Stephen A. Lawrence writes,
Second, it took a while for it to sink in, but they kept talking about "anomalously low neutron counts" -- tritium was found, with just one neutron being emitted per ~ 10^7 tritium atoms produced. I don't understand this. They were using pure D20, so H+D->T is not a candidate reaction; in fact, it would appear that D+D->T+n is the only path that seems likely to produce tritium. But then, where did the neutrons go?
Back in 1990 when Bockris first found tritium in LENR - he believed that it was technically NOT a fusion product at all, but instead was a fission product (from the lithium electrolyte).
Beyond that, the specific details and rationale for this reaction may have changed over the years -
...but recently a most unusual proposition is being floated around -a 'quasi-spontaneous' photofission of 7Li --> 4He +3H in which the 7Li could be either natural, or a previously undescribed nuclear isomer (deformed nucleus) of lithium.
Like most putative LENR reactions - this is largely unknown to the mainstream. There is some basis for believing that at least some LENR tritium reactions (with a lithium electrolyte) could be described as "photofission." The closest thing for comparison in hot fusion is the spallation reaction, in which a neutron is "boiled off" of a high Z nucleus by the close approach (NOT Impact) of an approaching light nucleus. The "photo" part comes from a photon-exchange.
The reason that a deuteron could conceivably do this - and not a proton - is the partial electrostatic "shielding effect" of the neutron.
The assumption being that for a brief time, the approaching-deuteron's neutron could shield it from the nuclear positive charge of 7Li (which can be also partly shielded by its 4 neutrons - a most unusual ratio for a light nucleus) allowing that deuteron to get close enough to where it will cause an electroweak disruption, and subsequent photofission.
IOW the 'occasional' deuteron (on Boltzman's tail of energy) will be accelerated to decent velocity - at the surface of Pd as it is first brought into the electron shell of the Pd but then expelled - so that it actually goes part of the way inside the electron shell of the Li, and it is able to get closer to this nucleus than would a proton of the same velocity, because of the partial shielding effect.
It would not surprise the more cynical observer to discover that this is already being done secretly by DoD.
Jones
