Word: deuterium
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Many scientists in many laboratories have squeezed hot deuterium (heavy hydrogen) between powerful magnetic fields and got short bursts of neutrons which made them think that the deuterium was turning into helium and giving off hits of H-bomb energy. This would be something to cheer about. It could lead to a fusion power plant that would i) create little radioactivity; and 2) burn comparatively cheap deuterium, which is plentiful enough in all water to give each gallon the energy yield of 300 gallons of gasoline. But the scientists usually found that the neutrons came from less interesting reactions...
Water for Fuel. The first step toward creating a controlled fusion reaction is to heat up deuterium gas until the nucleus (one proton and one neutron) of each atom is separated from the electron that ordinarily orbits around it (deuterium is the hydrogen isotope in heavy water, D2O). If the particles are made hot enough, the deuterium nuclei will collide with ample force to "fuse" together, forming helium 3 and giving off a neutron. When that happens, part of their mass is converted into energy-the energy of the hydrogen bomb, the stars...
...temperature required for a sustained reaction is, at a minimum, 50 million degrees. No conventional container could withstand such a temperature, so physicists surround the "plasma" of deuterium with a magnetic field whose lines of force are powerful enough to hold it. Then an enormous bolt of electricity is shot into the system to make the plasma particles move rapidly, thereby supplying the necessary heat...
Neutron Shower. In Kolb's experiment, the deuterium plasma is held in a quartz tube about a foot long. At each end the magnetic field is given added strength to form a magnetic "mirror," which reflects back the charged particles as they try to escape, thus sealing the gas in a magnetic bottle. A bank of 99 condensers, kept in the basement since condensers sometimes blow up, sends a jolt of 4,000,000 amperes thundering through the coil, heating the gas up to around 20 million degrees. Dr. Kolb reported that his machine had confined plasma and kept...
...claiming that a fusion reaction was definitely achieved. The British, who thought they had achieved it with their Zeta a year ago, later admitted that the neutrons produced came not from fusion but from unintended collisions of high-energy particles. Furthermore, it would take far higher temperatures before the deuterium fusion would produce more energy than it absorbed. Explained NRL Research Director Robert M. Page: "We have to go farther to get a true fusion reaction and farther still to prove it." Sustaining a fusion reaction, he explained, is like lighting a piece of paper with a match. First...