals forces.
6. Tunneling.
7. Primary products of high energy cold nuclear fusion.
8. Siverts law.
Explanations for item 7. The first products that are obtained as a result of the d + d reaction, tritium, proton, helium-3 and neutron, have very large energies, MeV! Large energies give a very large cross section for the reaction of the interaction of reaction products with each other. I believe that the resulting neutrons, helium-3, tritium and protons interact with each other with the development of the same tritium and helium-4. A cascade of nuclear reactions is launched, which leads to the production of tritium in much larger quantities than neutrons are obtained, and this is what we register. That is, neutrons, in addition to the energy return to the titanium lattice, are also involved in the formation of tritium. At the same time, helium-3 still adds protons to these reactions; therefore, such an imbalance of the amount of products in these nuclear reactions is observed. As a result of a cascade of nuclear fusion reactions, helium-4 is formed. Thus, helium-4 is not the primary product of the d + d reaction, but secondary, which is created as a result of the implementation of a cascade of nuclear reactions of high-energy products of the initial d + d reactions. That is my understanding of the process today.
* * *
Prospects for cold fusion
It is impossible to tell in detail about all aspects and directions of development that arise in the process of studying this amazing phenomenon of cold nuclear fusion. You can only identify the main directions, each of which requires a serious and lengthy discussion. At the moment I would highlight the following areas:
1. Getting heat and electricity.
2. Processing of nuclear waste from nuclear power plants and other industries.
3. Synthesis of tritium is much cheaper in cost than currently available in nuclear reactors.
4. Synthesis of precious metals and rare isotopes.
5. Getting oxygen from carbon dioxide.
6. Creating a gamma laser.
7. Space, aviation, auto and railway engines using technology.
No one wants to waste time today on understanding the mechanisms of cold fusion, although logic suggests that there was first a fusion of the elements, and now we use them using fission reactions or simply burning fossil fuels. Humanity is vital to the transition to nature-like, cyclical technologies that will meet the needs of people without disturbing the natural balance and gyres. The key technology in this transition today is the cold fusion technology of cold transmutation of nuclei. The transition to new nuclear technologies allows solving simultaneously the main energy, resource and environmental global problems.
Cold nuclear fusion is the gift of the Creator. Sin is not to take advantage of this. We must learn to use it.
By Sergey Tsvetkov
This is a re-post of a google-translated article by Sergey Tsvetkov published April 8, 2019 at REGNUM https://regnum.ru/news/2606951.html. Any use of materials is allowed only if there is a hyperlink to REGNUM news agency.
On May 8, 1989, the Electrochemical Society held their spring meeting in Los Angeles amid the frenzied controversy of the cold fusion announcement, and declared it F-Day!
This was on the heels of the 1989 American Physical Society meeting that began May 1 in Baltimore, where disgruntled physicists who failed to replicate the findings gathered together to congratulate each other for saving science from amateurs. After all, they knew nuclear theory, and chemists did not. Some of the biggest insults hurled by the mainstream physicists came from scientists with the MIT Plasma Fusion Laboratory and Caltech.
Electrochemist Nathan Lewis was from Caltech and claimed to have seen no effect. As it turned out, his experiment was woefully marred. [See Examples of Isoperibolic Calorimetry in the Cold Fusion Controversy by Melvin H. Miles J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 13 (2014) 392–400] Still, Dr. Lewis showed solidarity with physicists by claiming “that their device “violates the first law of thermodynamics,” that is, the conservation of energy or, as is often said, “the universe offers no free lunch”.
That’s how Eugene Mallove tells it in his Pulitzer Prize-nominated book Fire from Ice Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor.
I’ve seen Youtube video of him frothing at the mouth while angrily asserting that Drs. Fleischmann and Pons had not “stirred their cells” properly.
Physicist Steve Koonin, a colleague of Nathan Lewis’s at Caltech, as well as future BP Oil exec and Department of Energy Secretary, said, “If fusion were taking place, we would see radiation in one form or another, and you would simply not be able to hide that radiation.”
Of course, this is what makes cold fusion/LENR so attractive. Not only do we get fusion-sized energy from tiny table-top cells that use a fuel of water, the heat energy is derived from a new type of reaction that generates no deadly radiation, as well as no CO2! Oh, Steve.
Eugene Mallove writes in his book Fire From Ice:
“…that Dr. Koonin also told New York Times reporter Malcolm Browne at the time of the meeting, “It’s all very well to theorize about how cold fusion in a palladium cathode might take place … one could also theorize about how pigs would behave if they had wings. But pigs don’t have wings.” “
Nathan Lewis (L), Steve Koonin (Middle), and Charles Barnes (R) of Caltech. Usurping the scientific process, and believing a 100-year-old theory over the experimental facts, these three men helped to close down research on what could have been clean fusion energy technology. Photo: Interview with Charles Barnes Caltech Oral Histories
Dr. Steve Koonin further disgraced himself for all historical time by saying “My conclusion is that the experiments are just wrong and that we are suffering from the incompetence and delusion of Doctors Pons and Fleischmann.”
While the Baltimore meeting allowed physicists to vent their failures with misery as company, the lowest point for the American Physical Society was reached when Dr. Steve Jones from Brigham-Young University led a panel at a news conference. Steve Jones, of course, the very reason why the March 23, 1989 news conference was held in the first place.
It was after five years of research that Drs. Fleischmann and Pons decided to get funding for their experiments. The US Department of Energy gave their proposal to Dr. Steve Jones for review. Dr. Jones had been previously working on a different kind of muon-catalyzed fusion, but had given it up for lack of results. (He claimed to get neutrons, though no one has ever reproduced his results.)
When Jones saw what the pair from University of Utah were up to, he was excited enough to jump back in, and he contacted Drs. Fleischmann and Pons – not a normal procedure in the application process – to invite them down for a visit to see his neutron detector. In the end of February 1989, while they visited, Steve Jones told Drs. Fleischmann and Pons that he would be announcing his own form of “cold fusion” in May, but, if they wanted to publish papers at the same time, he would be willing to do that.
Huh? Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons wanted nothing more than to get their funding and keep working, but upon arriving back at the University of Utah, administrators and lawyers were fearful of losing the “first place” of announcing this new kind of energy-producing experiment. The two electrochemists were prodded into making the news conference announcement anyway, beating Jones’ own announcement.
At the Baltimore meeting of physicists, Dr. Jones, perhaps still sore from being one-upped on his one-up, made poor scientific judgement by polling with a show of hands in order to determine whether cold fusion was dead, as documented by Steven Krivit on his website.
Eugene Mallove wrote in Fire From Ice:
Finally, “science by press conference” occurred again, degenerating even further into “science by poll.” At a news conference on the second day of the Baltimore cold fusion fest, Steve Jones asked for an impromptu “straw poll.” He asked nine of the session’s leading speakers whether they were at least 95 percent confident that the University of Utah claim to have generated heat by fusion could be ruled out. Eight answered “yes” and one, Rafelski, Jones’s colleague, wisely withheld judgment. Rafelski commented, “This should not be taken as the matter is settled.” However, Yale physicist Moshe Gai said of his group’s work, “Our results exclude without any doubt the Pons and Fleischmann results.” The panel voted more favorably on whether the claim that neutrons were being seen in a number of cold fusion experiments could be ruled out—three of nine kept an open mind.”
May 2, 1989 Physicist Steve Jones takes a vote on whether or cold fusion is “dead”. Photo: New Energy Times if you can’t tell.
To have the top physicists in the country ridiculing the scientific process with such ugly outrage showed weak stature in scientific thinking, but these physicists were successful in having the tide turn against Drs. Fleischmann and Pons’ work. Their excess heat effects were now completely suspect.
Thus, when the May 8 meeting of the Electrochemical Society began, electrochemist Dr. Nathan Lewis of Caltech was confident in his superior knowledge. Nevertheless, there were 1600 attendees who were less assured.
From Fire and Ice, we get a list of positive results being reported from very competent and open-minded scientists. Eugene Mallove writes:
Everyone was awaiting May 8, when at the special cold fusion session of the Electrochemical Society spring meeting in Los Angeles, Fleischmann and Pons were supposed to present a “thorough, clean analysis” of the thermal aspects of their experiment. Pons told Jacobsen- Wells of the Deseret News, “We are going to supply all the information that we can. People evidently are misunderstanding a lot about calorimetry. A lot of people are making calorimetric measurements with instruments that may not be suitable for these experiments.”
The meeting began with controversy over the relative absence of critical scientists; had it been arranged to be a celebration of only positive results? Lewis of Caltech was present at least as a token skeptic. As he had done in Baltimore, he proclaimed his numerous permutations and combinations of materials and conditions, all of which had failed to show excess power or nuclear products. “I’d be happy to say this is fusion as soon as somebody shows that it is,” a self-assured Lewis told the 1,600 assembled. Fleischmann and Pons were having no trouble. Now they were claiming to get bursts of heat lasting a few days up to 50 times the power input to their cell—the claim was even more extreme than before! Was this a tip-off that they were really onto something, or that they had completely gone off the deep end? To rebut Lewis, they showed a brief film clip of a bubbling cell in which they had injected red dye. Within 20 seconds the dye had spread uniformly through the cell, intuitively giving the lie to Lewis’s accusation about improper stirring.
Concerning their neutron results, Fleischmann and Pons backed off a bit, acknowledging reluctantly that their measurements were deficient and were the “least satisfactory” part of their research. They said that they would rerun their experiment with a new detector. More disturbing was their withholding of the long-awaited and promised 4He measurements. There was an emerging feeling (not necessarily a correct one) that if there were no copious neutrons, there had to be helium-4 to make the claim for a nuclear process. The Fleischmann-Pons rods were being analyzed for helium by Johnson-Matthey Corporation, the 170-year-old British precious metals supplier, under an agreement of exclusivity with the company. This was the presumed reason for the turning down of many other offers to do the rod “autopsy.” Fleischmann had admitted at the meeting that if no helium were to turn up, “it would eliminate a very strong part of our understanding of the experiment.”
Bockris from Texas A&M, Huggins from Stanford, and Uziel Landau from Case Western all backed up the Utah duo with positive heat measurements. At a press conference Huggins said, “… It’s fair to say that something very unusual and large is happening. There is conclusive evidence there is a lot of heat generated here—much larger than the proposed chemical reactions that people suggest might be happening.” A thinly veiled criticism of physicists by a Society official, Dr. Bruce Deal, drew applause: “Unlike other societies, we do not attempt to solve complex technical problems by a show of hands.” But not every electrochemist left the meeting convinced. The experiments were subtle, apparently difficult to reproduce consistently, and of course totally unexplained. Steve Jones again reiterated his faith in his neutrons and disbelief on the question of heat—at least in cold fusion cells. Cold fusion might still be partly responsible, he thought, for the hellish conditions inside the planet.
Soon cold fusion would face increasingly acid opposition. Martin Deutsch, professor of physics emeritus at MIT had told Science News, “In one word, it’s garbage.” (Science News, Vol. 135, May 6, 1989.) Some media had essentially written it off. Scientists who had genuinely tried to make cold fusion happen, but who for reasons still not clear could not coax their cells into working, would be joining the ranks of the opposition. They were frustrated and mad. They had wasted precious research time chasing rainbows. Enough was enough! Time to move on.
But those who believed in the tantalizing results of some experiments would not be stilled. Others who were bold enough to theorize about fantastic mechanisms to explain cold fusion did not give up either. They persevered, egged on by the serious critics.
If people were having trouble finding neutrons, perhaps the mysterious “cold fusion” was a kind of nuclear reaction that was largely neutronless—as the MIT analysis seemed to suggest. As skeptic Petrasso himself would say in January 1990 at a lecture at the PFC, “We may turn out to be the big allies of Fleischmann and Pons if they can now prove that they have fusion, because what we’ve demonstrated now is that they basically didn’t have any neutrons at all coming from their heat-producing cell….So now they can claim that they are having neutronless heat generation.” If this turns out to be true, a mind-boggling technological revolution may be in store for us.
The cover of Time magazine on May 8, 1989. Fusion or Illusion? Two obscure chemists stir up a fascinating controversy in the lab, but new tests challenge their hopes of creating limitless energy By Michael D. Lemonick.
So it was that cold fusion became the “pariah science” despite so many positive results, and the Electrochemical Society proclaimed May 8 to be F-day. While I imagine that means Fusion Day, one could fill in F-day with other words, for though the ugly attitudes have stopped spraying spittle as they emote, the lasting effects of these lost years have yet to be measured.
What would have been different if these physicists had only kept to their scientific oath, to follow a method “consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.
Lucky for us, Caltech, MIT, the Department of Energy, the USPTO – it’s a long list – were not able to stop the research. Today, we are nearing commercially-available technology using condensed matter nuclear science, the field which Drs. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons discovered. It’s 30-years late, but after rolling that long, we can expect an avalanche of announcements that will flip the narrative of failure that mainstream physicists have perpetrated. The failure is their own.
These men who de-railed our future should apologize to Dr. Martin Fleischmann (posthumously) and Dr. Stanley Pons (still underground), and us. The best way would be to urge their colleagues at the current Department of Energy to recognize CMNS science and start funding science research so we can get a technology fast. Or, we can just let them fade away, on the wrong side of history forever.
