Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: Daumic on 11/05/2016 21:14:33
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The article “100-watt sonoluminescence generated by 2.5-atmosphere-pressure pulses” published by Brian Kappus, Shahzad Khalid and Seth Putterman in “Physical Review E” describes a sonoluminescence experiment. This experiment has obtained a strong light emission. The abstract of this article can be found here:
[http://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.83.056304]
This result of Seth Putterman and its colleagues is perhaps a new departure for the sonofusion. I remember the hopes raised by the first announce of sonofusion by professor Taleyarkhan in 2002. Quickly disappointed hopes because the announced signs of fusion were very tiny.
Tested until now in deuterated liquids, the sonofusion can obtain only reactions deuterium-deuterium. These reactions are not the easiest reactions of fusion. The nuclear reaction tritium-deuterium is much easier than the reactions deuterium-deuterium: the Lawson criterion of reaction DT is 50 times lower than that of reactions DD. It would be thus interesting to test the sonofusion with a mixture of deuterium and tritium.
However the tritium is very expensive and radioactive. An experiment of sonofusion on the deuterium-tritium mixture could be done only with a very small amount of tritium. How to test reaction DT with such a small quantity of tritium?
A solution could be to incorporate tritium in surfactant molecules. Let us imagine a diluted solution of tritiated surfactant in a deuterated polar liquid subjected to an experiment of sonofusion. An ultrasonic field generates bubbles. These bubbles grow during the depressive phase of the ultrasonic field. I make the two following assumptions:
- the surfactant molecules which come into contact with the bubble remain stuck by their non-polar part there,
- when the compressive phase of the ultrasonic field occurs, the surface of the bubble involves with it the surfactant molecules in its contraction.
Because of their chemical property, the surfactant molecules should be concentrated when the walls of the bubble come into contact. If the surfactant molecules behave really thus, a suitable mixture of deuterium and tritium could be obtained at the dense and hot point during the experiment.
In light of the results obtained by Seth Putterman and its colleagues, it would be interesting to test the reaction deuterium-tritium in an experiment of sonofusion by using tritiated surfactant in deuterated polar liquid.
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I never heard of this phenomenon before. However, I would point out that the reported effective temperature of the emitting xenon was 10200 K, well below the temperature required for thermonuclear detonation.
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I never heard of this phenomenon before. However, I would point out that the reported effective temperature of the emitting xenon was 10200 K, well below the temperature required for thermonuclear detonation.
Richard Lahey, Rusi Taleyarkhan and Robert Nigmatulin have conducted an analysis that predicted interacting shockwaves at a point close to the core. This could reach about 100 million K that is enough to cause deuterium tritium fusion.
This analysis could be found here:
[http://homepages.rpi.edu/~laheyr/Sonofusion%20Paper-pdf_Lahey_NURETH-11.pdf]