Cold Fusion... Again

[JMBuilder]

It HAS to be possible. Inside of the Palladium lattice, the atomic forces cause the lattice to expand and contract, putting enormous amounts of force on the Hydrogen. Then, when the Hydrogen atoms bump into each other, even MORE force is applied, and at that point, they should fuse.

That's a recurring issue in most discussions about Cold Fusion. People overlook the fact that the lattice shifts like that.

[Kryten]

Is the lattice going to shift enough to add another 20+ orders of magnitude to the amount of pressure involved? No.

[JMBuilder]

How do you know? There's a ton of atomic force applied from both shifting and colliding atoms.

[Kryten]

Because any movement with enough force to induce fusion would severely effect or destroy the lattice structure. Of any electrode.

[SargeRho]

Oh, cold fusion per se is possible.

Using it to produce power, is not.

[JMBuilder]

Okay...

How do you guys know these things?

[SargeRho]

Strategic sponge-like absorbtion of knowledge in my case. Kryten probably studied physics or something.

[JMBuilder]

But have you actually SEEN the process?

[DaveofDefeat]

Dude theres a whole host of scientists smarter than you or me who work specifically with fusion and even they dont think it is feasible

[drakesdoom]

Even if it is feasible we have (hot) fusion working, still some trouble getting power out of it but we are building a fusion pulse rocket prototype right now for flight tests. Frankly tokamak generators and torch ships will be up and running before anyone gives any more time to cold fusion because they have shown reproducible results and progress in those designs.

[Ralathon]

It HAS to be possible. Inside of the Palladium lattice, the atomic forces cause the lattice to expand and contract, putting enormous amounts of force on the Hydrogen. Then, when the Hydrogen atoms bump into each other, even MORE force is applied, and at that point, they should fuse.

That's a recurring issue in most discussions about Cold Fusion. People overlook the fact that the lattice shifts like that.

The problem is that you're still talking about forces orders of magnitude smaller than what you need for fusion.

First of all, you're talking about average distances equivalent to atomic diameters: 100ish picometer (1e-10m). The initiation energy for fusion is around 5KeV (see graph). Using the coulomb barrier equation we can show that the point where the strong nuclear force takes over from the electric repulsion is equivalent to a radius of:

r = k*e^2/U = 8.987E+9 * 1.602E-19^2 / 5E3*1.602E-19 = 2.879e-13m

So you still need to get a factor 300 closer to initiate fusion. The energy to overcome that barrier is equal to the initiation energy minus the potential energy at the current position.

U(kin) = U(ini)-U(pot) = 5KeV - 8.987E+9 * 1.602E-19^2 / 1e-10 = 5KeV - 14.4 eV ~ 5KeV.

So the potential energy provided by the adsorption of the Palladium is negligible. Now, lets see if palladium interactions can provide the needed kinetic energy. Let's treat atoms as perfect billiard balls to get an approximation of the velocities involved. Lets also be generous and say the system is at 1000 kelvin. We can approximate the kinetic energy of a single deuterium atom after a perfect momentum transfer from a Palladium atom with using

v = m(Pd)*sqrt(3kT/m(Pd))/m(H) = 25.7 km/s

E(kin) = 25.7e3^2 *0.5 * m(H) = 1.101e-18 J = 6.87 eV

Yea, that doesn't even come close to the 5KeV needed.

Now, I know the above approximations aren't an accurate representation of reality. But I don't feel like dragging my Solid State Physics books from my shelf and while using more accurate calculations will shuffle the numbers a bit it won't change the result 3 orders of magnitude.

Fusion is simply a very VERY violent process, the energies and temperatures needed are baffling. You cannot reach those levels of energy density on a whim.

[JMBuilder]

But have you seen the process?

[Kryten]

JM, how many of these researchers of yours have died of radiation poisoning? None of these 'reactors' I've ever seen have had any kind of shielding.

[lajoswinkler]

Why are you opening a new thread? Do you know how internet forums are used? This is a forum message board, not a chat server.

This is your third thread about the same thing. It would be annoying even if it was something interesting and realistic.

[Technical Ben]

But have you seen the process?

First we need to ask what you mean by "seen the process"? We can conclude "I can wood with water" is true, as we can consider water pressure high enough to cut stainless steel. We can also consider "we can fly to the moon by flapping our arms" is false, because we know flapping arms has no effect in a vacuum and the required speed cannot be reached while in the atmosphere through human power.

So the above examples show us how we can consider what is correct and what is incorrect even without seeing the specific end result. We see other results, and can calculate in between and combined options. There are many methods to increase pressure, such as heat, explosions or magnets. There are many methods to "remove" energy from systems, such as radiators, chemical reactions or mechanical motion. If none are proposed in a system for fusion and not observed, then it cannot be a system of fusion.

If we observe cold fusion, then we can say "it exists". If we only observe a hot box, we conclude "the box is hot". Most cold fusion claims have been "hot boxes" that could be radiological, chemical or mechanical in their actual source of energy. I'm not certain any have been seen to display any reason to consider fusion as their source of energy.

Theoretically, anything is possible (wait an infinite time, it may possibly happen), but practically very few things are probable to happen.

[JMBuilder]

1. If you use regular water and not heavy water, there isn't any radiation.

2. Let's say you have the hypothesis that "noble gases can't react with anything." For the most part, that's true, until you get to Xenon. If you put Xenon and Fluorine in the same container and let them sit in the sun, they form compounds. Cold Fusion might be one of those "scientific anomalies." You shove enormous amounts of Hydrogen into an atomic lattice, and the shifting of the lattice and the collisions of the atoms cause fusion, which creates enormous amounts of heat to boil water and turn generators.

[Kryten]

1. If you use regular water and not heavy water, there isn't any radiation.

If there isn't any radiation, there isn't any fusion.

[JMBuilder]

Why do you say that?

[lajoswinkler]

1. If you use regular water and not heavy water, there isn't any radiation.

2. Let's say you have the hypothesis that "noble gases can't react with anything." For the most part, that's true, until you get to Xenon. If you put Xenon and Fluorine in the same container and let them sit in the sun, they form compounds. Cold Fusion might be one of those "scientific anomalies." You shove enormous amounts of Hydrogen into an atomic lattice, and the shifting of the lattice and the collisions of the atoms cause fusion, which creates enormous amounts of heat to boil water and turn generators.

This is my last post here because I don't want to participate in this trolling fest, but before I leave, a bit of info. Your knowledge of chemistry expressed in this post stems from the Periodicvideos channel on youtube because they've recently released the video on xenon. Yes, it's xenon, not Xenon.

Xenon is not displaying anomalies. Nothing in the nature is an anomaly. Anomalies are our pathetic human way of trying to cope with our inability to put everything into neat boxes with neat labels.

What happens to xenon in the presence of fluorine is not surprising. It is not an anomaly and not a deviation of any natural law. It is the chemists that never actually tried to investigate the reaction so they were a bit surprised in the 70s or whenever this was discovered.

You continue to ignore the fact that "cold fusion" has never ever been proven. You're clinging to it, you're trying to find a mechanism for a process that has never been displayed to anyone. It reminds of "creation science" a lot.

When you open three threads about it, what does that speak of you? It has a troll label on it.

Over and out.

[JMBuilder]

Whatever. If I get it to work, I'll be filthy-stinking rich.

[Kryten]

If you've got light water, all you've got that can fuse (unless we're talking about condition inside stars considerably larger than our sun) is ¹H. The overall equation for fusion of ¹H is;

¹H+¹H-->²H+e⁺+V_e+0.42 MeV

Note the e⁺; that's a positron, aka an antielectron; it'll immediately annihilate and produce gamma radiation. Sure, you could pretend your lattice might be able to produce the energy required for fusion of oxygen, but that wouldn't stop this being more energetically viable and occurring much more often.

Edited October 5, 2013 by Kryten

[KasperVld]

I think this theory has been thoroughly discussed and refuted. JMBuilder: people give you well formulated arguments why it wouldn't work and all you say is "But have you seen the process?". This is clearly not going to convince anyone and this thread clearly isn't going anywhere with that content.

Thread closed.