At 08:26 AM 10/9/2009, Horace Heffner wrote:
On Oct 8, 2009, at 6:58 PM, [email protected] wrote:
However in your deflation fusion model there is *always* an
electron present in
the newly formed He4* (because that's what catalyzed the reaction
in the first
place). There is therefore nothing to hinder the formation of He4
by disposing
of the excess energy as kinetic energy of the electron, which has
to be expelled
anyway. That neatly explains the change in branching ratios without
resorting to
any exchange with the ZPE.
Your assertion demonstrates the diagnostic importance of tritium
doping to determination of the reaction mechanism. The correlation of
heat with He4 is difficult due to the difficulty of measuring the
total amount of He4 produced, and specifically the amount remaining
in the lattice. See:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Hagelsteinnewphysica.pdf
I'll agree that there are a series of experiments
that should be performed, some of which would be,
one would think, fairly simple, though not
necessarily easily accessible to just anyone to
test. I don't think I can go down to my friendly
on-line chemical supplier and have some tritium
mailed to me. But with standard codep cells,
someone with access to tritium could indeed test this without much fuss.
Which, for example, states:
The rate of helium production (atoms/s) varies linearly with
excess power (see Figure 6).
Which is, of course, diagnostic. It wouldn't tell
us the exact branching ratio, but it would give
an upper bound for the energy/He-4 ratio.
The amount of helium observed in the gas stream is generally
within a factor of about 2 less than would be
expected for a reaction mechanism consistent with D+D â 4He.
Which is of interest particularly with, say, the
Takahashi theory that a primary mechanism may be
the reaction 4d -> Be-8 -> 2He-4, which is a
reaction that requires no messy momentum transfer
to the lattice, with the alpha particles being
generated with equal and opposite momentum; so
half of them would be on a vector inward to the
cathode and would be absorbed there and generally unable to easily escape.
Helium is partially retained, and dissolved helium is released
only slowly to the gas phase for analysis.
If I'm correct, however, SRI did do more exhaustive analysis in one case,
It would be an interesting test of Takahashi's
theory to see if tritium doping has a significant
effect. Tritium should be irrelevant to the basic
reaction, if it's through Be-8, until the tritium
ratio was large enough to suppress that reaction
and perhaps allow another, or not. It would be
lovely to test with high concentration T2O, but
that's not an experiment I'd be doing in my
kitchen, and it would be expensive even in labs that could do it.
It simply is very difficult to establish with high sigma results
whether energy is produced at 23.8 MeV or 18.8 MeV per He4, or
something in between.
Storms reports (2007, p. 90), from SRI, in a
single experiment where great care was taken to
recover as much helium as possible, 24.8 +/- 2.5
MeV/He-4, which is consistent with the 23.8 value
and not with 18.8. Storms concludes that the Q
value is 25 +/- 5 MeV/He-4, based on "all
measurements," i.e., all the reports with
sufficient information to analyze. As Storms
notes, this certainly does not prove that the
reaction is the 2d fusion reaction that, with no
loss of energy through gamma emission, would
predict 23.8, other reactions are possible and,
if course, I'll note the reaction with the Be-8
intermediary would do exactly that.
In the case of the fusion reaction:
D + T -> He4 (3.5 MeV) + n (14.1 MeV)
it is much easier to determine if the energy spectrum of the
neutrons, which result from every such reaction, is consistent with a
mean of 14.1 MeV. I think there is in fact some indication that the
neutrons resulting from cold fusion are considerably less than 14.1
MeV on average. This is because only a few percent are above 9.4
MeV. It remains for the spectrum to be nailed down. I think this is
the most important experimental work at hand.
Because it's relatively easy, I'll be looking for
neutrons, using LR-115 detectors with a Be-10
converter screen. The screen will presumably
detect thermal neutrons with energies below a
certain level; higher-energy neutrons will be
detected in the same manner as are the neutrons
reported by the SPAWAR group. Once these cells
are nailed down and characterized, trying tritium
doping would be an open pathway. The reaction
described, though, couldn't be the predominant
one because the energy release per He-4 is way
too low. The neutron energy would mostly escape
the cell and not generate heat; and we'd have
lots of neutrons per unit of excess heat, and the dead graduate student effect.
I think only the D-T reaction energy data can be expected to provide
a precise answer to what mechanism is at work in cold fusion.
If, indeed, there is any significant D-T reaction
at all. If a primary reaction produces tritons,
those that don't thermalize would fuse with the
deuterium massively present, according to
Mosier-Boss, due to the high fusion cross-section for that reaction.
I need to investigate the use of "hydrogen-rich
material" as a neutron moderator, because, with
the Be-10 converter, detecting thermal neutrons
is much more efficient, and the behavior of the
neutrons with different thicknesses of moderator would indicate the energy.
(If I get an increase in tracks on the LR-115
detectors, with an increase in thickness of
moderator material, that could only be from neutrons, if I'm correct.)
(I'm looking for cheap, simple stuff to do. If
it's difficult, it's not going to be possible for
me, I assume. I'll be hanging some LR-115
detectors in the cell above the electrolyte,
because that's very cheap, and may show Oriani
radiation. Or maybe I'll use CR-39 for that....
I'd expect the LR-115 detectors, however, to be
stable in the effluent gas. I'm not so sure about
immersion in the electroylte.... )
