Historical research guide · 0568 · 1989
Observation of cold nuclear fusion in condensed matter
S. E. Jones · E. P. Palmer · J. B. Czirr · D. L. Decker · G. L. Jensen · J. M. Thorne · S. F. Taylor · J. Rafelski
In one minute
Steven Jones and his Brigham Young University colleagues, with Johann Rafelski at Arizona, came to the laboratory from geology. Helium-3 leaks out of the Earth’s mantle far faster than ordinary chemistry can make it, and a fusion rate fifty orders of magnitude above what an isolated hydrogen molecule allows would account for it. So they built cells that copy volcanic hot-spring chemistry — heavy water, a mix of metal salts, a titanium or palladium cathode — and set them on top of a neutron spectrometer sensitive enough to identify single neutrons by energy. Passing a low-voltage current through the cells produced a small but clear excess of neutrons at 2.45 million electronvolts, the one energy deuterium-deuterium fusion is allowed to make, standing about five standard deviations above background. Runs with ordinary water, and heavy-water runs with the current off, gave nothing. Their reading: deuterons squeezed inside the metal lattice are fusing, slowly, at room temperature.
Connection
This is chapter 12’s founding measurement in the peer-reviewed literature, and it is a measurement of particles rather than of heat — neutrons at one specific energy, with the null runs published alongside, which is chapter 1’s evidence ladder in its cleanest form. It also states, from the data, the condition the whole site turns on: fusion in a lattice appears when the system is driven away from equilibrium and not when it sits at rest. Read it beside Biberian’s twenty-year review of heat-producing cells at /library/stm-441a1f0531 and Storms’ attempt at a mechanism at /library/stm-6d1f76a598.
From the source
When a current is passed through palladium or titanium electrodes immersed in an electrolyte of deuterated water and various metal salts, a small but significant flux of neutrons is detected; fusion of deuterons within the metal lattice may be the explanation.Opening summary, page 737
The neutron spectrometer, a liquid organic scintillator with lithium-6-doped glass plates embedded in it, identifies a neutron only when both media give a signal within 20 microseconds; against that background, the foreground spectrum shows a feature centred where 2.45 million electronvolt neutrons must fall, with a statistical significance of almost five standard deviations.Detection of cold-fusion neutrons; Figures 2 and 3
Background runs used the same operating cells with ordinary water in place of heavy water, and both new and previously used heavy-water cells with no current flowing; every individual background run was featureless, so the feature follows the deuterium and the current rather than the apparatus or the room.Detection of cold-fusion neutrons, background paragraphs
For the strongest run, using about three grams of fused titanium pellets as the cathode, the inferred rate for the neutron branch of deuteron-deuteron fusion is about ten to the minus twenty-three fusions per deuteron pair per second, rising to perhaps ten to the minus twenty if most fusions happen near the surface or the lattice is far from saturated.Fusion rate determination, equation (4)
No evidence for fusion was seen in equilibrated deuterated metals or compounds, from which the authors conclude that non-equilibrium conditions are essential, and that electrolysis is one way — not the only way — to produce them.Fusion rate determination, closing paragraphs
The neutron signal switched off after about eight hours, in more than one run, as the cathode surfaces developed a coating that electron microprobe analysis showed to be mostly iron plated out of solution — evidence that surface condition governs the effect, and the authors’ own named task for future research.Fusion rate determination, runs 6, 7, 13 and 14; Figure 4
The way in
https://doi.org/10.1038/338737a0How to cite it
S. E. Jones, E. P. Palmer, J. B. Czirr, D. L. Decker, G. L. Jensen, J. M. Thorne, S. F. Taylor, J. Rafelski (1989) Observation of cold nuclear fusion in condensed matter doi:10.1038/338737a0