Purdue probes 'cold fusion' fraud claim (CNN/Reuters)

[eppur_se_muova]

Well, this could go in either Science or EE...here goes...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Purdue University is investigating complaints about a scientist who claimed to have achieved "cold fusion" using sound waves to make bubbles in a test tube, the university said on Wednesday.

Nuclear engineer Rusi Taleyarkhan's work has been controversial since he published a study in 2002 claiming to have achieved the Holy Grail of energy production -- nuclear fusion at room temperature.
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Taleyarkhan, whose study was published while he was at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, now works at Purdue University in Indiana and has also been trying to replicate his earlier findings.
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The journal Nature reported on Wednesday that it had interviewed several of Taleyarkhan's colleagues who suspect something is amiss.
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more at: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/03/08/fusion.probe.reut/index.html

[northzax]

1. fusion at room temperature just doesn't make a lot of sense

I don't understand (and I may be an idiot) why anyone would want it in the first place. Isn't the whole idea that fusion reactions release energy in the form of heat, allowing for power generation? Without heat, how do you generate power? What's the point? can anyone explain this to my idiotic mind?

[zipplewrath]

2. The reaction occurs at room temp

The expression refers to the ability to cause a fusion reaction without having to raise the temperature of the component particles to insanely high temperatures. Once the reaction occured, heat would be released. In these small test tube reactions being asserted, precious little heat would be released relative to a steam generator. It would have to be scaled up and the efficiency of the process enhanced to be usable.

[northzax]

5. so the idea is that it is 'cold' comparatively

before the reaction. got it.

[ramblin_dave]

3. Fusion releases a lot of energy

but current methods require enormous energy to produce the conditions for fusion to occur, more than you get from the fusion itself. If fusion could take place at or near room temperature, then the result would heat water, make steam etc.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Heat production doesn't necessarily correlate with high temp.

Granted, heat recovery is more efficient if the reactor runs at high temps -- that's a limitation of thermodynamics. But since heat is drawn out of a reactor as more heat is produced, the actual reactor temp is a matter of equilibrium. Energy could also be converted to electricity or pressure (not necessarily steam), or even H2. (I'm just saying "in principle", since these experiments are at such an early stage it's not clear what energy capture would ultimately involve)

IMO, it's likely that if "cold" fusion ever worked, it would still be run at high temps for efficiency in the energy conversion step. But the temps involved could be more normal industrial temps, not the MILLIONS of degrees required for "conventional" fusion.

[phantom power]

7. cold fusion aside, this variant would really be hot fusion.

As the bubbles contract, they heat up to some enormous temperature, allowing for fusion. Or, so the story goes.

There's another "desktop hot fusion" method which has been verified, but it's not considered promising for power generation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroelectric_fusion


For true "cold fusion," the actual fusion of the nuclei is (in theory) catalyzed in some way. The infamous Pons/Fleischman apparatus supposedly catalyzed the fusion with a platinum electrode. The nuclei were (supposedly) squeezed into some super-close configuration by the platinum lattice, and it allowed them to fuse. Of course, it all turned out to be a bogus interpretation of their experimental results.

[Ian David]

6. I thought "Cold Fusion" was a euphemism for Necrophilia

Learn something new every day.

I need to call Doctors Fleishman and Pons and apologize for insulting them.

[Odin2005]

8. Cold Fusion = BS

[Dogmudgeon]

9. A.k.a. Sonoluminescence

It's an interesting phenomenon, and some scientists have wondered whether the process behind it is some kind of nuclear reaction. But the effect has only been well-described for about a decade (IIRC), so nearly anything that's published is going to attract controversy.

The temperature in the center of these bubbles has been measured -- tentatively -- in the million-Kelvins range. Of course, it lasts for a very brief time. If some method can be devised to coax a very high EROEI out of this technology, then it would be a tremendous energy breakthrough, whether it's fusion or not.

--p!