Word: deuterium
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...while before it starts pouring taxpayers' & money into Utah's test tubes. Even as Pons and Fleischmann stirred excitement on Capitol Hill, evidence was mounting that their form of fusion is probably an illusion. More and more scientists were openly scoffing at the chemists' claim that they had caused deuterium ions, which are commonly found in seawater, to fuse to form helium, liberating large amounts of heat. Physicists have never been able to achieve such a sustained reaction, even briefly, without subjecting deuterium to the kind of extreme temperature and pressure found inside...
...Utah fusion experiment, researchers B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann ran a current through a palladium electrode immersed in heavy water. They announced on March 23 that the deuterium nuclei in the water fused together into helium, releasing energy...
...test, Silvera puts palladium in a deuterium solution, which he then squeezes together with a high-pressure apparatus. He said his goal is to make the deuterium nuclei fuse together at a temperature of 120 degrees Kelvin, which corresponds to 245 degrees below zero Fahrenheit...
Nonetheless, while the evidence is suggestive, there is still no clear understanding of what is going on. In their experiment, Pons and Fleischmann immersed electrodes of palladium and platinum in a bath of heavy water -- water whose ordinary hydrogen has been replaced with an isotope called deuterium. When they passed a current through the electrodes, the contraption produced heat. They concluded that deuterium ions had moved into the spaces between palladium atoms and fused together to form helium, giving off heat in the process...
...measured between 60% and 80% more heat energy coming out of the experiment than had gone in. But they had to try the experiment five times before it worked. They did not even attempt to detect any neutrons being given off. And Georgia Tech's effort, patched together with deuterium from a local chemical outfit and palladium ordered from a Chicago precious-metals dealer, had a serious flaw. The neutron counter that indicated fusion was apparently not working properly. Said team leader James Mahaffey to the Atlanta Constitution: "I have really been in agony. The announcement was impetuous. The problem...