{"id":1495,"date":"2022-02-13T11:03:38","date_gmt":"2022-02-13T16:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/?p=1495"},"modified":"2022-12-24T09:29:11","modified_gmt":"2022-12-24T14:29:11","slug":"bubble-fusion-status-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/2022\/02\/13\/bubble-fusion-status-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Bubble Fusion: Status Update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am getting closer and closer to have enough material to submit an article to PRL. Gradually I am getting better at controlling parameters and making the effect easier to replicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Replication Steps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I am able to replicate neutron emission by following these steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. I thoroughly degas oil. <\/strong>I pull vacuum on oil in the reactor while heating using an electrical heat strip wrapped around the reactor. In the same time I cavitate the oil with the duty cycle of 1 second; bubbles need time to rise to the surface; continuous cavitation traps bubbles due to Bjerkens forces and thus makes degassing less efficient. I stop degassing when I read ~1E-3 Torr in the reactor, which may take half a day.<\/li>
  2. I introduce ~1 ml of benzene-d6 into the reactor.<\/strong> Because I am out of deuterium gas I decided to try mixing a small quantity of fully deuterated benzene (aka benzene-d6) with the oil. I have a 90-degree KF16 valve, which forms an upward facing inlet. I deposit ~1 mL of benzene-d6 into the valve using a pipette and top off the inlet with oil to remove air. Then I seal the valve opening with a KF16 blank and open the valve to admit the deposited fluids into the reactor. The pressure spikes to 6 Torr as the benzene-d6 evaporates and (along with some of the residual air) fills up the reactor headspace.<\/li>
  3. I turn on the acoustic drive.<\/strong> My Branson 550 Sonifier is operating at 100% power with 0.02 \/ 0.01 second on\/off duty cycle.<\/li>
  4. I register neutron flux.<\/strong> My neutron counts go up to 10-20 CPM almost immediately, and I am able to sustain the emission for 5-10 minutes. Eventually some critical parameter(s) change and the neutron production quits. I am yet to determine how to sustain the neutron flux indefinitely.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    When the neutron flux stops I can repeat the steps 1-4 and get it working again. So far it works every other time, which gives me enough repeatability to make progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Neutron and Gamma Counts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    I am gradually gaining confidence in my neutron counts and I must say that the data looks better and better every time. Here is what I have so far, using my bank of 6x LND 251106 3<\/sup>He-tubes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Background counts average 0.5 CPM<\/strong> and never exceed 4 CPM. I have collected 139 4-minute background samples overnight – Fig. 1.<\/li>
    2. Reactor neutron flux ranges from 10 to 20 CPM<\/strong>, which is 20-40 times in excess of the background.<\/li>
    3. Neutron events are coincident with the acoustic drive<\/strong> – Fig. 2.<\/li>
    4. I have ruled out vibration as a possible source of a systematic error.<\/strong> I have folded two paper towels to break mechanical contact between the detector bank and the reactor; the bank was sitting on a crumpled paper towel and another crumpled paper towel was between the reactor side and the detector bank. I got almost exact same counts, but now the detector signal was very clean and free of EM-noise, which the bank must have been picking up from the reactor surface – Fig. 3. Now I could not tell if neutrons were coincident with cavitation, but the shape of the neutron spectrum improved significantly and began to approximate the thermal neutron spectrum – Fig. 4. Given long enough counting time I should see a good thermal neutron peak on the spectrum. This means that my neutron detector bank is operating as expected and actually counting neutrons.<\/li>
    5. I see gamma events.<\/strong> Detection of x-rays or gammas is critical to corroborate thermonuclear fusion. The -2.5 mV discriminator on my neutron detector bank effectively rejects gamma events, which I nevertheless can see when I view the raw signal – Fig. 5. And there are a lot of gamma events! And these gamma events are not present when I capture background (i.e. when the cavitation is off).<\/li>
    6. I think I see a ~100 keV line on the gamma spectrum<\/strong> – Fig. 6. I used a GAMMA-PRO 3″<\/a> system fitted with a 3″ x 3″ NaI(Tl) detector to capture a gamma spectrum in the 10 to 1000 keV range when the cavitation was on and when the cavitation was off (background). The counts with the cavitation on were ~1% higher than background, the result was highly statistically significant (P = 0.012) – Fig 7. The increase in gamma counts corroborates the increase in gamma events visible on the neutron detector trace.<\/li>
    7. Acoustic trace (captured using the PCB 113B22 transducer) is full of 1,000 psi peaks – Fig. 8.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Fig. 1. 139 background samples (blue) contrasted against neutron counts when the reactor was operating (red).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Fig. 2. Neutron events coinciding with the EM noise associated with the acoustic drive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Fig. 3. Single neutron event in the absence of EM inference from the acoustic drive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Fig. 4. Neutron spectrum distorted by the EM-noise (left) and without the EM noise (right).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Fig. 5. Gamma events below -2.5 mV discriminator level; neutron events are above this level.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Fig. 6. A possible ~100 keV gamma line on the differential gamma spectrum (reactor spectrum with the background spectrum subtracted).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Fig. 7. Gamma counts during cavitation were ~1% higher than during background (P = 0.012).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Fig. 8. Acoustic trace captured using the PCB 113B22 transducer; peaks average 1,000 psi (1V).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

      Summary of Results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      My neutron and gamma counts corroborate each other and begin to paint a picture consistent with a nuclear reactions. I ruled out detector systematics and I definitely get a 20-40 above-background neutron flux coincident with cavitation. The neutron flux seems to be accompanied with a gamma emission, which may have a peak at 100 keV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      When there is no cavitation or when there is no deuterium present – neutron and gamma counts remain at background level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Next Steps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
      1. I need to add a fixture to my reactor (like a vacuum grade syringe) that would introduce a known volume of benzene-d6 (or any other fluid) into the reactor oil. This will help with reputability as well as reduce contamination with error.<\/li>
      2. I need to capture better gamma and x-ray spectra with improved signal to background ratio so I could better discern peaks that may be present in the differential spectrum. I am thinking about using a CapeSym SrI2<\/sub> 14×25 mm gamma detector (10 keV to 2 MeV) and a CapeSym SrI2<\/sub> 14×1 mm beryllium window x-ray detector positioned inside the reactor just above the surface of the oil to capture better spectra. Or maybe I will reinstall the glass viewport, position the detectors in front of it, and shield the detectors on all sides with lead bricks to reduce the background counts.<\/li>
      3. I need to start capturing acoustic trace concurrently with gamma and neutron traces to see if I can spot a correlation between neutron events, gamma events, and acoustic signal.<\/li>
      4. I need to look for trace amounts of tritium in the reactor headspace using my Femto-Tech PTM-1812 tritium detector.<\/li>
      5. I should get a BubbleTech thermal neutron detector vial, wrap it in paper towel to eliminate vibration and use it as a secondary means of confirmation of my neutron flux to meet the publication standard.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

        It would be really nice to workout the degassing and the deuterium introduction procedure to where I could obtain the neutron flux every time and sustain for longer than just a few minutes. Back in September of 2021 by chance I got a flux in excess of 1,500 CPM that I could replicate for several days. But that was with tritium. It would be nice to build the flux up to the same level so I could activate an indium foil and look for the activation gamma spectrum using my HPGe detector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        I am getting closer and closer to have enough material to submit an article to PRL. Gradually I am getting better at controlling parameters and making the effect easier to replicate. Replication Steps I am able to replicate neutron emission by following these steps: I thoroughly degas oil. I pull vacuum on oil in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bubble-fusion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9osz2-o7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maximus.energy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Gamma-Events-1.png?fit=1513%2C969&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1495"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1515,"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions\/1515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maximus.energy\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}