(Source: New Energy Times) Nuclear reactions have been replicated at Osaka University.
The ICCF10 international gathering of "low energy nuclear reaction
(LENR)" scientists has just been completed in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. The results presented at this meeting seem destined to
affect the course of solid state and nuclear science. Probably the most
important of the results were those concerned with a unique form of
nuclear transmutation reported a year ago by Iwamura et al. of
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. (Click here for their papers from ICCF-7,
ICCF-9).
The Mitsubishi transmutations occur on
a deuterided metal substrate. The transmutations convert carefully
deposited surface cesium atoms into the rare earth praseodymium. These
transmutation reactions have now been duplicated by Osaka University
scientists. They have repeated the transmutations several times. The
Osaka praseodymium product has been verified by neutron activation
analysis (NAA) at the Japan Atomic Energy Institute.
Meanwhile, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has
continued to make progress. The Mitsubishi scientists have further
confirmed the identification of the praseodymium product, using a number
of independent diagnostic techniques. They have shown that the
transmutation occurs both with chemically deposited and ion-implanted
cesium atoms. Surface profiling studies have been carried out and have
located where the reaction occurs by measuring the depth distribution of
cesium loss and praseodymium creation. The results show that the nuclear
reaction is a surface or near-surface reaction on the substrate metal.
Precise chemical analyses of the bulk metal substrate have shown that
the praseodymium nuclear product is much too plentiful to be due to
impurity migration from the bulk.
In the Mitsubishi process, a nuclear active form
of deuterium is created from a flowing stream of deuterium atoms inside
a metal. The flowing stream is forced to encounter and overcome
specially designed internal diffusion barriers. A new form of active
deuterium is created during this inhibited diffusion process. The active
deuterium is able to spread out and interact with the nuclei of target
atoms despite the deuteron charge. The nuclear reactions are of a
specific type. They are deuteron addition reactions in which 4 deuterons
(or 2 alpha particles) are absorbed by a target nucleus. The cesium
conversion reactions can be viewed as the inverse of alpha-particle
radioactive decays, which were discovered and characterized by Becqueral,
Curie, and Rutherford near the end of the 19th century. The cesium
reaction has been called a 2-alpha addition reaction. The full range of
addition reactions that can occur using nuclear active deuterium has yet
to be determined. The Mitsubishi work identified both: (1) a
reproducible method for creating the active deuterium, and (2) a clear
diagnostic method that quantifies its presence.
The Osaka and Mitsubishi studies provide solid
evidence that deuteron or alpha-addition nuclear reactions can be made
to reproducibly occur on solid metal at a temperature below that of
boiling water. The new results were reported by Iwamura of Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries and Higashiyama of the Nuclear Engineering Department
of Osaka University. The Osaka low energy nuclear work is lead by Akito
Takahashi. The original Mitsubishi discoveries have been published in
English in the internationally respected Japan Journal of Applied
Physics (Iwamura et al., 2002), and are available on the web at at http://jjap.ipap.jp/journal/pdf/JJAP-41-7R/4642.pdf.
The new discoveries remind one of the beginnings
of neutron-capture physics. In 1932 Chadwick discovered the neutron. His
neutrons were produced by the impact of alpha particles on beryllium.
Within a few years a large number of previously non-existing types of
nuclei were synthesized by exposure of various target elements to
neutron irradiation. During these neutron-absorption studies uranium
fission was discovered and the new element plutonium was synthesized. By
the end of 1942 the first controlled nuclear reactor was already in
operation. A nuclear power plant was generating electricity in 1955.
It seems likely that the larger international
community will build on the Japanese work. Further attempts to replicate
the Mitsubishi protocol are in progress. Hubler at the U.S. Naval
Research Lab announced plans for replication testing in consultation
with the Mitsubishi scientists. It is to be hoped that the world
community will quickly join in an effort to better understand the new
active deuterium matter form, its reaction physics, and its usefulness
in generating safe nuclear energy heat.
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