Descrizione del progetto
Perseguendo il sogno della fusione a freddo per soddisfare le esigenze energetiche a livello mondiale
Nel 1989, due elettrochimici, Martin Fleischmann e Stanley Pons, hanno fatto notizia grazie all’affermazione di aver prodotto calore in eccesso avvalendosi di un semplice apparecchio funzionante a temperatura ambiente. Il loro esperimento prevedeva il caricamento del deuterio in un metallo di palladio. Poiché molti sperimentatori non sono riusciti nell’impresa di replicare lo stesso risultato, la fusione a freddo rimane un argomento controverso all’interno della comunità scientifica. Tuttavia, un’agguerrita minoranza nutre ancora fiducia in questo fenomeno sfuggente. A partire dal 2015, Google sta finanziando esperimenti sulla fusione a freddo e, sebbene non esistano prove su questo fenomeno, è evidente che occorre condurre ricerche rivoluzionarie in questo campo ancora scarsamente esplorato. Il progetto HERMES, finanziato dall’UE, adopererà tecniche e strumenti avanzati sviluppati nel corso degli ultimi decenni per analizzare gli effetti anomali del palladio caricato di deuterio a temperature ambiente e intermedie.
Obiettivo
Disruptive energy generation technologies are urgently required to stave off catastrophic climate change. Now, more than ever, is the time to also to consider unconventional options. The subtopic c. Breakthrough zero-emissions energy generation for full decarbonisation of this call aims to answer this need. All of the research areas identified by the call are highly unconventional. As electrochemists, we will contribute to this call by working on hydrogen-metal systems. We propose to study hydrogen (and deuterium) evolution in unconventional conditions, i.e. on metal-hydrides and the main motivation for this work is based on the recent Nature perspective “Revisiting the cold case of cold fusion”. When loading deuterium into the Pd lattice, there is a chance that something very interesting will happen, resulting in production of excess heat. The first report of such reaction was published 30 years ago, but quickly dismissed by the scientific community. But what if there is really something? Can we afford to not to investigate this further, considering the current climate crisis? Google has recently funded a research project in this area, getting some interesting results but failing to produce excess heat. However, the team concluded that it was very difficult to achieve the required conditions reported for starting the excess heat production, and that “there remains much interesting science to be done in this underexplored parameter space.” This is a high risk/high reward project, but with aid of all the improved techniques and tools developed in the last 30 years, we believe that it is worth revisiting the topic. We will use state-of-the-art technologies to prepare, characterize and study electrochemical Pd-D system, both at room temperature and at temperatures up to 1100 K. We will focus on method development, with the special emphasis on reproducibility. If no nuclear effects are observed, we will gain information of the isotope effects for hydrogen evolution.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
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Vedi altri progetti per questo bandoBando secondario
H2020-EIC-FETPROACT-2019
Meccanismo di finanziamento
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinatore
20014 Turku
Finlandia