Revisiting the cold case of cold fusion

Curtis P Berlinguette^{1

2

3

4}, Yet-Ming Chiang⁵, Jeremy N Munday^{6

7}, Thomas Schenkel⁸, David K Fork⁹, Ross Koningstein⁹, Matthew D Trevithick¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. cberling@chem.ubc.ca.
² Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. cberling@chem.ubc.ca.
³ Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. cberling@chem.ubc.ca.
⁴ Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Toronto, Ontario, Canada. cberling@chem.ubc.ca.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁶ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁷ Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁸ Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁹ Google LLC, Mountain View, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Google LLC, Mountain View, CA, USA. mdt@google.com.

PMID: 31133686
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1256-6

Review

Revisiting the cold case of cold fusion

Curtis P Berlinguette et al. Nature. 2019 Jun.

. 2019 Jun;570(7759):45-51.

doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1256-6. Epub 2019 May 27.

Authors

Curtis P Berlinguette^{1

2

3

4}, Yet-Ming Chiang⁵, Jeremy N Munday^{6

7}, Thomas Schenkel⁸, David K Fork⁹, Ross Koningstein⁹, Matthew D Trevithick¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. cberling@chem.ubc.ca.
² Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. cberling@chem.ubc.ca.
³ Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. cberling@chem.ubc.ca.
⁴ Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Toronto, Ontario, Canada. cberling@chem.ubc.ca.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁶ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁷ Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁸ Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁹ Google LLC, Mountain View, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Google LLC, Mountain View, CA, USA. mdt@google.com.

PMID: 31133686
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1256-6

Abstract

The 1989 claim of 'cold fusion' was publicly heralded as the future of clean energy generation. However, subsequent failures to reproduce the effect heightened scepticism of this claim in the academic community, and effectively led to the disqualification of the subject from further study. Motivated by the possibility that such judgement might have been premature, we embarked on a multi-institution programme to re-evaluate cold fusion to a high standard of scientific rigour. Here we describe our efforts, which have yet to yield any evidence of such an effect. Nonetheless, a by-product of our investigations has been to provide new insights into highly hydrided metals and low-energy nuclear reactions, and we contend that there remains much interesting science to be done in this underexplored parameter space.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

Lessons from cold fusion, 30 years on.
Ball P. Ball P. Nature. 2019 May;569(7758):601. doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-01673-x. Nature. 2019. PMID: 31133704 No abstract available.
A Google programme failed to detect cold fusion - but is still a success.
[No authors listed] [No authors listed] Nature. 2019 May;569(7758):599-600. doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-01675-9. Nature. 2019. PMID: 31133705 No abstract available.

References

1. Fleischmann, M. & Pons, S. Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium. J. Electroanal. Chem. Interfacial Electrochem. 261, 301–308 (1989). Article that introduced the possibility of room-temperature fusion during electrolysis with a palladium cathode in a LiOD/D ₂ O electrolyte solution, publicly revealed at a press conference at the University of Utah on 23 March 1989. - DOI
1. Cookson, C. Scientists claim nuclear fusion produced in test tube. Financial Times 1 (23 March 1989).
1. Bishop, J. Breakthrough in fusion may be announced. Wall Street J. B1 (23 March 1989).
1. Browne, M. W. Fusion in a jar: chemists’ claim ignites an uproar. New York Times 1 (28 March 1989).
1. Miskelly, G. M. et al. Analysis of the published calorimetric evidence for electrochemical fusion of deuterium in palladium. Science 246, 793–796 (1989). - DOI

Publication types

Actions

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources
- Nature Publishing Group
Other Literature Sources
- The Lens - Patent Citations Database

Save citation to file

Email citation

Add to Collections

Add to My Bibliography

Your saved search

Create a file for external citation management software

Your RSS Feed

Revisiting the cold case of cold fusion

Affiliations

Revisiting the cold case of cold fusion

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Comment in

References

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Other Literature Sources