“BUBBLE POWER”
(BASED ON: RENEWABLE AND NON-CONVENTIONAL SOURCE OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY)
SYNOPSIS:
1. ABSTRACT
2. INTRODUCTION
3. AN IDEA OF SONOFUSION
4. CONSTRUCTION & WORKING
5. FORMATION OF BUBBLES
6. FUSION REACTIONS TO PRODUCE ELECTRICITY
7. WHEN THE DREAM BECOMES REAL
8. CONCLUSION
ABSTRACT
For more than half a century, thermonuclear fusion held out the promise of cheap, clean and virtual limitless energy. In an experimental research, which is not yet concluded, it is found that deuterium, a material which is abundant in ocean water, when made to tiny bubbles, which can be imploded by using sound waves, can make hydrogen nuclei fuse. This phenomenon can be called as sonofusion. This is very much useful to produce bubble power. 1 km3 of sea water could, in principle, supply the entire world’s electrical energy need for several hundred years. At one day, it becomes a revolutionary new energy source.
INTRODUCTION
· Tiny bubbles imploded by sound waves can make Hydrogen nuclei – and may one day become a revolutionary new energy source.
· The bubbles violently collapse, can cause some of the deuterium nuclei to undergo fusion.
· Unleashed through a fusion reactor of some sort, the energy from 1 gm of deuterium, an isotope H2, would be equivalent to that produced by burning 7000 liter of petrol.
· Deuterium is abundant in ocean water.
· We have yet to identify an economically viable fusion reactor technology that can consistently produce more energy that it consumes.
AN IDEA OF SONO FUSION
· Technically known as “Acoustic inertial confinement fusion”.
· This is derived from a related phenomenon called sonoluminescence.
· In sonoluminescence, a loud speaker is attached to liquid filled flask sends pressure waves through the fluids, existing the motion of tiny gas bubbles. They grow and collapse producing visible flashes of light that last less than 50 picoseconds.
· The excitation pressure higher than about 170 kpa would be required to dislodge the bubble from its stable position and disperse it in the liquid.
· About 20 years ago, researcher studying this light emitting bubble speculated that their interiors might reach such high temperature and pressure that they could bigger fusion.
CONSTRUCTION & WORKING
· It consists of cylindrical pynex glass flask 100 mm high and 65 mm in dia.
· A lead – zirconate – titanate ceramic piezoelectric crystal in the form of ring to the flasks outer surface. This act as a loudspeaker.
· Neutron generator is used, in order to make the bubbles artificially.
· Fill the flask with commercially available deuterated action, in which 99.9% of H2 atoms in acetone molecule are deuterium.
· Which neuron is generated and collides during low pressure, the bubbles swells instantaneously - a process called cavitation.
· To grasp the magnitude of the growth, imagine that initial bubble growing to 100,000 times.
· As the pressure cycle rapidly reverses, liquid pushes the bubbles wall inward the tremendous force and they implode with great violence.
· This implosion create spherical shock wave within bubbles and travels inward cut high speed and significantly strengthen as they converge to their centers.
FORMATION OF BUBBLES
· To initiate sonofusion process, apply oscillating voltage with a frequency of about 20 KHz to piezoelectric ring.
· The construction and expansion of ring produce concentric pressure waves through the liquid.
· The wave becomes acoustic standing wave. This causes the center of flask region to oscillate between a 1500 Kpa (max) and –1500 Kpa (min).
· During positive pressure the liquid is impressed.
· When the pressure reaches lowest point, we fire a pulsed neutron generator of 14.1 Mev in a burst for 6 micro sec.
· Neutron collides with deuterium; in this collision the fast moving neutron may knock the atoms nuclei out of their molecule.
· The interaction between nuclei and molecule create heat and results in tiny bubbles of deuterated acetone vapour.
FUSION REACTIONS TO PRODUCE ELECTRICITY
· Each individual fusion reactions is very brief. It lasts only about a pico seconds and it is confined to a very small region. Think of it as “fusion sparks” rather than a fusion burn.
· As a result, the energy output is like a miniature stars within the bubble, the fusion reaction don’t melt the whole apparatus.
· To obtain something interesting interms of energy, the next step is to scale up the apparatus and make the fusion reactions self-sustaining. This is the greatest challenge not only for the sonofusion but also for all other fusion methods.
· The fusion produces high energy neutron that escape the plasma and hit a liquid filled blanket to generate vapour to drive a turbine and thus generate electricity.
· Yet tremendous challenges remain, such as controlling plasma in place while increasing temperature and pressure. It is a very unstable process that has proved difficult to control.
WHEN THE DREAM BECOMES REAL!!!
· It will have to overcome a number of challenges.
· This can be done by two adjacent sonofusion setups.
· Next it would be necessary to scale up the apparatus so it could produce more energy than it consumes.
· The heat produced by reaction is about 100 million degree centigrade controlling about 20,000 times that of the sun’s surface temperature.
· Yet tremendous challenges remain, such as controlling reactions while increase in temperature and pressure. It is very unstable process that has proved difficult to control. So, when the dream becomes real?
CONCLUSION
· Nevertheless, the Holy Grail of all fusion research is the development of a new, safe, environmentally friendly way to produce electrical energy.
· Fusion produces no green house gases and unlike conventional nuclear fission reactors, it produces no noxious radio active wastes that last for thousands of years.
· With the steady growth of world population and with economic progress in developing countries, average electricity consumption per person will increase significantly.
· Therefore, seeking new sources of energy isn’t just important, it is necessary.
· Much more research is required before it is clear whether sonofusion can become a new energy source.
Bubble Power
Tiny bubbles imploded by sound waves can make hydrogen nuclei fuse--and may one day become a revolutionary new energy source
BY RICHARD T. LAHEY JR., RUSI P. TALEYARKHAN, ROBERT I. NIGMATULIN // MAY 2005
For more than half a century, thermonuclear fusion has held out the promise of cheap, clean, and virtually limitless energy. Unleashed through a fusion reactor of some sort, the energy from 1 gram of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, would be equivalent to that produced by burning 7000 liters of gasoline. Deuterium is abundant in ocean water, and one cubic kilometer of seawater could, in principle, supply all the world's energy needs for several hundred years.
So why haven't we built any such reactors? Basically, because after spending billions of dollars on research, we have yet to identify an economically viable fusion-reactor technology that can consistently produce more energy than it consumes. Today, researchers are using enormous lasers or powerful magnetic fields to trigger limited fusion reactions among deuterium and other hydrogen isotopes. Results are promising and yet still modest--and so the challenge remains.
For several years our research groups--at Purdue University West Lafayette , Ind. Troy , N.Y. Russian Academy Ufa
It is hard to imagine that mere sound waves can possibly produce in the bubbles, even briefly, the extreme temperatures and pressures created by the lasers or magnetic fields, which themselves replicate the interior conditions of stars like our sun, where fusion occurs steadily. Nevertheless, three years ago, we obtained strong evidence that such a process--now known as sonofusion--is indeed possible.
Since then, we have been working to improve and scale up our apparatus, investigating the possibility that it can produce a sizable surplus of energy. If this proves possible--and it's still a big "if"--sonofusion could become a revolutionary new energy source.
To explore this enticing possibility, early this year our research team joined forces with others to create the Acoustic Fusion Technology Energy Consortium, or AFTEC. Its five founders are Boston University Grass Valley , Calif. Purdue University University of Mississippi Oxford University of Washington Seattle
DEUTERIUM:
Hydrogen-2 | |
General | |
deuterium, 2H or D | |
1 | |
1 | |
Nuclide Data | |
0.015% | |
Stable | |
2.01410178 u | |
1+ | |
13,135.720±0.001 keV | |
2,224.52±0.20 keV | |
Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance in the oceans of Earth of approximately one atom in 6,500 of hydrogen (~154 ppm). Deuterium thus accounts for approximately 0.015% (alternately, on a weight basis: 0.031%) of all naturally occurring hydrogen in the oceans on Earth (see VSMOW; the abundance changes slightly from one kind of natural water to another). Deuterium abundance on Jupiter is about2.25×10−5 (roughly 22 atoms in a million, or 15% of the terrestrial deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio);these ratios presumably reflect the early solar nebula ratios, and those after the Big Bang. However, other sources suggest a much higher abundance of e.g. 6×10−4 (6 atoms in10,000 or 0.06% atom basis).There is thought to be little deuterium in the interior of the Sunand other stars, as at temperatures there nuclear fusion reactions that consume deuterium happen much faster than the proton-proton reaction that creates deuterium. However, it continues to persist in the outer solar atmosphere at roughly the same concentration as in Jupiter.
The nucleus of deuterium, called a deuteron, contains one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more common hydrogen nucleus contains no neutron. The isotope name is formed from the Greek deuteros meaning "second", to denote the two particles composing the nucleus.
Contents |
Differences between deuterium and common hydrogen (protium)
Chemical symbol
Deuterium is frequently represented by the chemical symbol D. Since it is an isotope of hydrogen with mass number 2, it is also represented by 2H. IUPAC allows both D and 2H, although 2H is preferred.The reason deuterium has a distinct chemical symbol may be its large mass difference with protium (1H); deuterium has a mass of 2.014102 u, compared to the mean hydrogen atomic weight of 1.007947 u, and protium's mass of 1.007825 u. The isotope weight ratios within other chemical elements are largely insignificant in this regard, explaining the lack of unique isotope symbols elsewhere.[citation needed]
Natural abundance
Deuterium occurs in trace amounts naturally as deuterium gas, written 2H2 or D2, but most natural occurrence in the universe is bonded with a typical 1H atom, a gas called hydrogen deuteride (HD or 1H2H).
The existence of deuterium on Earth, elsewhere in the solar system (as confirmed by planetary probes), and in the spectra of stars, is an important datum in cosmology. Gamma radiation from ordinary nuclear fusion dissociates deuterium into protons and neutrons, and there are no known natural processes other than the Big Bang nucleosynthesis, which might have produced deuterium at anything close to the observed natural abundance of deuterium (deuterium is produced by the rare cluster decay, and occasional absorption of naturally-occurring neutrons by light hydrogen, but these are trivial sources). The natural deuterium abundance seems to be a very similar fraction of hydrogen, wherever hydrogen is found. Thus, the existence of deuterium at a low but constant fraction in all hydrogen, is one of the arguments in favor of the Big Bang theory over the steady state theory of the universe. It is estimated that the abundances of deuterium have not evolved significantly since their production about 13.7 billion years ago.
The world's leading "producer" of deuterium (technically, merely enricher or concentrator of deuterium) was Canada, until 1997 when the last plant was shut down (see more in the heavy water article). Canada India
Physical properties
The physical properties of deuterium compounds can exhibit significant kinetic isotope effects and other physical and chemical property differences from the hydrogen analogs; for example, D2O is more viscous than H2O.Chemically, deuterium behaves similarly to ordinary hydrogen, but there are differences in bond energy and length for compounds of heavy hydrogen isotopes which are larger than the isotopic differences in any other element. Bonds involving deuterium and tritium are somewhat stronger than the corresponding bonds in hydrogen, and these differences are enough to make significant changes in biological reactions (see heavy water).
Deuterium can replace the normal hydrogen in water molecules to form heavy water (D2O), which is about 10.6% denser than normal water (enough that ice made from it sinks in ordinary water). Heavy water is slightly toxic in eukaryotic animals, with 25% substitution of the body water causing cell division problems and sterility, and 50% substitution causing death by cytotoxic syndrome (bone marrow failure and gastrointestinal lining failure). Prokaryotic organisms, however, can survive and grow in pure heavy water (though they grow more slowly).Consumption of heavy water would not pose a health threat to humans, it was estimated that a 70 kg person might drink 4.8 liters of heavy water without serious consequences. Small doses of heavy water (a few grams in humans, containing an amount of deuterium comparable to that normally present in the body) are routinely used as harmless metabolic tracers in humans and animals.
Quantum properties
The deuteron has spin +1 ("triplet") and is thus a boson. The NMR frequency of deuterium is significantly different from common light hydrogen.Infrared spectroscopy also easily differentiates many deuterated compounds, due to the large difference in IR absorption frequency seen in the vibration of a chemical bond containing deuterium, versus light hydrogen. The two stable isotopes of hydrogen can also be distinguished by using mass spectrometry.
The triplet deuteron nucleon barely is bound at EB = 2.23 MeV, so all the higher energy states are not bound. The singlet deuteron is a virtual state, with a negative binding energy of ~60 keV. There is no such stable particle, but this virtual particle transiently exists during neutron-proton inelastic scattering, accounting for the unusually large neutron scattering cross-section of the proton.
Nuclear properties
Deuterium is one of only four stable nuclides with an odd number of protons and odd number of neutrons. (2H, 6Li, 10B, 14N; also, the long-lived radioactive nuclides 40K, 50V, 138La, 180mTa occur naturally.) Most odd-odd nuclei are unstable with respect to beta decay, because the decay products are even-even, and are therefore more strongly bound, due to nuclear pairing effects. Deuterium, however, benefits from having its proton and neutron coupled to a spin-1 state, which gives a stronger nuclear attraction; the corresponding spin-1 state does not exist in the two-neutron or two-proton system, due to the Pauli exclusion principle which would require one or the other identical particle with the same spin to have some other different quantum number, such as orbital angular momentum. But orbital angular momentum of either particle gives a lowerbinding energy for the system, primarily due to increasing distance of the particles in the steep gradient of the nuclear force. In both cases, this causes the diproton and dineutron nucleus to be unstable.
The proton and neutron making up deuterium can be dissociated through neutral current interactions with neutrinos. The cross section for this interaction is comparatively large, and deuterium was successfully used as a neutrino target in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory experiment.
Deuterium as an isospin singlet
Due to the similarity in mass and nuclear properties between the proton and neutron, they are sometimes considered as two symmetric types of the same object, a nucleon. While only the proton has an electric charge, this is often negligible due of the weakness of the electromagnetic interaction relative to the strong nuclear interaction. The symmetry relating the proton and neutron is known as isospin and denoted I (or sometimes T).
Isospin is an SU(2) symmetry, like ordinary spin, so is completely analogous to it. The proton and neutron form an isospin doublet, with a"down" state (↓) being a neutron, and an "up" state (↑) being a proton.
A pair of nucleons can either be in an antisymmetric state of isospin called singlet, or in a symmetric state called triplet. In terms of the "down" state and "up" state, the singlet is
This is a nucleus with one proton and one neutron, i.e. a deuterium nucleus. The triplet is
and thus consists of three types of nuclei, which are supposed to be symmetric: a deuterium nucleus (actually a highly excited state of it), a nucleus with two protons, and a nucleus with two neutrons. The latter two nuclei are not stable or nearly stable, and therefore so is this type of deuterium (meaning that it is indeed a highly excited state of deuterium).
Approximated wavefunction of the deuteron
The deuteron wavefunction must be antisymmetric if the isospin representation is used (since a proton and a neutron are not identical particles, the wavefunction need not be antisymmetric in general). Apart from their isospin, the two nucleons also have spin and spatial distributions of their wavefunction. The latter is symmetric if the deuteron is symmetric under parity (i.e. have an "even" or "positive" parity), and antisymmetric if the deuteron is antisymmetric under parity (i.e. have an "odd" or "negative" parity). The parity is fully determined by the total orbital angular momentum of the two nucleons: if it is even then the parity is even (positive), and if it is odd then the parity is odd (negative).
The deuteron, being an isospin singlet, is antisymmetric under nucleons exchange due to isospin, and therefore must be symmetric under the double exchange of their spin and location. Therefore it can be in either of the following two different states:
§ Symmetric spin and symmetric under parity. In this case, the exchange of the two nucleons will multiply the deuterium wavefunction by (-1) from isospin exchange, (+1) from spin exchange and (+1) from parity (location exchange), for a total of (-1) as needed for antisymmetry.
§ Antisymmetric spin and antisymmetric under parity. In this case, the exchange of the two nucleons will multiply the deuterium wavefunction by (-1) from isospin exchange, (-1) from spin exchange and (-1) from parity (location exchange), again for a total of (-1) as needed for antisymmetry.
In the first case the deuteron is a spin triplet, so that its total spin s is 1. It also has an even parity and therefore even orbital angular momentuml ; The lower its orbital angular momentum, the lower its energy. Therefore the lowest possible energy state has s = 1, l = 0.
In the second case the deuteron is a spin singlet, so that its total spin s is 0. It also has an odd parity and therefore odd orbital angular momentum l. Therefore the lowest possible energy state has s = 0, l = 1.
Since s = 1 gives a stronger nuclear attraction, the deuterium ground state is in the s =1, l = 0 state.
The same considerations lead to the possible states of an isospin triplet having s = 0, l = even or s = 1, l = odd. Thus the state of lowest energy has s = 1, l = 1, higher than that of the isospin singlet.
The analysis just given is in fact only approximate, both because isospin is not an exact symmetry, and more importantly because the strong nuclear interaction between the two nucleons is related to angular momentum in spin-orbit interaction that mixes different s and l states. That is, s and l are not constant in time (they do not commute with the Hamiltonian), and over time a state such as s = 1, l = 0 may become a state of s = 1, l = 2. Parity is still constant in time so these do not mix with odd l states (such as s = 0, l = 1). Therefore the quantum state of the deuterium is a superposition (a linear combination) of the s = 1, l = 0 state and the s = 1, l = 2 state, even though the first component is much bigger. Since the total angular momentum j is also a good quantum number (it is a constant in time), both components must have the same j, and therefore j = 1. This is the total spin of the deuterium nucleus.
To summarize, the deuterium nucleus is antisymmetric in terms of isospin, and has spin 1 and even (+1) parity. The relative angular momentum of its nucleons l is not well defined, and the deuteron is a superposition of mostly l = 0 with some l = 2.
Magnetic and electric multipoles
In order to find theoretically the deuterium magnetic dipole moment µ, one uses the formula for a nuclear magnetic moment
with
g(l) and g(s) are g-factors of the nucleons.
Since the proton and neutron have different values for g(l) and g(s), one must separate their contributions. Each gets half of the deuterium orbital angular momentum and spin . One arrives at
where subscripts p and n stand for the proton and neutron, and g(l)n = 0.
By using the same identities as here and using the value g(l)p = 1 μN, we arrive at the following result, in nuclear magneton units
For the s = 1, l = 0 state (j = 1), we obtain
For the s = 1, l = 2 state (j = 1), we obtain
The measured value of the deuterium magnetic dipole moment, is 0.857 μN. This suggests that the state of the deuterium is indeed only approximately s = 1, l = 0 state, and is actually a linear combination of (mostly) this state with s = 1, l = 2 state.
The electric dipole is zero as usual.
The measured electric quadropole of the deuterium is 0.2859 e·fm2. While the order of magnitude is reasonable, since the deuterium radius is of order of 1 femtometer (see below) and its electric charge is e, the above model does not suffice for its computation. More specifically, theelectric quadrupole does not get a contribution from the l =0 state (which is the dominant one) and does get a contribution from a term mixing the l =0 and the l =2 states, because the electric quadrupole operator does not commute with angular momentum. The latter contribution is dominant in the absence of a pure l = 0 contribution, but cannot be calculated without knowing the exact spatial form of the nucleonswavefunction inside the deuterium.
Higher magnetic and electric multipole moments cannot be calculated by the above model, for similar reasons.
Deuterium radius
Further information: Nuclear size
The square root of the average squared radius of the deuterium, measured experimentally, is
Applications
Emission spectrum of an ultraviolet deuterium arc lamp.
Deuterium has a number of commercial and scientific uses. These include:
Deuterium in nuclear reactors
Deuterium is useful in nuclear fusion reactions, especially in combination with tritium, because of the large reaction rate (or nuclear cross section) and highenergy yield of the D–T reaction. There is an even higher-yield D–3He fusion reaction, though the breakeven point of D–3He is higher than that of most other fusion reactions; together with the scarcity of 3He, this makes it implausible as a practical power source until at least D–T and D–D fusion reactions have been performed on a commercial scale.
Deuterium is used in heavy water moderated fission reactors, usually as liquid D2O, to slow neutrons without high neutron absorption of ordinary hydrogen.
Deuterium NMR spectroscopy
Deuterium NMR spectra are especially informative in the solid state because of its relatively small quadrupole moment in comparison with those of bigger quadrupolar nuclei such as chlorine-35, for example.
A stable isotope tracer
In chemistry, biochemistry and environmental sciences, deuterium is used as a non-radioactive, stable isotopic tracer. In chemical reactionsand metabolic pathways, deuterium behaves similarly to ordinary hydrogen, but it can be distinguished from ordinary hydrogen by its mass, using mass spectrometry or infrared spectrometry. Deuterium can be detected by femtosecond infrared spectroscopy, since the mass difference drastically affects the frequency of molecular vibrations; deuterium-carbon bond vibrations are found in locations free of other signals.
Measurements of small variations in the natural abundances of deuterium, along with those of the stable heavy oxygen isotopes 17O and 18O, are of importance in hydrology, to trace the geographic origin of Earth's waters. The heavy isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen in rainwater (so-called meteoric water) are enriched as a function of the environmental temperature of the region in which the precipitation falls (and thus enrichment is related to mean latitude). The relative enrichment of the heavy isotopes in rainwater (as referenced to mean ocean water), when plotted against temperature falls predictably along a line called the global meteoric water line (GMWL). This plot allows samples of precipitation-originated water to be identified along with general information about the climate in which it originated. Evaporative and other processes in bodies of water, and also ground water processes, also differentially alter the ratios of heavy hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in fresh and salt waters, in characteristic and often regionally-distinctive ways.[11]
Neutron scattering scattering contrast properties
Neutron scattering techniques particularly profit from availability of deuterated samples: The H and D cross sections are very distinct and different in sign, which allows contrast variation in such experiments. Further, a nuisance problem of ordinary hydrogen is its large incoherent neutron cross section, which is nil for D and delivers much clearer signals in deuterated samples. Hydrogen occurs in all materials of organic chemistry and life science, but cannot be seen by X-ray diffraction methods. Hydrogen can be seen by neutron diffraction and scattering, which makes neutron scattering, together with a modern deuteration facility, indispensable for many studies of macromolecules in biology and many other areas.
Nuclear resonance spectroscopy
Deuterium is useful in hydrogen nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (proton NMR). NMR ordinarily requires compounds of interest to be analyzed as dissolved in solution. Because of deuterium's nuclear spin properties which differ from the light hydrogen usually present in organic molecules, NMR spectra of hydrogen/protium are highly differentiable from that of deuterium, and in practice deuterium is not "seen" by an NMR instrument tuned to light-hydrogen. Deuterated solvents (including heavy water, but also compounds like deuterated chloroform, CDCl3) are therefore routinely used in NMR spectroscopy, in order to allow only the light-hydrogen spectra of the compound of interest to be measured, without solvent-signal interference.
History
Lighter element isotopes suspected
The existence of nonradioactive isotopes of lighter elements had been suspected in studies of neon as early as 1913, and proven by mass spectroscopy of light elements in 1920. The prevailing theory at the time, however, was that the isotopes were due to the existence of differing numbers of "nuclear electrons" in different atoms of an element. It was expected that hydrogen, with a measured average atomic mass very close to 1 u, and a nucleus thought to be composed of a single proton (a known particle), could not contain nuclear electrons, and thus could have no heavy isotopes.
Deuterium predicted and finally detected
Deuterium was predicted in 1926 by Walter Russell, using his "spiral" periodic table. It was first detected spectroscopically in late 1931 byHarold Urey, a chemist at Columbia University. Urey's collaborator, Ferdinand Brickwedde, distilled five liters of cryogenically-produced liquid hydrogen to 1 mL of liquid, using the low-temperature physics laboratory that had recently been established at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology). This concentrated the fraction of the mass-2 isotope of hydrogen to a degree that made its spectroscopic identification unambiguous; Urey called the isotope "deuterium" from the Greek and Latinwords for "two". The amount inferred for normal abundance of this heavy isotope was so small (only about 1 atom in 6400 hydrogen atoms in ocean water) that it had not noticeably affected previous measurements of (average) hydrogen atomic mass. Urey was also able to concentrate water to show partial enrichment of deuterium. Gilbert Newton Lewis prepared the first samples of pure heavy water in 1933. The discovery of deuterium, coming before the discovery of the neutron in 1932, was an experimental shock to theory, and after the neutron was reported, deuterium won Urey the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1934.
"Heavy water" experiments in World War II
Shortly before the war, Hans von Halban and Lew Kowarski moved their research on neutron moderation from France to England, smuggling the entire global supply of heavy water (which had been made in Norway) across in twenty-six steel drums.
During World War II, Nazi Germany was known to be conducting experiments using heavy water as moderator for a nuclear reactor design. (Heavy water is water in which the hydrogen is deuterium.) Such experiments were a source of concern because they might allow them to produce plutonium for an atomic bomb. Ultimately it led to the Allied operation called the "Norwegian heavy water sabotage," the purpose of which was to destroy the Vemork deuterium production/enrichment facility in Norway. At the time this was considered important to the potential progress of the war.
After World War II ended, the Allies discovered that Germany was not putting as much serious effort into the program as had been previously thought.[citation needed] The Germans had completed only a small, partly-built experimental reactor (which had been hidden away). By the end of the war, the Germans did not even have a fifth of the amount of heavy water needed to run the reactor, partially due to the Norwegian heavy water sabotage operation.[citation needed] However, even had the Germans succeeded in getting a reactor operational (as the U.S. did with a graphite reactor in late 1942), they would still have been at least several years away from development of an atomic bomb with maximal effort. The engineering process, even with maximal effort and funding, required about two and a half years (from first critical reactor to bomb) in both the U.S.
Name
Urey called the molecule "deuterium", from the Greek deuteros (second), and the nucleus to be called "deuteron" or "deuton". The molecules were traditionally given the name that its discoverer decided, but some British chemists, like Ernest Rutherford, wanted the molecule to be called "diplogen", from the Greek diploos (double), and the nucleus to be called diplon. The British magazine Nature also published a letter where only the denomination "diplogen" was used, perhaps annunciating that British could prefer that name over the name given by its discoverer. Urey and his two co-discoverers sent a letter to Nature saying that they had already considered that name and they had rejected it because "The compound NH1H2/2 would be called di-diplogen mono-hydrogen nitride", which would repeat the syllable "di." They also said that the British seemed to object on the basis that "neutron" and "deuton" could be confused with each other, and he points out that American workers were using the terms and they didn't seem to be having any such confusion.
Data
§ Atomic weight: 2.01355321270 u.
Data at approximately 18 K for D2 (triple point):
§ Density:
§ Liquid: 162.4 kg/m3
§ Gas: 0.452 kg/m3
§ Specific heat capacity at constant pressure cp:
§ Solid: 2,950 J/(kg·K)
§ Gas: 5,200 J/(kg·K)
Anti-deuterium:
An antideuteron is the antiparticle of the nucleus of deuterium, consisting of an antiproton and an antineutron. The antideuteron was first produced in 1965 at the Proton Synchrotron at CERN[14] and the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory.A complete atom, with a positron orbiting the nucleus, would be called antideuterium, but as of 2005 antideuterium has not yet been created. The proposed symbol for antideuterium is D, that is, D with an overbar.
Pycnodeuterium :
Deuterium atoms can be absorbed into a palladium (Pd) lattice. They are effectively solidified as an ultrahigh density deuterium lump (Pycnodeuterium) inside each octahedral space within the unit cell of the palladium host lattice. Some believe it may be possible to use this as a nuclear fuel in cold fusion. However, cold fusion by this mechanism has not been generally accepted by the scientific community.
Ultra-dense deuterium
The existence of ultra-dense deuterium is suggested by experimental results reported by researchers at the University of Gothenburg
The researchers have reported the production of minute amounts of ultra-dense deuterium in two recent publications. Ultra-dense deuterium would be by far the most dense material ever produced by man - one cubic centimetre would have a mass of 140 kilograms.
See also
Frequently Asked Questions About
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions(part of the field of condensed matter nuclear science historically known as "cold fusion")
What is LENR? Low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) are research and experiments that take place at or close to room temperature and pressure which produce nuclear-scale energy and nuclear products. The word "low" refers to the input energies to the reactions; the output energies may be low or high. LENR does not presume a fusion mechanism that involves surmounting a high-Coulomb barrier. The research suggests a possible new form of clean nuclear energy and nuclear transmutation processes. LENR was historically called "cold fusion". LENR does not produce greenhouse gases, strong prompt radiation or long-lived radioactive wastes. The fuel is deuterium or hydrogen, which is abundantly available in ocean water. One of the main reaction products is helium-4, which is harmless. Initially, the term "cold fusion" distinguished this research from thermonuclear fusion or plasma fusion. Thermonuclear fusion experiments require multimillion-degree temperatures. Since 1951, when thermonuclear fusion research began in the The term "cold fusion " was never ideal to describe low energy nuclear reactions, because it implied that they were just a colder form of thermonuclear fusion, which they are not. The term was adopted by the media in 1989, appearing first in the Wall Street Journal, as a result of confusion with muon-catalyzed fusion. LENR's benign byproducts distinguish them from thermonuclear fusion and a variety of other nuclear experiments that also can run in room-temperature laboratories. LENR experiments often use for their fuel a form of hydrogen called deuterium, which comes from water. One in every 6,000 water molecules contains deuterium. The energy available in the deuterium in one cubic mile of seawater, if release in a fusion process, exceeds the energy capacity of all the known fossil fuel reserves in the world. Some LENR experiments use regular hydrogen, which supports the hypothesis of a nonfusion mechanism. A variety of models has been proposed to explain LENR. Some models speculate the mechanism as fusion, some speculate neutron catalyzed reactions, specifically, processes relating to the weak interaction. "Cold fusion"is a highly speculative, little-supported theoretical process by which two like-charged atomic nuclei overcome the Coulomb barrier at normal temperatures and pressures. This is really four different questions. Q1. Are LENRs genuine nuclear reactions? A1. Yes. Q2. Is the underlying process or processes responsible for the observed LENR phenomena the result of a fusion process? A2. Probably not. Q3. Are LENRs sources of useful energy? A3. Not yet. Q4. Is LENR better than "cold fusion"? A4. Yes. Yes, many. Also a peer-reviewed book by American Chemical Society/Oxford University Press published in August 2008 and another is on the way. Some people consider the model proposed by Allan Widom and Lewis Larsen, ultra-low momentum neutron catalyzed reactions, to be a vialble theoretical explananation for LENR phenomena. At least half a dozen other researchers have speculated neutron catalyzed reactions. A fundamental principle in electrochemistry is that, when one applies a certain amount of electrical energy to an electrolytic cell, one expects a commensurate amount of heat to come out of the cell. For those who are mathematically inclined, this is represented in the following manner. If "Q" represents the amount of heat, "V" is the voltage, "I" is the current and "t" is time, then Q=V * I * t. In a standard electrolytic cell, the amount of energy coming out of the system is normally straightforward to calculate, using the above formula. However, what Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons discovered (see question 7 below) was that, in their cold fusion cell, Q, the amount of heat energy coming out of the cell was up to 1000 times greater than it should have been based on any known chemical reaction. An excessive amount of heat was coming from the experiment. It did not, in any way, match the amount of electrical energy going in plus other accounted-for energy losses. And this, in a nutshell, was their fundamental historic discovery: something within the cell was releasing a new, "hitherto unknown" (Fleischmann-Pons) source of potential energy. In LENR research, this is the most important aspect of the phenomenon and is known by the term "excess heat." Why isn't LENR energy ready to use? Simply, the science is still not sufficiently-well understood. While the research community knows a great deal about the related phenomena, it still does not know the factors necessary to bring it forward to a viable technology. Factors include: how to consistently turn it on, turn it off, up or down. Many researchers think that the greatest problem to be solved is a materials science issue. Researchers do not understand the specific atomic composition of the source materials - palladium, for example - that are required to make it work. The characteristic differences between batches appear to be at the nanoscale or atomic level. Consequently, such research is extremely difficult to perform outside of a large, well-equipped laboratory, and few researchers have had the means to study the subject properly. Researchers know the materials differences are a major factor because, when they have used particular batches of palladium that work, all samples from the same batch register excess heat. When researchers have identified pieces of palladium that generate energy, they claim that those same pieces work repeatedly until the material fails. The second greatest challenge is to remove the enormous quantities of heat from the palladium quickly enough. The heat tends to melt and deform the palladium, rendering it useless. Researchers know what conditions are required for a working experiment; however, they are difficult to achieve. Minimum thresholds must be attained for the proper ratio of deuterium to palladium. A high electrical current is required, as well as some form of a dynamic trigger that imposes a deuterium flux in, out or along the cathode. Common triggers are changes in temperature, current flow and low-level laser stimulation. What impact will deuterium use have on our oceans? With the quantity of deuterium in seawater alone, the oceans will provide a nearly limitless supply of clean energy. Deuterium used in LENR can provide several million times as much energy as the same amount of fossil fuel. Steve Nelson, while an astrophysicist Ph.D. candidate at Is LENR harmful to the environment? When we hear "nuclear," many of us think of mushroom clouds and the accidents at LENR experiments yield only very low levels of gamma rays and neutron emissions. Such low levels of radiation are found in at least some LENR reactions, but this radiation is usually absorbed directly within the experiments. Shielding, if required, likely will be easily manageable and suitable for industrial as well as residential applications. What are other possible applications of LENR? It is too early to know the scientific basis for any potential application that may result from this new field, however, some people speculate that several technical miracles could come from it:
"Cold fusion" was discovered in the mid-1980s by electrochemists Martin Fleischmann, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Stanley Pons, chairman of the chemistry department at the Physicist Steven E. Jones, and his team at Andrei Lipson, a physicist from the What does Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (CMNS) mean?Condensed matter nuclear science includes multiple subject matters including low energy nuclear reactions. The term “condensed matter nuclear science” evolved from the discussion and input of many individuals during the May 2002 ICCF Advisory Committee meeting in What mistakes did Fleischmann and Pons make and why was cold fusion initially thought to be a mistake? Fleischmann and Pons introduced an entirely new field of science. It didn't belong to physics; it didn't belong to chemistry. It was somewhere between them. A turf battle started the day it was announced. Their "N-fusion," as they called it, appeared to contradict known nuclear fusion theory; nuclear reactions at room temperature and pressure were generally unheard of before Fleischmann and Pons. The reactions were viewed as inconceivable, impossible. The two men were looked on as heretics. They were also regarded as making reckless, unsupported, unscientific claims, and this won them no respect from the community of nuclear scientists. Fleischmann and Pons used methodologies appropriate for their expertise: electrochemistry and calorimetry. Their experimental results, however, brought them into unfamiliar territory: nuclear physics. Several prominent physicists recklessly accused Fleischmann and Pons of scientific fraud. While it is true that mistakes were made and that something inexplicable happened with the gamma spectrum Fleischmann and Pons reported, nobody has ever proved that they committed fraud. The errors in their gamma spectrum initially led some critics to dismiss the entire set of observations, including the claim of excess heat. The primary measurement tool used by Fleischmann and Pons -- calorimetry, the science of measuring heat -- was unfamiliar to nuclear researchers at the time and was considered entirely inadequate by most nuclear physicists as a means to justify the claim of a nuclear reaction. Making matters worse for Fleischmann and Pons were numerous problems with the way they and the Their failure to sufficiently inform and share information with their peers caused an enormous amount of animosity. They also extrapolated their heat measurements and this resulted in an exaggeration of their energy claims. Fleischmann and Pons made it sound like the experiment was easy; this couldn't have been further from the truth. Consequently, thousands of scientists around the world hurried off to try to make Other human issues also were a significant factor responsible for the hostility, bitterness and volatility of the cold fusion controversy. Thermonuclear fusion researchers had tried unsuccessfully for 38 years to create practical energy from their experiments. Their research program at one time was funded by the After their announcement, the bulk of the science community focused its attention on the mistakes, both real and imagined, that were made by Fleischmann and Pons, and neglected to consider the core aspects of their discovery that were valid. The basic and most significant claim of Fleischmann and Pons, that of excess energy in the form of heat, was never disproved, despite myths to the contrary. However, the theory that Fleischmann and Pons proposed was clearly wrong. This discouraged many scientists from paying further attention to the field. The result, after the 1989 chaos, was that the media and a large part of mainstream science ignored a fundamentally new nuclear process for many years. A turning point occurred in 2009 when researchers at the U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) Pacific laboratory reported evidence of nuclear particle emissions. What is the difference between the Fleischmann-Pons and the Jones experiment? The Fleischmann-Pons experiment ( Steven E. Jones' ( Excess heat and helium are the dominant signatures of the Fleischmann-Pons experiment. Jones did not expect to see excess heat and did not seek to measure it. In a congressional hearing in 1989, Jones compared the trivial amount of energy claimed in his experiment to that claimed in the Fleischmann-Pons experiment as analogous to the comparison of a dollar bill to the national debt. Jones' reported an experiment in 2003 which produced 57 neutrons per hour; however, he has been inconsistent with his neutron claims. He initially claimed to see neutrons in 1989, but according to Beaudette , he retracted them in 1993. The power from the Fleischmann-Pons experiment, if neutrons were produced in the experiment from a thermonuclear fusion reaction, would have produced 10E12 neutrons per second. Instead, the rate of neutron emissions from the Fleischmann-Pons experiment was negligible. Early in the cold fusion history, these differences were not well-understood, and many people attempted to draw direct comparisons between the Fleischmann-Pons experiment and the Jones experiment. This is akin to comparing apples and oranges. Jones' congressional testimony about the trivial amount of energy that was produced by his experiment was widely reported; however, the significant differences between the two experimental configurations, as described here, were not as well-reported in the media. As a result, the public, assuming both groups were working on the same idea, developed a perception that Jones' more modest claims were more believable and credible than that of Fleischmann-Pons. 1. Fleischmann, M., "Background to Cold Fusion: the Genesis of a Concept," American Chemical Society low-energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook, Marwan, J. and Krivit, S. Eds., Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-8412-6966-8, (Fall 2008). 2. Jones, S. E., Keeney, F. W., Johnson, A. C., Buehler, D. B., Cecil, F. E., Hubler, G. Hagelstein, P. L., Ellsworth, J. E., Scott, M. R., "Charged-particle Emissions from Metal Deuterides," Proceedings of 10th International Conference on Cold Fusion, Cambridge, MA, (2003). 3. Beaudette, C., Excess Heat & Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed (2nd ed.), 4. Storms, E., The Science Of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction: A Comprehensive Compilation Of Evidence And Explanations About Cold Fusion, ISBN-13: 9789812706201, World Scientific, In 2002, nuclear engineers Rusi P. Taleyarkhan of Purdue University and Richard T. Lahey Jr. of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced that they had produced thermonuclear fusion by imploding tiny deuterium-rich gas bubbles with sound waves and neutrons. The news about their fusion method--dubbed sonofusion--made headlines worldwide. Yet many skeptics greeted it with scoffing. Now, after repeating the experiments with an improved apparatus, Taleyarkhan and Lahey have more convincing evidence. In the May 2005 issue of IEEE Spectrum, they discuss their latest experiments in detail and also explain how they plan to turn their tabletop apparatus into a full-scale electricity-generating device. "If this proves possible--and it’s still a big ’if’--sonofusion could become a revolutionary new energy source," they write. They also say that other groups may soon have new findings to confirm that sonofusion works. "Now at least five groups--three in the For more than half a century, thermonuclear fusion has held out the promise of cheap, clean, and virtually limitless energy. But after spending billions of dollars on research, we have yet to identify an economically viable fusion technology that can steadily produce more energy than it consumes. Today, researchers are using enormous lasers or powerful magnetic fields to trigger limited fusion reactions among deuterium and other hydrogen isotopes. Results are promising and yet still modest--and so the challenge remains. For several years, Taleyarkhan and Lahey have been working to improve their sonofusion method. They apply sound waves to a deuterium-rich liquid inside which tiny bubbles filled with deuterium vapor grow and then implode. The bubbles’ violent collapse can cause some of the deuterium nuclei they contain to undergo fusion. "Much more research is required before it is clear whether sonofusion can become a new energy source," they write. "But then there is only one way we can find out--we will continue making bubbles." |
emit short flashes of light suggestive of extreme temperatures inside the bubble.
These flashes of light, known as 'sonoluminescence', occur as the bubble
implodes, or cavitates. Now Didenko and Suslick show that chemical reactions
occur during cavitation of a single, isolated bubble, and they go on to determine
the yield of photons, radicals and ions formed.
Devastating Bubble Power
The effects of underwater explosions, such as that generated by torpedoes or mines, are much more devastating than a similar explosion in air. Over the last decade a numerical code on underwater explosion and bubble dynamics has been jointly developed by faculties at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, A bubble forms at the epicentre of the explosion and grows very rapidly and then collapses. In the final phase of the collapse, a high-speed jet is formed, which can easily cut through the ship body.
Some small-scale experiments have been carried out and were compared successfully with the obtained numerical results like in Figure 1.The validated code can be applied to other relevant engineering problems, for example, in cavitation on ship propellers (where tiny vapour bubbles can cause a lot of damage on these propellers) or in medical applications. The method of imploding micro-bubbles with ultrasound in biological flows to remove kidney stone or growth is also based
on the same physics, but on a much smaller scale of course.
How It Works: Bubble Power
When we read that physicists were dropping speakers into water to try and kick start cold fusion reactions, which could supply endless clean energy, we thought that they must have gone barmy. That's because we'd never heard of sonoluminescence, the mysterious phenomenon where sound makes bubbles all-powerful. B. James McCullum and Stuart Smith get to grips with some weird science.
We all know the legend of the opera diva hitting a high note and shattering glass, but could she also make the glass burst into flames or even cause two hydrogen nuclei in the contents of the glass to combine, providing enough energy to power a small country? It might not be as farfetched as it sounds.
Back in the 1930's, a pair of scientists found out that sending ultrasonic waves into a liquid could expose photographic plates – sound energy was being turned into light. The phenomenon known as sonoluminescence was born.
Although no one is quite sure how sonoluminescence actually works, everyone agrees that when an ultrasonic generator (read really powerful speaker) is put in liquid, it can create tiny glowing bubbles.
We all know the legend of the opera diva hitting a high note and shattering glass, but could she also make the glass burst into flames or even cause two hydrogen nuclei in the contents of the glass to combine, providing enough energy to power a small country? It might not be as farfetched as it sounds.
Back in the 1930's, a pair of scientists found out that sending ultrasonic waves into a liquid could expose photographic plates – sound energy was being turned into light. The phenomenon known as sonoluminescence was born.
Although no one is quite sure how sonoluminescence actually works, everyone agrees that when an ultrasonic generator (read really powerful speaker) is put in liquid, it can create tiny glowing bubbles.
Everybody also agrees that sound waves advance as patterns of positive and negative pressure. So the traditional wisdom about sonoluminescence has it that, when the negative pressure portion of a sound wave passes through a bubble in a liquid, it causes that bubble to swell in size by several orders of magnitude. When the subsequent positive pressure portion of the sound wave approaches, that large bubble is forced to shrink rapidly by a process calledacoustic cavitation. In this theory, the collapse results in all the energy that went in to the expansion of the bubble being compressed in to a very small area. In other words, a proportionately huge amount of energy gets focused into a very tiny package. As a result the small amount of gas trapped inside the bubble is heated to absurdly hot temperatures, causing it to glow.
Not all scientists buy this explanation though – some physicists who study bubbles (and yes there are such things) believe that a bubble has to remain perfectly mathematically spherical in order for acoustic cavitation to occur, and they argue that nature just doesn't work that way. One of the more prominent competing theories states that super-fast jets of liquid shoot across the bubble and actually fracture the water molecules on the other side (yes, you can break a molecule like this). The break causes a release of energy and hence light. You can witness a similar effect from breaking or even simply rubbing any number of crystals – in this case it is called triboluminescence (rubbing) orfractoluminescence (breaking). It results from charges within molecule being forced apart, and then combining back together, which ionizes the air and causes a flash.
Some researchers have even speculated that sonoluminescence may be a manifestation of the proposed infinite energy of a vacuum, commonly referred to in modern science fiction as zero point energy. If this is the case, it may be due to an exotic phenomenon called the Casimir Effect. According to this theory, substances in a vacuum moving closer together eventually get attracted to each other because there is "more of a vacuum" between them then elsewhere in the vacuum. The resulting motion may result in the change of "vacuum" or "zero point" energy to real energy and hence the spark. Since, in this scenario, you’re producing something (energy) from nothing (a vacuum), theoretically the amount of energy we could produce from a system like this is limitless.
The real reason why anybody cares about lights created from sound, however, is because some have speculated that if the acoustic cavitation mechanism holds true, then temperatures inside the bubble may reach 2 million kelvins – hot enough to produce a cold fusion reaction which could provide enough environmentally safe energy to power everything for, well, ever. Unfortunately, it appears that the real temperature may be closer to 10,000 degrees, which is only as hot as the surface of the sun. Whilst not hot enough to spark cold fusion, it would still make a hell of a grill.
So can you yell at water and make is light up? Not exactly. In fact, the authors submerged a 12 megahertz medical ultrasound probe in a coffee pot of water this morning and got nothing. It takes a bit of effort. On the other hand, fractoluminescence, which is also fairly cool, is easy to demonstrate. A Wint O Green flavor Lifesaver brand candy is the ideal equipment for this experiment, but sugar cubes or certain types of quartz will work as well. After retiring to a dark room, take a pair of pliers (or even a hammer) and crush the candy. You should see flashes of a bluish light. The benefit to the lifesaver over other crystals is that it also contains oil of wintergreen, which will fluoresce, accentuating the effect.
Some researchers have even speculated that sonoluminescence may be a manifestation of the proposed infinite energy of a vacuum, commonly referred to in modern science fiction as zero point energy. If this is the case, it may be due to an exotic phenomenon called the Casimir Effect. According to this theory, substances in a vacuum moving closer together eventually get attracted to each other because there is "more of a vacuum" between them then elsewhere in the vacuum. The resulting motion may result in the change of "vacuum" or "zero point" energy to real energy and hence the spark. Since, in this scenario, you’re producing something (energy) from nothing (a vacuum), theoretically the amount of energy we could produce from a system like this is limitless.
So can you yell at water and make is light up? Not exactly. In fact, the authors submerged a 12 megahertz medical ultrasound probe in a coffee pot of water this morning and got nothing. It takes a bit of effort. On the other hand, fractoluminescence, which is also fairly cool, is easy to demonstrate. A Wint O Green flavor Lifesaver brand candy is the ideal equipment for this experiment, but sugar cubes or certain types of quartz will work as well. After retiring to a dark room, take a pair of pliers (or even a hammer) and crush the candy. You should see flashes of a bluish light. The benefit to the lifesaver over other crystals is that it also contains oil of wintergreen, which will fluoresce, accentuating the effect.
Bubble power
Article Abstract:
By applying sound waves to a deuterium-rich liquid, pressure oscillations are created that implode tiny bubbles filled with deuterium vapor. The bubbles' violent collapse can cause some of the deuterium nuclei to undergo fusion that is known as 'Sonofusion'. It could become a new source of energy in the future.
sonofusion
Bubble fusion or sonofusion is the common name for a nuclear fusion reaction hypothesized to occur during sonoluminescence, an extreme form of acoustic cavitation; officially, this reaction is termed acoustic inertial confinement fusion (AICF) since the inertia of the collapsing bubble wall confines the energy, causing a rise in temperature. The high temperatures producible through sonoluminescence raises the possibility that it might be a means to achieve thermonuclear fusion.[1]
Contents |
The earliest reference to a sonofusion-type reaction is in US patent 4,333,796 filed by Hugh Flynn in 1978.
Rusi P. Taleyarkhan (ORNL) and colleagues reported in the March 8, 2002, issue of the peer-reviewed journal Science, that acoustic cavitation experiments conducted with deuterated acetone (Template:carbonTemplate:deuteriumTemplate:oxygen) show measurements of tritium andneutron output that are consistent with fusion; in addition the neutron emission was claimed to be coincident with the sonoluminescence pulse.
Shock wave simulations seem to indicate that the temperatures inside the collapsing bubbles may reach up to 10 megakelvins — as hot as the center of the sun. None of the above measurements have been confirmed by a group outside of Taleyarkhan's and are highly debated, recalling the 1989 cold fusion controversy.However, New Energy Times has reported a replication by an unrelated group at a university in Texas. (Researcher Edward Forringer works at LeTourneau University
The researchers used a pulse of neutrons in order to nucleate (i.e., "seed") the tiny bubbles, whereas most previous experiments start with small air bubbles already in the liquid. Using this new method, the team was able to produce stable bubbles that could expand to nearly a millimeter in radius before collapsing. In this way, the researchers stated, they were able to create the conditions necessary to produce very high pressures and temperatures. The sensitivity of the fusion rate to temperature, which is in turn a function of how small the bubbles get when they collapse, in combination with the likely sensitivity of the latter to fine experimental details, may account for the fact that some research workers have claimed to see an effect, while others have not.
Taleyarkhan et al. also prepared identical experiments in non-deuterated (normal) acetone and failed to observe neutron emission or tritium production. Taleyarkhan got the idea of bubble fusion from his friend Dr. Mark Embrechts after a friendly post-dinner chat in 1995.
These experiments were repeated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by D. Shapira and M. J. Saltmarsh with more sophisticated neutron detection equipment and they reported that the neutron release was consistent with random coincidence A rebuttal by Taleyarkhan and the other authors of the original report claimed that the Shapira and Saltmarsh report failed to account for significant differences in experimental setup, including over an inch of shielding between the neutron detector and the sonoluminescing acetone. Taleyarkhan et al. report that when these differences are properly accounted for, the Shapira and Saltmarsh results are consistent with fusion.[unverified]
In addition, Galonsky has shown that by Taleyarkhan's own detector calibration the observed neutrons are too high in energy to be from a d-d fusion reaction. In a rebuttal comment, Taleyarkhan says the energy is "reasonably close" to that which is expected.
In February 2005, the BBC documentary series Horizon commissioned a collaboration between Seth Putterman and Ken Suslick (two leading sonoluminescence researchers) to reproduce Taleyarkhan's work. Using similar acoustic parameters, deuterated acetone, similar bubble nucleation, and a much more sophisticated neutron detection device, the researchers could find no evidence of a fusion reaction. This work was reviewed by a team of four scientists, including an expert in sonoluminescence and an expert in neutron detection, who also concluded that no evidence of fusion could be observed.
In 2004, new claims of bubble fusion were made by the Taleyarkhan group, claiming that the results of previous experiments have been replicated under more stringent experimental conditions. These results differed from the original results in that fusion was occurring for a much longer time frame than previously reported; the original report only showed neutron emission from the initial bubble collapse after the bubble nucleation whereas this report shows neutron emission many acoustic cycles later. The data however was lacking in that too large of a window was used for determination of a coincidence between the neutron emission and sonoluminescence light emission. Also, the energy of the detected neutrons was not consistent with neutrons produced from a fusion reaction. In July 2005, two of Taleyarkhan's students at Purdue University published evidence confirming the previous result. They used the same acoustic chamber, the same deuterated acetone fluid and a similar bubble nucleation system. In this report, no neutron-sonoluminescence coincidence was attempted; also the neutron energy was again not consistent with a neutron produced from a d-d fusion reaction
A report published in the journal Physical Review Letters claims further evidence of fusion. The initial news report, however, shows that the reaction does not always work correctly, and it is not known what parameters change to cause the reaction to function properly versus not function at all.
In November 2006, Edward R. "Ted" Forringer, Ph.D. and undergraduates David Robbins and Jonathan Martin of LeTourneau Universitypresented two papers at the American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting, claiming replication of neutron emission during a visit to the meta-stable fluids research lab at Purdue University. Their experimental setup was similar to the others, using a mixture of deuterated acetone,deuterated benzene, tetrachloroethylene and uranyl nitrate and, notably, operating without an external neutron source and using two types ofneutron detectors. They measured neutron levels at 8 standard deviations above the background level with a liquid scintillation detector, and 3.8 standard deviations above the background with plastic detectors. Measurements were within one standard deviation for the same experiment with a non-deuterated control liquid, demonstrating neutron production only during cavitation of the deuterated liquid.After this report, Purdue's investigation cleared Taleyarkhan of the charges, stating that they "determined that the evidence does not support the allegations of research misconduct and that no further investigation of the allegations is warranted."
A claim as spectacular as the present one naturally arouses a lot of doubt. This culminated in a "special report" published in March 2006 byNature, that calls into question the validity of the results of the Purdue experiments. They quote Brian Naranjo of the University of California, Los Angeles with the claim that the measured spectrum is consistent with radioactive decay of the lab equipment and hence does not necessarily prove the presence of nuclear reactions. The response of Taleyarkhan et al. published in Physical Review Letters attempts to refute Naranjo's hypothesis as to the cause of the neutrons detected.
Doubts about the truthfulness of claims of positive observations have arisen within the Nuclear Engineering faculty of Purdue University
In July 2006, Nature publicized a claim of Seth Putterman, denied by Taleyarkhan, to the effect that DARPA funds were used to support an experiment reported in Physical Review Letters without the source being acknowledged. This may seem a matter of minor importance. Dr. Brian Josephson raised questions as to Nature's motives by pointing out that, in the article, a conspicuous display of Putterman's arguments headed "where did the money go?" is immediately followed by a paragraph devoted to "misuse of federal dollars". Since Putterman does not himself consider funds were misused, it is unclear why such a paragraph should have been included if there were no intent at all to make the reader think this might have been the case.
Another problem with Nature's stance (the journal has stated "[we] believe that we have nothing to apologise for, and nothing to correct")[unverified] is that the accounting details obtained by Putterman do not appear necessarily to support his conclusions. Despite the damaging effects that the publication of a flawed allegation is likely to have had, the journal is still at this time refusing to publish a clarification.
Ethical dimension
The ethical aspect of Nature's coverage of bubble fusion is complementary to that addressed in the above, and has equally been a cause of concern. Taking the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics as the norm, one may note the following in relation to the article concerned:
1. According to the code, journalists should "test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error". As noted above, the accounting details listed in the article do not appear to support Putterman's possibly damaging conclusions: however, they are presented in the article in a way that suggests that they do.
2. Journalists should also "make certain that headlines ... do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context." Merely posing the question "Where did the money go?", which appears very conspicuously in the article, raises in the reader's mind the idea of fraud, a suggestion that the article itself does not in any way support.
New Energy Times writer Steven Krivit poses some questions about Nature's coverage in his piece "On Science, Journalism, and Nature".
INTRODUCTION TO SONOFUSION
To help with the monitoring of the device and its D2O environment the SL, sonoluminescence, photon emission was measured using a photomultiplier. SL is always associated with TCB production and has been studied throughout the world for years, but is still not understood. This puzzle has support from a varied spread of theories. The advantage of SL measurements provides direct knowledge of the device's TCB plasma condition as photons are emitted relate to the dissociation of D2O into deuterons, D+.
Power is generated from TCBs produced in D2O. D2O fuel is found in ordinary water to the extent of one part in 6000 and is potentially a million years of the world's energy supply. The amount of energy that can be extracted from D2O is 1 million times that of gasoline. The cost of very high grade D2O is 50 cents a gram and this one gram is more than enough to power a car for its lifetime (Einstein's mc2). The car will wear out before running out of its fifty grams of fuel. The reaction product of this fuel is helium with no long range radiation by-products as measured in the Los Alamos National Laboratory and my twenty years of experience working with this cavitation process. Like the puzzle of SL, the lack of radiation products in the sonofusion phenomenon is explained by several published theories and is still controversial.
The experimental apparatus, data collected and its graphical representation are presented on page 2 and needs more explanation. The sonofusion device is very small and at this point is the size of a wristwatch weighing 20 grams, producing 40 watts, and using 1 gm of D2O. These small devices can be ganged together to form a battery like device of any size with a high energy density. To avoid overheating it is important to remove the heat quickly.
1.6 MHz device sonofusion device (Series A)
Experimental | Data Plot |
|
Data Plot. Graph I shows the resultant, purple , of three parameters (Qx, Qi, and SL) measured during the initial experiments of Series A with the low mass 1.6 MHz sonofusion device. SL, sonoluminescence, indicates the presence of the high density partial plasma from the collapse of TCBs in D2O. The TCB collapse process produces jets during the last stage of the bubble collapse. These jets contain D+ and e- plasma that are accelerated into a metal target where sonofusion takes place producing Qx, excess heat. Qi is the 60 cycle input from the wall which is related to Qa, driving the 1.6 MHz acoustic power oscillator. The acoustic input to the sonofusion device Qa equals 0.33 of Qi.
Low Mass 1.6 MHz Sonofusion Reactor
ABSTRACT
We are using one of the most remarkable pulsing systems that nature offers for producing
transient high energy densities and I have been fortunate enough to be involved with it for over
20 years. Over time we have increased the frequency of our piezo cavitation drivers and are now
at 1.6 MHz and find that our results are the same. Even better, the Qx /(reactor gm), the energy
density, is drastically increased when compared to our 40 and 20 KHz piezo systems [1,2,3]. The
cost is decreased by at least an order of magnitude and the durability is greatly increased. All Q
values in this paper are dQ/dt Joules/sec. or watts. The systems differ in several ways because of
the 40 times increase in frequency. These 1.6 MHz systems produce more sonoluminescence,
SL, and more but smaller bubbles and an energy density in the collapsing bubble system that is
the same magnitude as the 40KHz systems [4,5]. In one cycle those small bubbles, initially a
few hundred nm in diameter, that are resonance size for the 1.6 MHz input will grow
isothermally. After the acoustic wave passes into its positive pressure phase the bubbles collapse
violently keeping a portion of their energy. In the final stage of collapse the energy densities are
literally astronomical. The collapse process produces from the bubble a jet that implants
deuterons into a target foil. The time frame for this 1.6 MHz system is 40 times faster than for
the 40 KHz system. The number of deuterons (protons) in the jet drops from 109 to 105 but the deuteron high density remains the same. The 1.6 MHz low mass, LM, device (weighing 20 gm) produces the same excess heat, Qx, as the 40 KHz system (weighing 3 Kgm). The calorimetry is a D2O or H2O flow-through system measuring its T in and T out with a DT value probably a little lower than the true value. The flow of D2O is measured at 60 ml/min. or 1 ml/sec. The total errors in the Qx measurements are in the order of 2 watts. These values range up to 40 watts depending on acoustic input, temperature, pressure, cavitating liquid and target.
We are using one of the most remarkable pulsing systems that nature offers for producing
transient high energy densities and I have been fortunate enough to be involved with it for over
20 years. Over time we have increased the frequency of our piezo cavitation drivers and are now
at 1.6 MHz and find that our results are the same. Even better, the Qx /(reactor gm), the energy
density, is drastically increased when compared to our 40 and 20 KHz piezo systems [1,2,3]. The
cost is decreased by at least an order of magnitude and the durability is greatly increased. All Q
values in this paper are dQ/dt Joules/sec. or watts. The systems differ in several ways because of
the 40 times increase in frequency. These 1.6 MHz systems produce more sonoluminescence,
SL, and more but smaller bubbles and an energy density in the collapsing bubble system that is
the same magnitude as the 40KHz systems [4,5]. In one cycle those small bubbles, initially a
few hundred nm in diameter, that are resonance size for the 1.6 MHz input will grow
isothermally. After the acoustic wave passes into its positive pressure phase the bubbles collapse
violently keeping a portion of their energy. In the final stage of collapse the energy densities are
literally astronomical. The collapse process produces from the bubble a jet that implants
deuterons into a target foil. The time frame for this 1.6 MHz system is 40 times faster than for
the 40 KHz system. The number of deuterons (protons) in the jet drops from 109 to 105 but the deuteron high density remains the same. The 1.6 MHz low mass, LM, device (weighing 20 gm) produces the same excess heat, Qx, as the 40 KHz system (weighing 3 Kgm). The calorimetry is a D2O or H2O flow-through system measuring its T in and T out with a DT value probably a little lower than the true value. The flow of D2O is measured at 60 ml/min. or 1 ml/sec. The total errors in the Qx measurements are in the order of 2 watts. These values range up to 40 watts depending on acoustic input, temperature, pressure, cavitating liquid and target.
INTRODUCTION
Over 15 years ago in 1989 I heard about the experimental work by Fleischmann and Pons at the University of Utah
or so we produced helium four, tritium, and Qx. In 1998 EQuest was dissolved and transformed
into First Gate Energies with Dick Raymond still president. We were producing excess heat
using a 40 KHz system in amounts very similar to what we are producing today with our LM 1.6
MHz device.[1]
into First Gate Energies with Dick Raymond still president. We were producing excess heat
using a 40 KHz system in amounts very similar to what we are producing today with our LM 1.6
MHz device.[1]
We moved our laboratory from Mountain View , CA Kilauea , Kauai , HI
efforts here have been directed to the LM 1.6 MHz sonofusion device. We have limited
resources so have lowered our goals to cutting costs and doing calorimetry experiments with the
measurement of Qx production. At this time we cannot afford to look for the products of Qx
production - the expensive analysis of helium and associated products. These products have been
found in the past [2,3] in our lower frequency reactors. The investigation was undertaken to
advance sonofusion technology and to find better and more compelling data showing Q
efforts here have been directed to the LM 1.6 MHz sonofusion device. We have limited
resources so have lowered our goals to cutting costs and doing calorimetry experiments with the
measurement of Qx production. At this time we cannot afford to look for the products of Qx
production - the expensive analysis of helium and associated products. These products have been
found in the past [2,3] in our lower frequency reactors. The investigation was undertaken to
advance sonofusion technology and to find better and more compelling data showing Q
Bubble bursts for ‘sono-fusion’
A new study has cast further doubt on controversial claims made earlier this year that nuclear fusion was achieved in a bench-top ‘sonoluminescence’ experiment. In the first measurements of their kind, Yuri Didenko and Kenneth Suslick of the University of Illinois US
Bubbles trapped in a liquid can be forced to expand and contract by firing acoustic pulses into the liquid. When a bubble expands, molecules from the surrounding liquid evaporate into it. This vapour is then compressed when the bubble contracts, and can reach temperatures and pressures that are high enough to kick-start chemical reactions and spark the emission of light – a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence.
In March, physicists in the US
Now Didenko and Suslick have shed some light on the controversy by studying how the acoustic energy is distributed between chemical reactions, light emission and bubble collapse during sonoluminescence. To do this, they created a bubble – which was 30 µm across – in a water-filled cell, and made it oscillate using an acoustic signal with a frequency of 52 kHz.
To monitor the production of hydroxyl ions, nitrous oxide ions and photons in the bubble – which contained air and water vapour – the pair used fluorescence techniques and spectroscopy. Measurements were made at both 3 and 22 °C.
At its largest, the bubble had a potential energy of several MeV, and the researchers found that most of this energy is dissipated as shock waves and motion in the surrounding liquid. They also discovered that less than a millionth of this energy is converted into light, but about a thousandth of the energy is used to ionize the molecules of water vapour in the bubble.
According to Didenko and Suslick, this suggests that chemical reactions would soak up too much of the energy for nuclear fusion to take place, especially for bubbles in volatile liquids like acetone. The molecules of vapour in such bubbles are complex, and would absorb much more energy than the water vapour that they studied. But Suslick does concede that “the possibility of fusion occurring in low-volatility fluids – such as liquid metals and molten salts – cannot be ruled out at this time.”
There have been previous studies of the chemical reactions and light production associated with sonoluminescence, but these have focused on clouds of bubbles rather than single ones. These experiments have been difficult to interpret because it is hard to tell how many of the bubbles in the cloud are active at any one time.
THUS CONCLUDED AS
"Sonoluminescence arises from acoustic cavitation -- the formation, growth and implosion of small gas bubbles in a liquid blasted with sound waves above 18,000 cycles per second. The collapse of these bubbles generates intense local heating."
NOTE: The informations framed are from various internet resources.so there may be some errors and mistakes. mail me your views and queries .
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