Would Metastable Metallic Hydrogen Make Cold Fusion Possible?

[Spacescifi]

After checking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion, I wondered if metallic hydrogen, if manipulated by some means, could induce cold fusion?

Fusion is still fusion.

Cold fusion only requires less heat to trigger...and in this case metallic hydrogen...which is something of a red herring but I digress.

Metallic hydrogen has high hydrogen content, higher than even the palladium they were using to attempt cold fusion so...what do you think about this?

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

The portal is opened...

 

[Shpaget]

From the link you provided:

Quote

There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur.

So no.

2 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Metallic hydrogen has high hydrogen content, higher than even the palladium

Yes, hydrogen is known to be the best source of hydrogen.

You are correct. Palladium (being  on par with every other element, except the aforementioned hydrogen) is famously devoid of hydrogen.

But back to cold fusion. Say you handwave your magic wand and achieve cold fusion. So what? You no longer have hydrogen but helium (or whatever) but got no energy out of it. The whole point of (regular) fusion is that it releases huge amounts of energy that you can then use for something useful. A good deal of that energy comes in the form of heat, which makes fusion a bit toasty. When talking about fusion power production, noone cares about elements fusing. All they want is that sweet, sweet heat. Hotter the better.

[kerbiloid]

People should be happy that the cold fusion is likely impossible and doesn't suddenly happen irl.

Otherwise the very first next-door-sorcerer with a palladium amulet could begin a local firestorm.

Edited May 4, 2021 by kerbiloid

[StrandedonEarth]

The only thing I’ve seen metastable metallic hydrogen be good for is “forum fission”

[kerbiloid]

(ninja'd)

Edited May 4, 2021 by kerbiloid

[mikegarrison]

57 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

hydrogen is known to be the best source of hydrogen

LOL.

58 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

But back to cold fusion. Say you handwave your magic wand and achieve cold fusion. So what? You no longer have hydrogen but helium (or whatever) but got no energy out of it. The whole point of (regular) fusion is that it releases huge amounts of energy that you can then use for something useful. A good deal of that energy comes in the form of heat, which makes fusion a bit toasty. When talking about fusion power production, noone cares about elements fusing. All they want is that sweet, sweet heat. Hotter the better.

That's not what "cold fusion" was about. It wasn't about the fusion releasing no energy. It was about the fusion happening at approximately room temperature, rather than at core-of-the-sun pressures and temperatures.

The infamous Pons and Fleischmann claim was probably some kind of experimental error, but it led to a great deal of uproar over many issues. Should important science results be announced in press releases rather than waiting for journal articles to be published? Should scientists be attacked as frauds if they make a mistake? Should scientists be afraid of publishing unexpected results because they will be attacked over it?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01673-x

[SOXBLOX]

Without reading anything but the name of the thread...

...Imma guess no.

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

LOL.

That's not what "cold fusion" was about. It wasn't about the fusion releasing no energy. It was about the fusion happening at approximately room temperature, rather than at core-of-the-sun pressures and temperatures.

The infamous Pons and Fleischmann claim was probably some kind of experimental error, but it led to a great deal of uproar over many issues. Should important science results be announced in press releases rather than waiting for journal articles to be published? Should scientists be attacked as frauds if they make a mistake? Should scientists be afraid of publishing unexpected results because they will be attacked over it?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01673-x

 

Palladium can absorb water and thus...hydrogen.

Metallic hydrogen would be far denser. The idea was to have as much dense hydrogen as possible before kickstarting a fusion reaction....hopefully not having it blow up in the face too.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

People should be happy that the cold fusion is likely impossible and doesn't suddenly happen irl.

Otherwise the very first next-door-sorcerer with a palladium amulet could begin a local firestorm.

I'd want a wand.  That way I can aim.

 

Although, with an amulet, I could give it to someone I don't like, and tell them the magic word...  Hmmmm....

[SOXBLOX]

1 minute ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'd want a wand.  That way I can aim.

Magic ray guns!

[FleshJeb]

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Otherwise the very first next-door-sorcerer with a palladium amulet could begin a local firestorm.

(I actually have this book)

[kerbiloid]

Dragons. 

They should have a cold fusion catalyst in stomach and release hydrogen as a by-product of digestion. Maybe even the metallic one, as it's dense.
That's how they fly and breathe with fire.

[Starman4308]

1) Cold fusion is basically "one botched experiment showed it", followed by endless wishful thinking, conspiracy theories, and precisely zero actual credible evidence.

2) Our theoretical understanding of physics says "this isn't even remotely plausible". You need staggering amounts of energy to get past the Coulombic barrier* between nuclei, and that requires some combination of extreme temperature (giving nuclei lots of kinetic energy) and extreme pressure (giving nuclei lots of potential energy). Cold fusion doesn't have the former by definition, and the latter requires pressures that make "formation of metallic hydrogen" look tame.

3) The process for manipulating metallic hydrogen to begin fusion is "exactly the same as for regular hydrogen": you add a lot of heat and pressure to it.

[KSK]

As I remember, the model (such as it was) for Pons-Fleischman cold fusion was electrolysis of heavy water gives you hydrogen and deuterium, both of which adsorb and dissociate on the palladium electrode. Micro defects in those electrodes would then bring the adsorbed hydrogen and deuterium atoms close enough together that they would fuse.

Chemically that makes sense. Palladium is used as a hydrogenation catalyst, so the notion that it would acquire that layer of dissociated hydrogen was at least plausible. The notion that it could also apply sufficient compression to that hydrogen to get it to fuse - not so much.

Now consider that metallic hydrogen (or a state close to it at least) has been reported. Simplistically, it’s made by crushing hydrogen gas to ridiculous pressures in a diamond anvil cell. 

If the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion model was correct one might expect the pressures required to make metallic hydrogen to be sufficient to trigger fusion as well (unless metallic hydrogen experiments take special precautions to use only pure hydrogen and eliminate trace deuterium and tritium).

So far as I’m aware, nothing to that effect has been reported.

As for metastable hydrogen helping to create cold fusion - that’s a definite nope. Again, assume cold fusion is a thing. The pressure you’d need to create metallic hydrogen is likely to trigger cold fusion before the metallic state is reached. Once the hydrogen ignites, then radiation pressure prevents the hydrogen from being further compressed and ever reaching the metallic let alone a metastable metallic state. 

TL: DR. Within the context of a science fiction story you could handwave around cold fusion or metastable metallic hydrogen. However it is likely that they are mutually exclusive.

Edited May 5, 2021 by KSK

[Hannu2]

1 hour ago, KSK said:

As I remember, the model (such as it was) for Pons-Fleischman cold fusion was electrolysis of heavy water gives you hydrogen and deuterium, both of which adsorb and dissociate on the palladium electrode. Micro defects in those electrodes would then bring the adsorbed hydrogen and deuterium atoms close enough together that they would fuse.

Chemically that makes sense. Palladium is used as a hydrogenation catalyst, so the notion that it would acquire that layer of dissociated hydrogen was at least plausible. The notion that it could also apply sufficient compression to that hydrogen to get it to fuse - not so much.

I disagree. Coulomb barrier for fusion between deuterium nuclei is about 400 keV. Chemical bonding energies of lattice defects are single or tens of eV per atom. There is a difference of at least 4 orders of magnitude. Also, distance of nuclei needed for probable fusion is extremely small compared to distances of nuclei in lattices.

There is also no credible experimental evidence of cold fusion in palladium crystal (as far as I know).

Also nuclei distances and energies in predicted metallic lattice is several orders of magnitude less than needed for fusion.

 

[KSK]

Um, I think we’re in agreement here, although perhaps my post could have been clearer.

Adsorbing hydrogen on a palladium lattice and trapping it in or on any defects in that lattice. That much makes sense to me. As a chemist by training, that seems plausible.

But yeah, going from adsorbed hydrogen to fusion - that doesn’t make sense for the reasons you point out. Hence my comment that:

“The notion that it [the palladium] could also apply sufficient compression to that hydrogen to get it to fuse - not so much.”

[Hannu2]

OK. I misunderstood your opinion. Sorry.

As far as I know (based on my solid state physics courses) hydrogen is absorbed in regular palladium lattice and do not need defects. Wikipedia says that there can be 0.7 atoms of hydrogen per palladium atom at normal pressure. But you are right, impurities diffuse usually to suitable lattice defects in normal materials and small concentrations. Palladium's ability to absorb hydrogen in its lattice is exceptional.

It may be that density of hydrogen atoms is highest near suitable defects in palladium and cold fusion theory is somehow based on it.

[MechBFP]

16 hours ago, Shpaget said:

When talking about fusion power production, noone cares about elements fusing. All they want is that sweet, sweet heat. Hotter the better.

That isn't entirely accurate. Direct conversion of the neutrons into electricity is also being looked at.

[mikegarrison]

7 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

Our theoretical understanding of physics says "this isn't even remotely plausible". You need staggering amounts of energy to get past the Coulombic barrier* between nuclei, and that requires some combination of extreme temperature (giving nuclei lots of kinetic energy) and extreme pressure (giving nuclei lots of potential energy). Cold fusion doesn't have the former by definition, and the latter requires pressures that make "formation of metallic hydrogen" look tame.

Yes, but that was true back then too. The thing is, data overrides theory. If the data had been correct, then it wouldn't have mattered if the theory said it was impossible. That just would have meant the theory was wrong.

However, that's why repeatability has to come into play....

[Starman4308]

39 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Yes, but that was true back then too. The thing is, data overrides theory. If the data had been correct, then it wouldn't have mattered if the theory said it was impossible. That just would have meant the theory was wrong.

However, that's why repeatability has to come into play....

There's also the matter of having multiple lines of evidence. With something that far outside our current physical models, "this experimental design has a flaw" is more likely than "models which have stood up to everything else are wrong".