Is Cold Fusion really impossible?

[JMBuilder]

One of the scientific topics that I've been obsessed with is Cold Fusion, the fusing of Deuterium into Helium at room temperature. Time and time again, people have attempted to replicate reported successes of Cold Fusion, but (supposedly) nobody has succeeded.

One theoretical reactor design is a standard vacuum chamber with a Palladium cathode in the center and several coiled Platinum anodes surrounding it. The chamber is filled with Deuterium Oxide and Lithium salt. When the cathode and the anodes are activated and voltage is applied to the Deuterium Oxide, it splits into D+ and OD- ions. The OD- ions are attracted to the Platinum anodes, and eventually break down into more D+ ions and Oxygen. The Oxygen bubbles to the top of the chamber. As for the D+ ions, they are attracted to the center Palladium cathode, where they actually work there way into the interatomic lattice structure of the Palladium. Upon saturation of the lattice, there are still D+ ions that need inside, so some of the ions that are already inside the lattice have to make room, and they fuse (this is the "fusion" part) into Helium. The Helium rises to the top, like the Oxygen. The process creates enormous amounts of energy and heat, and the only byproducts are Helium, Oxygen and Deuterium.

Theoretically, the reason why most Cold Fusion experiments have had such differing results is because of microscopic flaws in the Palladium lattice structure, hampering Deuterium saturation. If this is true, we may be one step closer to cheap and abundant energy.

[Titan Space Agency]

I have been obsesed with this idea too, and i have come up with the idea that you could fuse two tritium atoms in the reactor. I have come up with a few ideas/theroys (exuse my spelling i dont have spell check instald) *is now looking up something on *internet** that when there is T-T fusion it will become a helium 6 atom, and in around a second it will have decayd into a lithium6 atom. Now i know that lithium6 can be used to make more tritium.( hurray we can make infinet energy) But if we make more tritium we can repet the proses all over again. the reactor concept was the same. If I (or someone else) could figure this out and get it to fully work, we would have infenet power (thereticaly). Something tells me we would be great freinds. Remember all of these ideas are theretical as i dont have any evidence of this, there are no websites onh the internet that talk about T-T fusion. I have also came up with ideas for a infenet miles to the charge electric car.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Titan Space Agency
Not enough useles info

[JMBuilder]

Interesting. Cold Fusion shall prevail!

[OdinYggd]

The cold fusion I know of relies on the use of muons as catalysts to lower the temperature for plasma fusion type approaches.

Although in testing they were able to induce fusion this way, the muons are so notoriously difficult to obtain and dissappear so quickly, that it would take far more energy to make a steady supply of muons than the fusion resulting from them gives back.

I haven't heard about this other cold fusion method, but the physics involved don't quite add up in my mind. Actual fusion only happens when the nuclei of the atoms overcome their electrostatic repulsion and get within range of the nuclear strong force to bind them securely.

I don't believe that there is such an easy chemical-based method of doing this, as chemical reactions do not yield the necessary kinetic energy into the nuclei to ram them through their electrostatic repulsion into fusion.

[Stochasty]

If this is true, we may be one step closer to cheap and abundant energy.

This is not a new idea.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and "Cold Fusion" has consistently and repeatedly failed to produce such evidence to support its claims. Until such time as said evidence is available, you should treat all such claims with skepticism.

[Astronut25]

There are two ways fusion can happen:

Through brute force to break the Coulomb Barrier (even the Sun can't do that).

Or through Quantum Tunneling, which is probabilistic and has a very low chance of happening at low temperature and pressure. I remember that Minutephysics had two videos on this subject.

and cTodS8hkSDg

The only option I can think of is to increase the probability of Quantum Tunneling, but I don't know of anything that could do that except increasing temperature and pressure.

[K^2]

We do have net gain cold fusion. It's called muon catalyzed fusion. The only trouble is that there is no good way to produce muons with sufficient efficiency. It's still nothing we can practically use, but the lesson here is that there are definitely things that can be done to reduce the barrier. We have not explored all options yet. I still wouldn't expect cold fusion any time soon, but I wouldn't completely bury the idea either.

[whyclock]

This thread...

COLD FUSION IS NOT REAL

[OdinYggd]

We do have net gain cold fusion. It's called muon catalyzed fusion. The only trouble is that there is no good way to produce muons with sufficient efficiency. It's still nothing we can practically use, but the lesson here is that there are definitely things that can be done to reduce the barrier. We have not explored all options yet. I still wouldn't expect cold fusion any time soon, but I wouldn't completely bury the idea either.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/47076-Is-Cold-Fusion-really-impossible?p=608369&viewfull=1#post608369

This is what I was just talking about.

Although it does work, making the required muons consumes all of the energy yielded by it and then some. We would have to invent a more efficient means of generating muons for it to be practical.

[Diche Bach]

Not to sound . . . disbelieving or even necessarily skeptical, but . . . every time I read something about elementary particle physics and the standard model, something about the seemingly flippant and almost facetious tone starts to make me feel like I'm reading a Lewis Carroll story. I think you brainiac physicists who actually understand this stuff get just a tad bit of fun from making it all a bit whimsical

Soon, subatomic constituents of the atom were identified, although as the 1930s opened, only the electron, photon, and proton were known.[1] By then, the recent advent of quantum mechanics was radically altering conception of particles, as a single particle could seemingly span a field as would a wave, a paradox still defying satisfactory explanation.[3][4]

Via quantum theory, protons and neutrons were found to contain quarksâ€â€up quarks and down quarksâ€â€now considered elementary particles.[1] And within a molecule, the electron's three degrees of freedom (charge, spin, angular momentum) can separate via wavefunction into three quasiparticles (holon, spinon, orbiton).[5] Yet a free electronâ€â€which, not orbiting an atomic nucleus, lacks the third degree of freedomâ€â€appears unsplittable and remains regarded as an elementary particle.[5]

Around 1980, an elementary particle's status as indeed elementaryâ€â€an ultimate constituent of substanceâ€â€was mostly discarded for a more practical outlook,[1] embodied in particle physics' Standard Model, science's most empirically successful theory.[4][6] Many elaborations upon and theories beyond the Standard Model, including the extremely popular string theory, double the number of elementary particles by hypothesizing that each known particle associates with a "shadow" partner far more massive, although all such superpartners remain undiscovered.[6][7] Meanwhile, an elementary boson mediating gravitationâ€â€the gravitonâ€â€is often presumed to exist, but remains hypothetical.

.

[Bunsen]

Not to sound . . . disbelieving or even necessarily skeptical, but . . . every time I read something about elementary particle physics and the standard model, something about the seemingly flippant and almost facetious tone starts to make me feel like I'm reading a Lewis Carroll story. I think you brainiac physicists who actually understand this stuff get just a tad bit of fun from making it all a bit whimsical

That tends to happen when you're trying to express concepts for which human intuition provides little or no familiar reference. You explain them with silly, contrived little stories. Imagine several guys who've spent entirely too long at the bar, and now one of them is trying to explain intricate and wildly counterintuitive phenomena to the others, half of which he's making up and figuring out as he goes along, and doing it mostly with bar napkins and empty glasses for props. Now and then he needs a name for one of those phenomena, so he makes up something silly because he's drunk and on a roll. And now those few drunks are the only people on the planet who understand this new idea, and they tell other people about it before they've had time to think up a more respectable name, and it sticks. You now have a rather accurate picture of how a lot of the terminology came into existence, if not the ideas.

[jwenting]

Diche, elementary particles don't care whether you think they're whimsical or not

Cold fusion is another deus ex machina, perpetual motion, entropy reducing, mechanism.

All of which are impossible in reality, which makes cold fusion impossible in reality.

Nice concept for a sci fi story or a "science show" on Discovery channel where they "prove" that the impossibility is just a conspiracy by "Big Energy" to prevent people from realising they're paying too much for their electricity and can make it all themselves in their living room.

[magnemoe]

Diche, elementary particles don't care whether you think they're whimsical or not

Cold fusion is another deus ex machina, perpetual motion, entropy reducing, mechanism.

All of which are impossible in reality, which makes cold fusion impossible in reality.

Nice concept for a sci fi story or a "science show" on Discovery channel where they "prove" that the impossibility is just a conspiracy by "Big Energy" to prevent people from realising they're paying too much for their electricity and can make it all themselves in their living room.

Do not see how cold fusion is any more perpetual motion than uranium fission. Both uses atoms to produce energy. Another issue is that it probably don't work, it can not be to easy or it would happen in nature.

Note many fusion experiments are ongoing however they are not exactly cold, based on stuff like shock waves or accelerate the atoms towards each other.

Note you can even make an fusion rocket today with very good ISP. Downside is that the design uses energy pretty much like vasmir so its not break even, the benefit is that the fusion effect heats the plasma a lot and this gives good isp. Solar panels and nuclear reactors can give lots of electricity but can not provide trust.

[Winter Man]

As for the D+ ions, they are attracted to the center Palladium cathode, where they actually work there way into the interatomic lattice structure of the Palladium. Upon saturation of the lattice, there are still D+ ions that need inside, so some of the ions that are already inside the lattice have to make room, and they fuse (this is the "fusion" part) into Helium.

The immediate problem I see with that is the 'make room' part. Palladium (or any other hydrogen adsorbing transition metal) unfortunately takes less force to break apart than it does to squeeze two hydrogen isotopes together. The metal will form nanoscopic fissures as par for the course, if indeed it will make room as opposed to just saturating, meaning no matter how perfect you get a surface, all your setup will do is make pits in it.

[jwenting]

Do not see how cold fusion is any more perpetual motion than uranium fission. Both uses atoms to produce energy. Another issue is that it probably don't work, it can not be to easy or it would happen in nature.

Note many fusion experiments are ongoing however they are not exactly cold, based on stuff like shock waves or accelerate the atoms towards each other.

Fission increases entropy, hot fusion increases entropy, cold fusion would reduce entropy.

[K^2]

Fission increases entropy, hot fusion increases entropy, cold fusion would reduce entropy.

I suggest you look up what Cold Fusion actually means. I have no idea where you are getting that reduction of entropy deal from, but it's completely wrong.

[Titan Space Agency]

The cold fusion I know of relies on the use of muons as catalysts to lower the temperature for plasma fusion type approaches.

Although in testing they were able to induce fusion this way, the muons are so notoriously difficult to obtain and dissappear so quickly, that it would take far more energy to make a steady supply of muons than the fusion resulting from them gives back.

I haven't heard about this other cold fusion method, but the physics involved don't quite add up in my mind. Actual fusion only happens when the nuclei of the atoms overcome their electrostatic repulsion and get within range of the nuclear strong force to bind them securely.

I don't believe that there is such an easy chemical-based method of doing this, as chemical reactions do not yield the necessary kinetic energy into the nuclei to ram them through their electrostatic repulsion into fusion.

Did you know its possible to make a helium atom bond with other atoms you just need a muon to shoot at the helium atom.

[Mercy]

I have been obsesed with this idea too, and i have come up with the idea that you could fuse two tritium atoms in the reactor. I have come up with a few ideas/theroys (exuse my spelling i dont have spell check instald) *is now looking up something on *internet** that when there is T-T fusion it will become a helium 6 atom, and in around a second it will have decayd into a lithium6 atom. Now i know that lithium6 can be used to make more tritium.( hurray we can make infinet energy) But if we make more tritium we can repet the proses all over again. the reactor concept was the same. If I (or someone else) could figure this out and get it to fully work, we would have infenet power (thereticaly). Something tells me we would be great freinds. Remember all of these ideas are theretical as i dont have any evidence of this, there are no websites onh the internet that talk about T-T fusion. I have also came up with ideas for a infenet miles to the charge electric car.

That was the worst thing I ever read.

[Diche Bach]

That tends to happen when you're trying to express concepts for which human intuition provides little or no familiar reference. You explain them with silly, contrived little stories. Imagine several guys who've spent entirely too long at the bar, and now one of them is trying to explain intricate and wildly counterintuitive phenomena to the others, half of which he's making up and figuring out as he goes along, and doing it mostly with bar napkins and empty glasses for props. Now and then he needs a name for one of those phenomena, so he makes up something silly because he's drunk and on a roll. And now those few drunks are the only people on the planet who understand this new idea, and they tell other people about it before they've had time to think up a more respectable name, and it sticks. You now have a rather accurate picture of how a lot of the terminology came into existence, if not the ideas.

That is simultaneously reassuring and disconcerting. . . . I really should've been a physical scientist/engineer. It is abundantly clear to me you guys have more fun that we hair-shirt wearing social scientists

[lajoswinkler]

Might be possible (chances are overwhelmingly against it), but the example we were presented with (palladium stuff), that one is impossible.

It does not work on paper, but more important - it does not work when you try it.

Sidenote - when there's something someone claims it works only when he does it, but he somehow can't show you because the stuff doesn't work when it's being showed to anyone else, you, dear sir, are being lied to.

It's not "cutting edge" as presented and absorbed by the ignorant general public. It's simply bad science. Not deliberately made up to deceive (pseudoscience), containing obvious faults, not low yield stuff. Just bad science because it just doesn't work.

[Titan Space Agency]

I have been obsesed with this idea too, and i have come up with the idea that you could fuse two tritium atoms in the reactor. I have come up with a few ideas/theroys (exuse my spelling i dont have spell check instald) *is now looking up something on *internet** that when there is T-T fusion it will become a helium 6 atom, and in around a second it will have decayd into a lithium6 atom. Now i know that lithium6 can be used to make more tritium.( hurray we can make infinet energy) But if we make more tritium we can repet the proses all over again. the reactor concept was the same. If I (or someone else) could figure this out and get it to fully work, we would have infenet power (thereticaly). Something tells me we would be great freinds. Remember all of these ideas are theretical as i dont have any evidence of this, there are no websites onh the internet that talk about T-T fusion. I have also came up with ideas for a infenet miles to the charge electric car.

That was the worst thing I ever read.

You are the worst user I have ever met.

[Kryten]

Tritium-Tritium fusion produces a He⁴ nucleus and two neutrons, as helpfully noted by the wikipedia article 'nuclear fusion'. Even if it didn't, neutron bombardment of Li⁶ only produces one Tritium nucleus (and a He⁴ nucleus), whereas you've proposed using two to produce it.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Kryten

[JMBuilder]

In my original post, the reactor is missing one vital component: A magnetic Tokamak, which forces the ions into a torus shape around it.

[Mercy]

You are the worst user I have ever met.

Ouch, my feelings.

[Anton P. Nym]

I remember getting burned by Pons and Fleischmann the first time... that doesn't mean I'm saying cold fusion is impossible, but it does mean that anyone claiming to have done it must show neutron flux or have it running a coffee maker long enough to brew a pot before I'll pay any real attention.

-- Steve