PhysicsWorld
is reporting on a Japanese breakthough in energy generation with the
apparent demonstration of cold fusion in front of a gathered audience.
Although it sounds like a dubious made for television
spectacle, emeritus physics professor, Yoshiaki Arata, from Osaka
University, Japan performed a demonstration of cold fusion on
Saturday. In front of an audience of about 60 people from
Japanese universities and companies, some foreigners and gathered media
from six major newspapers and two TV stations, Prof. Arata
created a heat generating reaction he claims to be due to cold fusion.
The process consisted of Arata and his co-researcher
Yue-Chang Zhang, forcing deuterium gas under pressure
into an evacuated cell. The cell contains palladium dispersed in
zirconium oxide. Arata claims the deuterium is absorbed by the
Palladium sample to produce dense or "pynco" deuterium.
The deuterium nuclei are then close enough to fuse releasing
heat and helium. After the injection of deuterium gas, the
temperature rose to about 70 °C, which according to Arata was
due to both chemical and nuclear reactions. With the gas turned off
the temperature in the centre of the cell remained
significantly warmer than the cell wall for 50 hours.
Posted 26th May 2008
|
