What's really happening in Cold-Fusion experiments

yevaud · Mar 8, 2005

Overheating bubbles (from the Alchemist, Chemweb Newsletter) The idea of sustainable and useful desktop fusion remains a controversial field, but studies into related laboratory effects continue. Now, Ken Suslick and David Flannigan of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated that the temperature inside a collapsing sonoluminescent bubble is four times the temperature of the surface of the sun. "When bubbles in a liquid get compressed, the insides get hot - very hot," explains Suslick, but until now nobody has measured this temperature. Sonoluminescence arises from acoustic cavitation when small gas bubbles in a liquid are "irradiated" with sound waves above 18 kHz. As the bubbles collapse intense local heating occurs, which produces light. Suslick and Flannigan observed the spectra of the light, which reveals the bubble's incredibly high temperature, and suggest that such temperatures could only arise from a plasma. Temperature inside collapsing bubble four times that of sun James E. Kloeppel, Physical Sciences Editor CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Using a technique employed by astronomers to determine stellar surface temperatures, chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have measured the temperature inside a single, acoustically driven collapsing bubble. Their results seem out of this world. "When bubbles in a liquid get compressed, the insides get hot - very hot," said Ken Suslick, the Marvin T. Schmidt Professor of Chemistry at Illinois and a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. "Nobody has been able to measure the temperature inside a single collapsing bubble before. The temperature we measured - about 20,000 degrees Kelvin - is four times hotter than the surface of our sun." This result, reported in the March 3 issue of the journal Nature by Suslick and graduate student David Flannigan, already has raised eyebro <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

vogon13 · Mar 8, 2005

Please check your 38000 degree figure, IIRC it's orders of magnitude low. Additionally, success of a fusion reaction depends on temperature and pressure. Increase pressure, you can lower temp and vice versa. Believe sum of multiplication of temp and pressure (in correct units) is a constant. This little detail has thwarted many home nuclear weapons projects. (heh heh, little joke there) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

yevaud · Mar 8, 2005

Oooh, pardon me. I did mean 40 million. *Blah* Dyslexia of the fingers... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

Saiph · Mar 9, 2005

picked this little tidbit up in class a few weeks ago. You can fuse He3 at room temperature....if you meet certain conditions. 1) It has to be dense, so that the likely hood of #2 is reasonable. 2) A Muon (similar to, but much heavier than, and electron) orbits two He3 atoms. 3) This lowers the energy enough that they tend to fuse into He4 + 2 H. Viola! Fusion. I think its He3 anyway....it may be Deuturium (H2)... The catch: Getting it dense enough for this to happen at a reasonable rate. And finding a significant source of muons. And this is the problem. The only natural source I can think of (and the only main one at any rate) is the spotty, and random, cosmic rays. So this isn't a feasible approach. Unless we find something that makes a lot of muons. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

yevaud · Mar 9, 2005

Ummm, the Sun comes to mind... <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> Well. I just had this concept that the cold fusion experiments were accomplishing something like this. I just couldn't see how you could meet the thermal requirements for fusion in such an experiment. But this *is* an intriguing result. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

najab · Mar 9, 2005

So, what I'm hearing is that you can fuse He3 at room temperature - if that room happens to be on the surface of the Sun??! <img src="/images/icons/shocked.gif" /> <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" />

Saiph · Mar 9, 2005

okay, but for it to work, you need enough anti-matter..... Surface of the sun is, btw, 6,000 degrees kelvin. Not to bad, compared to the ~40 million for standardd fusion. Cosmic Rays are interstellar phenomena, as they come from stellar explosions IIRC. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

yevaud · Mar 9, 2005

I would suspect, given the energy requirements for producing any significant amounts of contra-terrene matter, that you would actually go backwards, with respect to "break-even." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Mar 10, 2005

Yep, true. I was always suspicious about the supposed "results," because other than heat, they didn't find any of the hallmarks of true fusion. No increased neutron flux (though they kept saying, "brief, tantalizing hints of..."). No ionizing radiation. And, yeah, although I am to the understanding that currently, they're at a factor of 5 short of breakeven, though that's still a long ways away. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

najab · Mar 10, 2005

>...thousands of times less than what is needed for fusion, which requires about 100 M K to work...Two words: Farnsworth Fuser.

Saiph · Mar 10, 2005

yevaud: I'm not sure when exactly you achieved it, but congrats on becomming a star. as for fusion, the real deal with tokamaks, they've hit breakeven. They hit that a while ago. The problem is, they can't sustain it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

yevaud · Mar 10, 2005

Thanks. It occurred lst night. Hmm. Didn't know that...clearly, someone hasn't been keeping up with his phyics news lately... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

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