[championoftruth (OP)]

In the novel Currents of Space By Isaac Asimov the element Carbon in space could act as a nuclear catalyst and caused Florina's Sun to go nova.

In chemistry catalysts are used to lower the energy or improve the conditions under which chemical reactions can occur.

While I understand this was fictional the question is why have physicists not tried to discover some kind of nuclear catalyst to lower the Coulomb potential for fusion to occur more easily?

At  the moment they are doing a hard slough for 'always 30 years away' nuclear fusion and reached a dead end.





The adblock is very annoying even after you disable it. keeps popping up on firefox if you scroll the same page up or down...ridiculous. Surely you must have received plenty money from the drug companies sponsors by now. no need to get greedy.

[Kryptid]

Technically, such a catalyst has been discovered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion

It has a serious problem, though: muons are highly unstable.

[championoftruth (OP)]

Technically, such a catalyst has been discovered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion

It has a serious problem, though: muons are highly unstable.

Palladium has been implicated in LENR reactions worldwide.

 The idea is based on when you mix two  50 ml dissimilar liquids the resulting volume is less than 100 ml.

Something similar should be attempted for nuclear reactions.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-role-of-Palladium-as-a-catalyst-for-the_fig15_236273071

[Petrochemicals]

In the novel Currents of Space By Isaac Asimov the element Carbon in space could act as a nuclear catalyst and caused Florina's Sun to go nova.

In chemistry catalysts are used to lower the energy or improve the conditions under which chemical reactions can occur.

While I understand this was fictional the question is why have physicists not tried to discover some kind of nuclear catalyst to lower the Coulomb potential for fusion to occur more easily?

At  the moment they are doing a hard slough for 'always 30 years away' nuclear fusion and reached a dead end.





The adblock is very annoying even after you disable it. keeps popping up on firefox if you scroll the same page up or down...ridiculous. Surely you must have received plenty money from the drug companies sponsors by now. no need to get greedy.

To lower the nucleon resistance would seem to be creating energy from nothing, thus breaking the law of conservation of energy. If  a catalyst did manage to lower the energy threshold would it have to compensate by releasing less energy ?

[championoftruth (OP)]

In the novel Currents of Space By Isaac Asimov the element Carbon in space could act as a nuclear catalyst and caused Florina's Sun to go nova.

In chemistry catalysts are used to lower the energy or improve the conditions under which chemical reactions can occur.

While I understand this was fictional the question is why have physicists not tried to discover some kind of nuclear catalyst to lower the Coulomb potential for fusion to occur more easily?

At  the moment they are doing a hard slough for 'always 30 years away' nuclear fusion and reached a dead end.





The adblock is very annoying even after you disable it. keeps popping up on firefox if you scroll the same page up or down...ridiculous. Surely you must have received plenty money from the drug companies sponsors by now. no need to get greedy.

To lower the nucleon resistance would seem to be creating energy from nothing, thus breaking the law of conservation of energy. If  a catalyst did manage to lower the energy threshold would it have to compensate by releasing less energy ?

same with chemical reactions. neutrons and muons can do this but both are quite inconvenient to use.

[Petrochemicals]

In the novel Currents of Space By Isaac Asimov the element Carbon in space could act as a nuclear catalyst and caused Florina's Sun to go nova.

In chemistry catalysts are used to lower the energy or improve the conditions under which chemical reactions can occur.

While I understand this was fictional the question is why have physicists not tried to discover some kind of nuclear catalyst to lower the Coulomb potential for fusion to occur more easily?

At  the moment they are doing a hard slough for 'always 30 years away' nuclear fusion and reached a dead end.





The adblock is very annoying even after you disable it. keeps popping up on firefox if you scroll the same page up or down...ridiculous. Surely you must have received plenty money from the drug companies sponsors by now. no need to get greedy.

To lower the nucleon resistance would seem to be creating energy from nothing, thus breaking the law of conservation of energy. If  a catalyst did manage to lower the energy threshold would it have to compensate by releasing less energy ?

same with chemical reactions. neutrons and muons can do this but both are quite inconvenient to use.

Not really, if you lower the Columb barrier it would infarct create energy unless you are consuming other particles etc that have taken energy to create, catalysts in chemical terms are not consumed, nor does it take less energy in the presence of a catalyst to form an energy requiring molecular bond, it just makes the process more efficient so to speak, there is less waste energy or even the reaction should not take place without a catalyst at all.

As for catalysts to increase efficiency of the fusion chain to make it self sustaining a non consumable chemical or nucleon presence I cannot think how to other than the containment of the heat etc. Perhaps a larger enough fusion mass. What ever you use to be considered a catalyst it must be non consumable and cannot violate the laws of physics.

[championoftruth (OP)]

In the novel Currents of Space By Isaac Asimov the element Carbon in space could act as a nuclear catalyst and caused Florina's Sun to go nova.

In chemistry catalysts are used to lower the energy or improve the conditions under which chemical reactions can occur.

While I understand this was fictional the question is why have physicists not tried to discover some kind of nuclear catalyst to lower the Coulomb potential for fusion to occur more easily?

At  the moment they are doing a hard slough for 'always 30 years away' nuclear fusion and reached a dead end.





The adblock is very annoying even after you disable it. keeps popping up on firefox if you scroll the same page up or down...ridiculous. Surely you must have received plenty money from the drug companies sponsors by now. no need to get greedy.

To lower the nucleon resistance would seem to be creating energy from nothing, thus breaking the law of conservation of energy. If  a catalyst did manage to lower the energy threshold would it have to compensate by releasing less energy ?

same with chemical reactions. neutrons and muons can do this but both are quite inconvenient to use.

Not really, if you lower the Columb barrier it would infarct create energy unless you are consuming other particles etc that have taken energy to create, catalysts in chemical terms are not consumed, nor does it take less energy in the presence of a catalyst to form an energy requiring molecular bond, it just makes the process more efficient so to speak, there is less waste energy or even the reaction should not take place without a catalyst at all.

As for catalysts to increase efficiency of the fusion chain to make it self sustaining a non consumable chemical or nucleon presence I cannot think how to other than the containment of the heat etc. Perhaps a larger enough fusion mass. What ever you use to be considered a catalyst it must be non consumable and cannot violate the laws of physics.

Well the amount of wasted in fusion is huge....millions of amps.

the nuclear catalyst would allow easier and lower temperatures for fusion to occur.

no one has mentioned palladium for some reason.

also why is everyone so  ignorant that ONLY 14.5 kg of tritium exists worldwide and has a 1/2 life of only 12 years..

so no fuel to power the ITER boondoogle in 30 years... haa haaa haaaaa so funny. so tragic ...so ironic.

[Petrochemicals]

My take of fusion is that what we know of it in nature is it happens sustainably in high pressure, high insulation, high temperature places or to say large dense mass gravitational well environments. In nuclear bombs it is not sustained.

[Kryptid]

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-role-of-Palladium-as-a-catalyst-for-the_fig15_236273071

It looks like that article is discussing cold fusion in the context of a non-standard physics theory. I would therefore be cautious in putting too much stock in it. As far as I am aware, there haven't been any consistently replicated cold fusion experiments of the type you are suggesting that use palladium.

also why is everyone so  ignorant that ONLY 14.5 kg of tritium exists worldwide and has a 1/2 life of only 12 years..

There is a possible work-around to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeding_blanket

As the field advances, perhaps we can advance to deuterium-only fusion. Or we may be able to mine helium-3 from the Moon to use as fusion fuel.

[championoftruth (OP)]

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-role-of-Palladium-as-a-catalyst-for-the_fig15_236273071

It looks like that article is discussing cold fusion in the context of a non-standard physics theory. I would therefore be cautious in putting too much stock in it. As far as I am aware, there haven't been any consistently replicated cold fusion experiments of the type you are suggesting that use palladium.

also why is everyone so  ignorant that ONLY 14.5 kg of tritium exists worldwide and has a 1/2 life of only 12 years..

There is a possible work-around to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeding_blanket

As the field advances, perhaps we can advance to deuterium-only fusion. Or we may be able to mine helium-3 from the Moon to use as fusion fuel.

Its not clod fusion .its called LENR and its been replicated but NOT explained thousands of times. Palladium seems critical. its infused with high pressure hydrogen and found to generate excess heat/neutrons. Allegedly.

Cold fusion supporters continued to argue that the evidence for excess heat was strong, and in September 1990 the National Cold Fusion Institute listed 92 groups of researchers from 10 countries that had reported corroborating evidence of excess heat, but they refused to provide any evidence of their own arguing that it could endanger their patents.[65] However, no further DOE nor NSF funding resulted from the panel's recommendation.[6

On 22–25 March 2009, the American Chemical Society meeting included a four-day symposium in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the announcement of cold fusion. Researchers working at the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) reported detection of energetic neutrons using a heavy water electrolysis setup and a CR-39 detector,[16][114] a result previously published in Naturwissenschaften.[123] The authors claim that these neutrons are indicative of nuclear reactions.[179] Without quantitative analysis of the number, energy, and timing of the neutrons and exclusion of other potential sources, this interpretation is unlikely to find acceptance by the wider scientific community.[123][124]

The assertion you are going to get tritium from the moon is absurd. do you really expect to find nuggets labeled tritium on the moon?

[paul cotter]

Kryptid said helium( 3 ) on the moon and not tritium. Anyways, lenr is basically the new name for cold fusion as the latter term invoked derision. It's all bunk, pseudoscience or pathologic science.

[Kryptid]

Allegedly.

That's the issue.

I was very interested in cold fusion when I was younger and would love to see it work out in the future. However, I'd expect workable cold fusion (or LENR) to be something that could be replicated consistently if it was real. As I've pointed out before, muon-catalyzed fusion is cold. I've also read a report that cold fusion of a type could theoretically be achieved by using microscopic, positively-charged, extremal black holes in place of atomic nuclei with protons replacing the electron cloud, but that's a matter that could be a thread all of its own.

The assertion you are going to get tritium from the moon is absurd.

As paul cotter said, I was talking about helium-3.

do you really expect to find nuggets labeled tritium on the moon?

No, and I never even implied such a silly thing.

[paul cotter]

Kryptid, everyone had high hopes after the P&F announcement but unfortunately after 30 years with no reproducible results, it's obvious that it's not viable, despite the number of tinkerers still supporting it.

[evan_au]

The Currents of Space

I read it a long time ago. As I recall, the path of the star through molecular clouds was feeding more carbon into the star.
Perhaps he was thinking that more carbon would enhance the CNO cycle, accelerating the demise of the star?
The CNO Cycle is the dominant energy source in stars larger than the Sun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Currents_of_Space

Palladium

Palladium (and other similar elements) have been suggested as a way to store hydrogen in a hydrogen-fueled vehicle without a high-pressure fuel tank. The hydrogen atoms are absorbed (adsorbed?) into the atomic structure, packing them in as tightly as at 900 atmospheres pressure, but actually near atmospheric pressure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palladium_hydride#Chemical_structure_and_properties
- Calculations of this hydride atomic structure suggests that some of the Hydrogen nuclei are closer than they would be in a hydrogen molecule, where they are shielded by their electron cloud.
- One of the problems with any sort of experiment releasing atomic particles is cosmic rays. They are highly penetrating, and they produce muons (which, as mentioned above, can catalyze a couple of hydrogen fusion events before they get trapped and decay). So all nuclear experiments must detect cosmic rays, and discount any results occurring during cosmic ray showers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion

[paul cotter]

The problem with palladium is the cost and rarity. I bought 10gr of palladium ~20 years ago: it cost £100( or euros, I can't remember ), last time I checked it is now more expensive than platinum.

[Bored chemist]

"Why have physicists not tried to make nuclear catalysts?"
Because they understand science.