On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 9:42 PM, Eric Walker <[email protected]> wrote:
In order to have fusion under chemical conditions, you have to find a way > to bridge the gap in energy between the chemical realm, in eVs, and the > nuclear realm, in MeVs. Conveniently, the K shell of the Pd atom has 20KeV > of ionization energy. If a K shell electron is kicked out (by a photon, > for example), the resulting hole will potentially attract a proton or > deuteron nearby, transferring 20KeV to the incoming particle. If there are > two such holes, and two deuterons are brought in, they will meet with > sufficient energy to fuse. The resulting alpha particle will then race > through the neighborhood of the fusion event, ionizing Pd atoms as it goes > and giving rise to new holes in turn. > I believe I got that backwards -- I imagine the protons would be kicked outwards, away from the nucleus, rather than inwards, towards the nucleus. Eric
