Tritium production from a low voltage deuterium discharge on palladium and other metals
Over the past year the authors have been able to demonstrate that a plasma loading method produces an exciting and unexpected amount of tritium from small palladium wires. In contrast to electrochemical hydrogen or deuterium loading of palladium, this method yields a reproducible tritium generation rate when various electrical and physical conditions are met. Small diameter wires (100--250 microns) have been used with gas pressures above 200 torr at voltages and currents of about 2,000 V at 3--5 A. By carefully controlling the sputtering rate of the wire, runs have been extended to hundreds of hours allowing a significant amount (> 10`s nCi) of tritium to accumulate. they show tritium generation rates for deuterium-palladium foreground runs that are up to 25 times larger than hydrogen-palladium control experiments using materials from the same batch. They illustrate the difference between batches of annealed palladium and as received palladium from several batches as well as the effect of other metals (Pt, Ni, Nb, Zr, V, W, Hf) to demonstrate that the tritium generation rate can vary greatly from batch to batch.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 102234
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-95-2687; CONF-9506255-1; CONF-9504195-1; ON: DE95016976; TRN: 95:020465
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Low energy nuclear reactions conference, College Station, TX (United States); Monaco (Monaco), 18 Jun 1995; 9-13 Apr 1995; Other Information: PBD: [1995]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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