Word: deuterium
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Fusion occurs when two small atoms combine to form a larger atom, releasing energy. The Utah researchers reported that when they ran an electric current through a flask containing heavy water and palladium, a sharp increase in water temperature occurred. The pair claimed that atoms of deuterium (a form of hydrogen found in heavy water) entered the palladium and fused together into helium atoms...
...physicists offered several theories about where the Utah experiments had gone wrong. Pons and Fleischmann claimed that they had caused the nuclei of deuterium atoms, a heavy form of hydrogen, to fuse together to form helium, thus releasing radiation and heat energy. But, the physicists suggested, the radiation detected might have come from radon that was already present in the laboratory's air. The helium reported could also have seeped into the apparatus from...
...while before it starts pouring taxpayers' & money into Utah's test tubes. Even as Pons and Fleischmann stirred excitement on Capitol Hill, evidence was mounting that their form of fusion is probably an illusion. More and more scientists were openly scoffing at the chemists' claim that they had caused deuterium ions, which are commonly found in seawater, to fuse to form helium, liberating large amounts of heat. Physicists have never been able to achieve such a sustained reaction, even briefly, without subjecting deuterium to the kind of extreme temperature and pressure found inside...
...sort of fusion. And if the two chemists cannot think of any way to explain the excess heat in their experiment without resorting to nuclear reactions, others can. Chemist Linus Pauling, a Nobel laureate and himself something of an iconoclast, thinks that when absorbing high concentrations of deuterium, the palladium lattice may become unstable and deteriorate, releasing heat...
...test, Silvera puts palladium in a deuterium solution, which he then squeezes together with a high-pressure apparatus. He said his goal is to make the deuterium nuclei fuse together at a temperature of 120 degrees Kelvin, which corresponds to 245 degrees below zero Fahrenheit...