What did Fleischmann and Pons do?

What did Fleischmann and Pons do?

Fusion is the energy source of stars, like our sun. Inside the sun, fusion takes place at about 27,000,000° F. Pons and Fleischmann attempted to produce fusion at just 70° F and to fuse together pairs of deuterium atoms. Commonly found in seawater, a deuterium atom is a hydrogen atom with one extra neutron.

What were Stanley Pons Martin Fleischmann?

In March 1989, electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, at the University of Utah, announced that they had “established a sustained nuclear fusion reaction” at room temperature. The fundamental reason was that the products of their experiments looked nothing like deuterium-deuterium (D+D) fusion.

Why did the peer review process not catch problems with Pons and Fleischmann’s research?

Adequate peer review might have caught a serious flaw in Pons and Fleischmann’s logic—they had incorrectly calculated the magnitudes of the forces acting on deuterium while inside palla- dium. The correct calculation revealed forces much, much smaller—too small to push deuterium atoms close enough together to fuse.

What is the longest sustained fusion reaction?

The formidable reactor reached 120 million degrees Celsius for an astounding 101 seconds. China has set a new record for sustained nuclear plasma reaction. The “artificial sun” tokamak reactor ran at 120 million Celsius for 101 seconds.

What would happen if cold fusion worked?

That’s an understatement. If low-temperature fusion does exist and can be perfected, power generation could be decentralized. Each home could heat itself and produce its own electricity, probably using a form of water as fuel. Even automobiles might be cold fusion powered.

Why is cold fusion not possible?

The direct conversion of fusion energy into heat is not possible because of energy and momentum conservation and the laws of special relativity. Energetic particles and their secondary effects should be easily detectable if the claimed levels of excess power were the result of fusion reactions.

Could a fusion reactor create a black hole?

So in short: No. Nuclear fission cannot generate black holes. Nor could nuclear fusion reactors (if they ever become feasible). However, micro-black holes ARE possible (in theory), but if one did form, it wouldn’t be able to do any damage to Earth.