WSJ REEXAMINES COLD FUSION DUE TO PPC
Courtesy of Harry Dart
Jerry E. Bishop, (staff writer)
"A Bottle Rekindles Scientific Debate About the Possibility of Cold Fusion"
The Wall Street Journal, Monday, Jan. 29, 1996.
From: NEN, Vol. 3, No. 9, March 1996, p. 2.
SUMMARY
Jerry Bishop reports that the electrolytic bottle filled with tap water and microscopic palladium-coated beads produces several hundred times as much power output in the form of heat as was input to start the reaction. The bottle is called the Patterson Power CellTM, named after its inventor James A. Patterson.
Bishop writes that the Patterson Power Cell (PPC) is catching the interest of some engineers, chemists, and a few major companies such as Motorola. He also compares the bottle to the Utah cold fusion device produced by Martin Fleischmann and Stanely Pons at the University of Utah in 1989, "As with the Utah apparatus,... the bottle produces an excess of power as it electrolyzes, or breaks down, water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
[Boxed text:]
But, unlike the controversial and unpredictable Utah experiments, the Patterson Cell can be turned on and off seemingly at will."
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Because the PPC consistently works, scientists will have the opportunity to manipulate the device to see if a nuclear reaction is involved in its processes. The electrodes in the Utah device were rods of palladium surrounded by coils of platinum wire. These rods were hung in "heavy" water in which the hydrogen is an ionic form called deuterium. The Patterson cell, however, is filled with microscopic plastic beads coated with a thin layer of palladium between two layers of nickel. It is also filled with ordinary water made of "light" [normal] hydrogen atoms.
In both devices, electrolysis releases hydrogen atoms which are soaked up by the palladium and/or nickel. Inside the metal an energy-releasing event is claimed to take place. Cold-fusionists would claim that the nuclear reaction taking place is the fusion of hydrogen atoms, a nuclear reaction that usually occurs at 50 million degrees.
The apparatus stands about four inches high and one inch in diameter and holds about three tablespoons of the tiny beads. Demonstrations of the device by Mr. Reding in Anaheim, CA lasted from 30 minutes to two hours. And those who observed the demonstrations say that, after subtracting the electricity needed to run pumps and fans, about 0.1 to 1.5 watts of power went into the cell itself, while the heat output was 450 to 1,300 watts.
Summary by Dee Winter