Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
Jones Beene wrote:
Stephen,
1) 7Li --> 4He + 3H requiring -2.43 MeV (endotherm) of mass-energy
and then there is:
2) D + D --> 3H(1.01 MeV) + 1H(3.02 MeV)
This indicates that we _might_ expect 4MeV per tritium atom.
Not really - if the two reactions are (approximately) interlocking and
mutually dependent (in the sense of high probability).
All but ~600 keV for the proton is lost - and then the rest divided
between the two tritium's - so there is a net of ~800 keV per tritium
produced - not exactly chump change but over five times less than
would be expected from straight fusion of deuterium.
Yes, I followed that. I was just wondering how much heat would be
produced by the tritium production in the _absence_ of a balancing
reaction, _and_ with the assumption that it's the conventional
2H+2H->3H+1H reaction that's producing it.
Tritium never seems to appear in large quantities; perhaps, I thought,
whatever reaction is causing it is just at so low a rate that its heat
of production is overlooked or below the detection threshhold -- perhaps
it's just dwarfed by the 2H+2H->4He reaction. (I believe this is what
Ed Storms has suggested in the past.)
If that's the case then there may be no need to assume a balancing
reaction, which in turn depends on some rather uncertain additional
assumptions about as yet undiscovered properties of neutrons in order to
make it possible.
One would need to look closely at experiments which showed excess heat
and tritium, and which included enough data to compute total energy
generated and total number of tritium atoms produced to come to any sort
of conclusion. The very crude calculation I did just produced a very
squishy rough ballpark number, but it suggests that perhaps this line of
reasoning is not so far off.
Based on other comments on this list, and particularly those by Ed
Storms, I'm reasonably confident that this calculation has already been
done, a number of times, and the conclusion drawn was that the heat of
tritium production was indeed a small fraction of the total excess.
Unfortunately I haven't been paying close enough attention to be sure of
that.
You are right, these calculations have been made. However, the
calculations are based on the rate of tritium production, not on the
total number of atoms because heat is measured as power. The amount of
calculated power is always too small to measure.
Ed
Jones
