Nuclear fusion in a metal lattice by electrochemistry

Good news! Will it one day succeed in a laboratory or do we need huge reactors!

"Using a small bench-top reactor, researchers ... have demonstrated that electrochemically loading a solid metal target with deuterium fuel can boost nuclear fusion rates.  

Large-scale magnetic confinement fusion—which puts plasmas under extreme temperatures and pressure—is being widely explored as a method for clean energy generation. The experiment ... takes an entirely different approach—with a more accessible, room-temperature reactor used to study the effect of electrochemical loading on nuclear fusion reaction rates. 

The team loaded a metal target made of palladium with high concentrations of deuterium fuel—on one side of the target, using a plasma field to load the fuel, and on the other, using an additional electrochemical cell to load the fuel.  ..."

From the abstract:

"Nuclear fusion research for energy applications aims to create conditions that release more energy than required to initiate the fusion process. To generate meaningful amounts of energy, fuels such as deuterium need to be spatially confined to increase the collision probability of particles.

We therefore set out to investigate whether electrochemically loading a metal lattice with deuterium fuel could increase the probability of nuclear fusion events. Here we report a benchtop fusion reactor that enabled us to bombard a palladium metal target with deuterium ions. These deuterium ions undergo deuterium–deuterium fusion reactions within the palladium metal. We showed that the in situ electrochemical loading of deuterium into the palladium target resulted in a 15(2)% increase in deuterium–deuterium fusion rates.

This experiment shows how the electrochemical loading of a metal target at the electronvolt energy scale can affect nuclear reactions at the megaelectronvolt energy scale."

ScienceAdviser

Low-energy nuclear fusion boosted by electrochemistry (no public access) "Electrochemistry can boost processes that trap atoms inside a metal. A reactor uses these trapped atoms, combined with an ion beam, as fuel for nuclear fusion."

Researchers use electrochemistry to boost nuclear fusion rates​​​​ (original news release)

Electrochemical loading enhances deuterium fusion rates in a metal target (open access)

The Thunderbird Reactor is a custom-made, bench-top-sized particle accelerator and electrochemical reactor built by an interdisciplinary team at The University of British Columbia.

Fig. 1: The Thunderbird Reactor.