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Cold Fusion
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| Mebot |
I know there are a lot of brilliant TAs out there with stupendous knowledge about scientifical stuff.
My question is about cold fusion. I'm curious as to how it works, why it's still a theory, and any proposed solutions to it?
I'm looking for intelligent and serious answers coz i'm interested in it and I would like to hear what people have to say about it.
The Saint and Chain Reaction explain it kinda but I havent seen those movies in a while. :toothless
Thanks |
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| Chris d(-_-)b |
The "best" way of creating energy is the socalled "DT-fusion"
Two different Hydrogen isotopes are required; Deuterium and Tritium.
H-2 and H-3. The raction itself is something like:
The energy that is created in the process is:
[delta]m is called massdefect. It is how much mass is lost in the reaction. The lost mass is converted to energy.
(u is the atomic massunit) (u + c^2 = 931.5 KeV)
In this process E is 17 MeV. You can count it yourself by calculating the massdeffect and the multiplying as shown.
Now remember that this ammount of energy is created with only .One of each atom. Since all water on earth contain 0,015 % deuterium and som eless tritium, imagine how much energy could be produced with only a bucketfull of water. This would solve all energy problems everywhere.
Quite simple actually. I happen to remeber this since i just had a course about it in school.
If i remember correct, the problem with fusion is the enormous ammount of energy created. It is hard to controll the reaction, and what is even harder is to get the two gases(H-2 and H-3 to react). The only way is to have the gases in the form of plasma. In order to get them into plasma -condition, they should be heated to extremely high temperatures. The problem is that everything melts at some point and it's hard to make a container that can hold such high temperatures. Now this might not be 100 % accurate but should give you and idea about the whole fuison thing |
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| astroboy |
| quote: | Originally posted by Mebot
My question is about cold fusion. I'm curious as to how it works, why it's still a theory, and any proposed solutions to it?
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I'm not very knowledgable on physics but here are the basics:
Nuclear fission = using the energy released when an atom (or rather an atomic nucleus) is split. This is done all the time at your local nuclear power station. Usually to the elements with bigger, less stable nuclei (such as Uranium).
Nuclear fusion = taking two atoms and fusing them together to create one new one. This isn't like combining two hydrogen atoms with an oxygen atom to form water, this is getting two atoms of one element and making a new single atom out of them, of a completely different element... eg two Hydrogen atoms combined to form a helium atom. The reaction produces an enormous amount of energy (much more than nuclear fission). This reaction normally occurs at the centres of stars. The larger/hotter the star, the bigger and more complex elements it creates. These high temperatures are required to fuse the atomic nuclei. Because such temperatures are hard to reach and hard to maintain on earth without using up more energy than you're using, the reaction is impractical for commercial ower generation. Cold fusion is like a holy-grail of energy generation, and has not yet been achieved (i think someone claimed they did, but couldn't repeat the results). |
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| Mr Game+Watch |
| Damn, I was hoping this was about the programming language... :wtf: |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| Well, basically cold fusion works just like normal fusion except that it is regulated. To get normal fusion, first you need extremely high temperatures, like ones A-bombs produce, so that the hydrogen gas (or any other for that matter) turns into plasma. Then the electrons separate from their atoms and you have a bunch of atom nuclei. They vibrate and bounce off each other because of the high temperatures, and when the forces pushing them around become high enough, they collide. Now, to create a controlled fusion, you can't contain the reaction in any material container, as it would melt down instantly. You can also not use nuclear blasts or huge pressures to build up the temperature as it is obviously unapliccable. The only option that remains is to stir up the atoms with a highly charged laser beam and contain them inside a very strong magnetic field. As all the nuclei are positively charged, the strong magnetic field can act as a container, while the laser beam creates plasma by giving energy to the electrons, and atoms themselves. Such lasers and mangetic fields require huge amounts of power to function. Current technology is such that cold fusion reactions can be initiated, but they last for a short time, and give out less usable energy than they need to operate. As soon as those two obstacles are overcome, nuclear fusion will become energy fuel of the future. It may not be that long before it does, because laser technology and superconductors are advancing quite rapidly in the last few years. |
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