Sonofusion Could Liberate The World?

December 21, 2009

By system

In writing the below article, a number of academics/tutors/teachers were consulted.

The competition to find a new sustainable energy source is becoming increasingly important as concerning projections on those remaining are made. Nuclear fusion has proved to produce sizeable energy outputs but only with methods requiring more energy than generated.

The general concencus from the academics/tutors/teachers was that:
When claims to achieving nuclear fusion relatively easily from sound waves concentrated scrutiny and criticism was inevitable. R.P.Taleyarkhan et al. published the original papers outlining exactly these results in 2002 that have since been dismissed by various scientists.

Taleyarkhan et al. claims to achieve fusion using sonofusion, the phenomena sonoluminescence (SL) under special conditions. SL is when high velocity ultra sonic waves are focused onto very small bubbles inside a liquid, the vibrations from the noise cause the bubble to collapse and let out a flash of light. The experiments performed in involve creating sonoluminescence in deuterated acetone with individual bubbles, harvested using a pulse of neutrons. These demonstrated more stable than small air bubbles already present in the liquid, which enabled large pressure and temperature conditions.

If D-D fusion occurs the outputs of tritium and neutrons should be the same and occur simultaneously with the output of light. However, one source acknowledges that the results from the experiments don’t show this, with a tritium neutron ratio of a maximum 10:1, and they reason this with:

1)’Neutron energy reduction by scattering in the test chamber’

2) ‘Reduced detections efficiency for sizeable-angle knock-ons from 2.5MeV neutrons’

3) ‘Possible non-uniformities in T concentration in the acetone’

M.J.Saltmarsh and D.Shapira reconstructed the experiment and stated that these reasons would only allow a 2:1 which doesn’t allow for the 10:1 ratio described in. They also questioned the discrepancy in timing of the light from SL and the neutrons perceived from the acclaimed sonofusion. Implying the neutron counts were not harvested in the SL but were from background noise and combined with the neutrons being used to form the bubbles.

In answer to this report Taleyarkhan et al. said didn’t account for experimental differences and that they had mistaken the data in their calculations. Taleyarkin et al. then reported an additional article in 2004 citing that the previous results had been repeated with the addition of neutron output on later cycles in the bubble implosions.

In 2005 the BBC got involved, employing S.Putterman to execute an independent experiment Puttermans results produced absolutely no correlation between the timing of the SL flashes and the neutron signals and so concluded against.

The moral side of this issue is also of huge interest, with Taleyarkhan being blamed by Dr.Suslick for scientific misconduct in 2006. This was not further followed when a new report of Taleyarkhans results being reconstructed by E.Forringer et al was produced later that year. However on September 10th 2007 it was declared more investigation was being reinitiated due to several issues including the re-produced results being produced in Taleyarkhan’s own labs.

The academics/tutors/teachers concluded that:
The riddle over sonofusion can be found with further experimentation and has the potential to revolutionise the modern world.

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