![]() In 1927, Swedish scientist John Tandberg reported that he had fused hydrogen into helium in an electrolytic cell with palladium electrodes. However, the authors later retracted that report, saying that the helium they measured was due to background from the air. In the late 1920s, two Austrian-born scientists, Friedrich Paneth and Kurt Peters, originally reported the transformation of hydrogen into helium by nuclear catalysis when hydrogen was absorbed by finely divided palladium at room temperature. The ability of palladium to absorb hydrogen was recognized as early as the nineteenth century by Thomas Graham. Since the initial announcement, cold fusion research has continued by a small community of researchers who believe that such reactions happen and hope to gain wider recognition for their experimental evidence. ![]() In 1989, a claim by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann (then one of the world's leading electrochemists) that such cold fusion had been observed caused a brief media sensation before the majority of scientists criticized their claim as incorrect after many found they could not replicate the excess heat. Since the 1920s, there has been speculation that nuclear fusion might be possible at much lower temperatures by catalytically fusing hydrogen absorbed in a metal catalyst. Nuclear fusion is normally understood to occur at temperatures in the tens of millions of degrees. A small community of researchers continues to investigate it, often under the alternative designations low-energy nuclear reactions ( LENR) or condensed matter nuclear science ( CMNS). ![]() Nevertheless, some interest in cold fusion has continued through the decades-for example, a Google-funded failed replication attempt was published in a 2019 issue of Nature. Presently, since articles about cold fusion are rarely published in peer-reviewed mainstream scientific journals, they do not attract the level of scrutiny expected for mainstream scientific publications. A second DOE review in 2004, which looked at new research, reached similar conclusions and did not result in DOE funding of cold fusion. In 1989 the United States Department of Energy (DOE) concluded that the reported results of excess heat did not present convincing evidence of a useful source of energy and decided against allocating funding specifically for cold fusion. ![]() By late 1989, most scientists considered cold fusion claims dead, and cold fusion subsequently gained a reputation as pathological science. Hopes faded with the large number of negative replications, the withdrawal of many reported positive replications, the discovery of flaws and sources of experimental error in the original experiment, and finally the discovery that Fleischmann and Pons had not actually detected nuclear reaction byproducts. Many scientists tried to replicate the experiment with the few details available. The reported results received wide media attention and raised hopes of a cheap and abundant source of energy. The small tabletop experiment involved electrolysis of heavy water on the surface of a palladium (Pd) electrode. They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including neutrons and tritium. In 1989, two electrochemists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, reported that their apparatus had produced anomalous heat ("excess heat") of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes. There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur. It would contrast starkly with the "hot" fusion that is known to take place naturally within stars and artificially in hydrogen bombs and prototype fusion reactors under immense pressure and at temperatures of millions of degrees, and be distinguished from muon-catalyzed fusion. Not to be confused with cold welding.ĭiagram of an open-type calorimeter used at the New Hydrogen Energy Institute in JapanĬold fusion is a hypothesized type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature. ![]() For all other definitions, see Cold fusion (disambiguation). For the original use of the term "cold fusion", see muon-catalyzed fusion. This article is about the Fleischmann–Pons claims of nuclear fusion at room temperature, and subsequent research. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |