ultra-dense deuterium

Reflections on fusion history, current events, and predictions for the 'fusion powered future.
Post Reply
Nanos
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 1:52 am
Real name:
Contact:

ultra-dense deuterium

Post by Nanos »

User avatar
Chris Bradley
Posts: 2930
Joined: Fri May 02, 2008 7:05 am
Real name:

Re: ultra-dense deuterium

Post by Chris Bradley »

Who can say if this has a future fusion power application? I would simply say that where there is ultradense deuterium, so there are ultradense electrons. It is, in a manner of speaking, the e-'s that suck up, thermalise and radiate all that lovely energy you try to pump into matter with laser/beam/fast particle energy.
Nanos
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 1:52 am
Real name:
Contact:

Re: ultra-dense deuterium

Post by Nanos »

I wasn't sure if the article was just badly written/translated, or they was talking about a new type of deuterium.
Dan Tibbets
Posts: 578
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:29 am
Real name:

Re: ultra-dense deuterium

Post by Dan Tibbets »

I presume that they are actively compressing the deuterium with an arrangement of laser beams. Again, presumably at the cost of considerable energy. Once the lasers are turned off the deuterium would presumably relax to its native density- ie no storage capability unless you stuff it into a 100,000 atm. tolorant storage tank. I'm not sure what applicability this would have for fusion untill you heat it up to a few 10 millions degrees. You have to compress and heat the deuterium irregardless to generate fusion. I'm not sure where the advantage in having this intermediate step would be. Perhaps having a laser assembly to compress the deuterium to this intermediate state, then in the nanoseconds befor the compressed deuterium can relax, hit it with the second laser bank to produce the small volume -high density enviorment for net positive laser based inertial confinment deuterium fusion. ie- if the single step laser (like the NIF) doesn't cut it , having the multistage, increased complexity system might do the trick. The horbolium (sp?) would be very different and presumably much more challenging to design.

The comments about fusing deuterium to produce helium and hydrogen (proton) without radiation is incorrect from my limited knoledge. Deuterium can produce tritium and a proton, or He3 and a neutron, not helium (He3 or He4) and a proton. The comment about deuterium in large planets (or any planet for that matter) and baby stars is well known and nothing new.


Dan Tibbets
User avatar
Carl Willis
Posts: 2841
Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2001 7:33 pm
Real name: Carl Willis
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Contact:

Re: ultra-dense deuterium

Post by Carl Willis »

The Insciences post was pretty sorry, lacking much of a clue as to what physically was going on and useful citations or links were absent.

Nonetheless, thanks to Nanos for getting the ball rolling. With the help of a research database I provide the following two topical papers (with the usual disclaimer: if Elsevier or Springer get their knickers in a knot over the posting, they are welcome to whine like rich spoiled brats and I will take the stuff down post-haste and publicly credit them for the removal).

An enticing piece of information in the papers is this:

>The condensed atomic hydrogen phase called H(1) [...] can be
>produced in macroscopic quantities by a catalytic process at
>low pressure and temperature (a few hundred deg. C).

The experiments in which the D(-1) was made don't look too difficult and that really surprised me. I'm sure plenty of the armchair types will read the papers and immediately offer all sorts of bongwater-induced musings and the cold-fusion types will find a way to feed more grist to their mill, but I think there's no doubt that this is an interesting development that might have fusion relevance.

-Carl
Attachments
Badiei_Shahriar.pdf
(391.83 KiB) Downloaded 189 times
Badiei_Shahriar2.pdf
(379.97 KiB) Downloaded 232 times
Carl Willis
http://carlwillis.wordpress.com/
TEL: +1-505-412-3277
Dan Tibbets
Posts: 578
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:29 am
Real name:

Re: ultra-dense deuterium

Post by Dan Tibbets »

I lightly read the two PDFs, I didn't understand what they were saying in any detail, though in the second paper they do claim that small 'clusters' of dense hydrogen or deuterium (somewhat similar to metallic hydrogen) can be stable to extranious forces for unstated but apparently significant time frames. By stable I assume they do not immediatly blow themself's apart ( what I assume thay mean by 'Coulomb explosions')once removed from thier creating conditions. If this is true and the survival time is long enough I could see the uses of this material for the claimed benifits in LCF being an applicable process. Of course that doesn't mean it would be guarenteed to ba a real profitable fusion technique, just like all the other current fusion approaches.


Dan Tibbets
User avatar
Chris Bradley
Posts: 2930
Joined: Fri May 02, 2008 7:05 am
Real name:

Re: ultra-dense deuterium

Post by Chris Bradley »

Carl Willis wrote:
> I'm sure plenty of the armchair types will read the papers and immediately offer all sorts of bongwater-induced musings and the cold-fusion types will find a way to feed more grist to their mill, but I think there's no doubt that this is an interesting development that might have fusion relevance.
I support your sentiment, Carl, but let's not forget the inverse matter - plenty of academically anchored sources these days appear to be coming up with their own bongwater!
User avatar
Richard Hull
Moderator
Posts: 14992
Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2001 9:44 am
Real name: Richard Hull

Re: ultra-dense deuterium

Post by Richard Hull »

Carl and Chris are correct. Nothing can be said yet. the article is intrinsically worthless and a layman's feel good article pushing today's green energy agenda which is oh so pretty.

This is an amazing find if it is true. I imagine Carl and others are as stunned as I am over such a thing as ostensibly stable deuterium at such densities. A bit of a redo on the thinking of condensed matter, crystal structures, etc., may be in order, or we may find it is not exactly what we think it is.

I stand waiting for more scientific clarification and useful minutia about why this happens, if it does at all. If this stuff is stable to any useful degree, it puts a lot of theory on its ear or, as the paper intimates, current theory can be adapted to explain all.

Based on what I read, this stuff is not really being made, per se, but is being detected. It is "suggested" that macroscopic quantities can be made. Oh well.

We seem to be able to make a lot of stuff that nature won't allow at our temperatures and pressures in its quest for lowest potential energy in systems.

Can't wait to order some of the D (-1) online. If you can see it with the eye, shipping might have to go freight, so buyer beware.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Post Reply

Return to “Fusion --- Past, Present, and Future”