Megawatt Muon-Catalyzed Nuclear Fusion From 100 Watt Lasering of Ultradense Deuterium

Muon-catalyzed fusion has been studied for 60 years and new work with lasers and ultradense material could lead to commercial nuclear fusion.

A 100-watt laser power could create a megawatt nuclear fusion generator. This would provide a total energy gain of more than ten thousand.

It would have deuterium-tritium as fuel. It would use a novel muon generator to produce 1 MW thermal power. The thermal power using pure deuterium as fuel may be up to 220 kW initially: It will increase with time up to over 1 MW due to the production of tritium in one reaction branch.

The reactor would generate neutrons so thick shielding would be needed.

Prior Lab Proof of High Energy Nuclear Fusion Reactions

The Prof Lief Holmlid research group has published studies that prove the formation of mesons and muons with up to 100 MeV u−1 energy by laser-initiated processes in ultra-dense deuterium D(0) and ultra-dense protium.

The extreme density of ultra-dense deuterium D(0) makes it an excellent fuel for nuclear fusion by inertial confinement fusion. The density is so high that only an exciting laser pulse is required and no further compression is needed to reach nuclear reaction conditions.

Gamma radiation and lepton pair production are observed from these nuclear processes, as well as 4He and 3He ejection. The total energy in the ejected particles is so large that the nuclear reaction process is above break-even. The nuclear processes taking place are both laser-induced nucleon + nucleon annihilation–like processes2–6 and ordinary D + D fusion partly of the muon-catalyzed type.

Ultra-Dense Hydrogen

Ultra-dense hydrogen is a quantum material at room temperature. The protons and Deuterium have been measured as being 2.3 picometers apart. Laser pulses bring them to within 0.56 picometers apart. Ultradense protium is both superfluid and superconductive at room temperature.

Spontaneous ejection of mega-electron-volt particles has indeed been observed as spontaneous reactions. Particle energies up to 50 MeV u−1 have been reported in laser-induced experiments. Recently even faster particles with relativistic energies have been observed.

The total process giving the negative muons required for muon-catalyzed fusion starts with the ultra-dense hydrogen particles HN(0), and is proposed to be

The process shown is highly exoergic and gives 390 MeV to the three mesons ejected from each pair of protons, and 111 MeV in total if a further pion pair is created. This should be compared to ordinary D + D fusion, which has an output per pair of deuterons of only 14 MeV.

Catalyzing Ultra-dense Hydrogen and Then Capture and Accumulate it

Hydrogen transfer catalysts can configured to cause a transition of the hydrogen into the ultra-dense state if the hydrogen atoms are prevented from re-forming covalent bonds. The mechanisms behind the catalytic transition from the gaseous state to the ultra-dense state are quite well understood, and it has been experimentally shown that this transition can be achieved using various hydrogen transfer catalysts, including, for example, commercially available so-called styrene catalysts, as well as (purely) metallic catalysts.

Muons can be generated cheaper and more energy efficiently than using conventional methods, by accumulating ultra-dense hydrogen and subjecting the accumulated ultra-dense hydrogen to a perturbing field.

Ultra-dense hydrogen can be accumulated by providing a downward sloping surface between one or several supply locations for ultra-dense hydrogen and an accumulation portion. Through this configuration, gravity and feed gas flow will co-operate to move the ultra-dense hydrogen from the supply locations to the accumulation portion, where ultra-dense hydrogen is thus accumulated and can be subjected to the perturbing field, such as laser radiation, to generate muons.

The hydrogen accumulator may further comprise: a hydrogen flow barrier surrounding the receiving portion, the accumulation portion and the downward sloping surface for reducing escape of hydrogen in the ultra-dense state from the receiving portion away from the accumulation portion. Due to the super-fluid properties of ultra-dense hydrogen, the ultra-dense hydrogen will flow upwards, away from the accumulating portion. The provision of the above-mentioned hydrogen flow barrier can prevent, or at least substantially reduce the escape of ultra-dense hydrogen, which is due to the super-fluid properties of the ultra-dense hydrogen. Accordingly, the ratio of accumulated ultra-dense hydrogen to escaped ultra-dense hydrogen can be increased, which in turn provides for more efficient muon generation.

The patent is for a device for generating muons, comprising:
* a hydrogen accumulator including an inlet;
* an outlet separated from the inlet by a flow path;
* a hydrogen transfer catalyst arranged along the flow path between the inlet and the outlet; and
* an accumulating member for receiving hydrogen in ultra-dense state from the outlet at a receiving portion of the accumulating member and accumulating the hydrogen in the ultra-dense state at an accumulation portion of the accumulating member.
* The accumulating member has a downward sloping surface from the receiving portion to the accumulation portion. It has also several advanced features for handling the superfluid ultra-dense material like a barrier and a shield.
* The apparatus further includes a field source, such as a laser, arranged to provide, to the accumulation portion of the accumulating member, a field adapted to stimulate emission of negative muons from hydrogen in the ultra-dense state.

Patent for Fusion Reactor

Patent – WO2018093312 Appparatus for generating muons with intended use in a fusion reactor.

An apparatus for generating muons, comprising: a hydrogen accumulator including an inlet;an outlet separated from the inlet by a flow path; a hydrogen transfer catalyst arranged along the flow path between the inlet and the outlet;and an accumulating member for receiving hydrogen in ultra-dense state from the outlet at a receiving portion of the accumulating member and accumulating the hydrogen in the ultra-dense state at an accumulation portion of the accumulating member. The accumulating member has a downward sloping surface from the receiving portion to the accumulation portion. The apparatus further includes a field source, such as a laser,arranged to provide, to the accumulation portion of the accumulating member, a field adapted to stimulate emission of negative muons from hydrogen in the ultra-dense state. The apparatus further includes a specially designed barrier and a shield to retain the super-fluid ultra-dense hydrogen from creeping away from the accumulation portion of the generator.

Fusion Reactor

The total fusion power with of 7000 trillion muons per second with the existing muon generator will be 15.2 kilowatts.

There would be 30,000 trillion D + D reactions per second. This corresponds in turn to 50 nmol of D2 gas, or 0.2 micrograms D2 consumed per second. 1.6 mol D2 per year would produce 130 MW·hours of heat.

Reactions convert the deuterons to T (tritium) and 3He (Helium 3). The fusion power after 50% conversion to tritium would be 1.53 megawatts. The estimated time for such a degree of conversion is of the order of years, depending on how much gas is used in the reactor.

Without tritium extraction, the power of the reactor may thus increase from 12.9 kW to 1.6 MW in a period of a few years.

The total power added from the decay of the initial mesons formed by the laser-induced nuclear processes will be at least 220 kilowatts.

An optimal reactor design may give a starting power of the order of 220 kW with pure D2 fuel and increasing to at least 1.7 MW after a few years of operation.

50 thoughts on “Megawatt Muon-Catalyzed Nuclear Fusion From 100 Watt Lasering of Ultradense Deuterium”

  1. Perhaps you can patent an Xray antenna that may look suspiciously close to a funnel! (LOL 😉

  2. Being able to continuously produce Rydberg matter and condense into ultradense H(0) to then accumulate is impressive.

  3. I believe the vacuum part was there ‘cuz it was easy, and because it simplified assessing the behavior on impact of the supercritical ‘prompt critical’ mass.  Were the chamber filled with nitrogen or air, said gas would compress, possibly causing the thing to bounce away. At least that was the explanation I got talking ot a nuclear-warhead expert some 40 years back. GoatGuy ✓

  4. Conceptually they’re quite different, but the bottom line is the same: Supposedly unnoticed ultra-dense state of matter that’s actually responsible for almost everything that happens in the universe: Dark matter, black holes, how stars actually work… And you can make it out of regular hydrogen using simple chemical catalysts, but without any of the normally expected phenomenon that would predictably happen if the thing were real.

    If either of them were real, they’d have been discovered centuries ago.

  5. Well this ultra dense hydrogen looks suspiciously like the hydrinos of Brillant light technology of Mister Mills but without the name . . .

  6. Making plutonium and bombs is not a technical problem. That is my point. Yes, technically you can enrich U or breed Pu the same way they did in 1944. Unlike in 1944, “technically” alone does not produce the desired outcome due to current realpolitik conditions. That is why more exotic, difficult and expensive methods are the only way for “democratisation”, as all other ways are monitored and “kinetically demotivated”. Engineering is the art of making things. If after all the engineering one gets predictably blown up, it is not engineering enough.

  7. But if you can make fusion reactors from ultradensesuperconductinghydrogen (UDSCH), then you can make a fusion rocket to get to orbit from Jupiter.

    Assuming you can’t just using the UDSCH to float up on Jupiter’s magnetic fields.

  8. once he/they attempt to raise money based on this ‘patent’, it becomes fraud, as they know the ‘patent’ contents are complete BS. The cost of obtaining patents makes this a likely next step. Perhaps Rossi can help.

  9. It doesn’t matter what he meant, it does not currently exist as a stable, earth useful thing, and likely never will.

  10. By ultradense deuterium, do they mean on the order as the implosion pellets in inertial confinement fusion or something akin to white dwarf levels of density?!? And where did they how they would make UDD?

  11. LOL. However, there’s the eensy-teensy problem that getting the hydrogen ingot out of Jup after it is collected … it itself kind of a gravity well suck case. Just saying…

  12. For the uninitiated, ‘Q’ is also kind of like COP.  The term ‘thermodynamic equilibrium’ refers to the physics-reality that one cannot convert ‘thermal’ to ‘useful power’ without losing a bunch of the thermal to almost-irreducible thermodynamic conversion losses. One typically napkin-estimates this to be 70% to 53% losses. (i.e. 30% to 47% thermal→power collection efficiency). 

    Yah, yah, yah. Technical. But still worth remembering.

    Just Saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  13. Dear ol’ Iran most certainly CAN make both HEU and plutonium, just about as much as they want, any time they want.  

    As for “testing” fission bombs, the ²³⁵U path is almost so trivial that it was the “backup bomb” dropped on Nagasaki after the plutonium implosion bomb dropped on Hiroshima.  

    Using a ‘vacuum mortar’, the critical mass slug of ²³⁵U is shot from one end of the bomb to the warhead, where it smashes into a beryllium-foil and aluminum foil wrapped polonium isotope neutron-trigger source.  Super-criticality is already ‘there’, needing only a few dozen neutrons from the polonium→alpha→beryllium→neutron generator to kick off the fireworks.  

    No fundamentally challenging engineering, if you know what I mean. 

    Just Saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  14. Thing to note … or remember:

    ²D + ²D → ³He + ¹n … 50%
    ²D + ²D → ³T + ¹p … 50%

    Roughly the same fusion energy per reaction, too. The obvious problem is that there’s no particularly good filter to sift out the ³T before it maychance react with ²D (+ ³T → ⁴He + ¹n at 14.1 MeV) — the ‘problem’ being the energy of the neutron. 14 MeV neutrons are unerringly competent at transmuting all sorts of other elements into usually-but-not-always radioactive transmutation products. The “other elements” might best be characterized as “the bottle, the coolant, the magnetic core, and all that”.  

    So, ²D + ³T is the “gotcha” poison reaction. Going back to the top, you can see that the second leg produces plenty of tritium. Which… 

    Fusion is complicated. 
    Which is why we don’t have Mr. Fusion (Back-to-the-Future) devices in our cars.  

    Just Saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  15. Hopefully, what ever type of fusion power generation in the future that comes about in power plants will stay far away from tritium as possible.

  16. “Hydrogen in the ultra dense state”; This is the new name for “hydrinos”, I take it?

    Ok, so I looked up the guy on the patent, Lief Holmlid, and, yes, his “ultra dense hydrogen” is basically just another version of hydrinos: A supposed ultra dense state of hydrogen for which there is no actual experimental confirmation.

    It’s just more pathological pseudo-science.

  17. They are talking micrograms. That would hardly be enough for anything other than research (and maybe a fusion reactor). Still, sounds questionable at best.

    edit: Missed the bit about it supposedly being superconducting at room temperature. That alone would be headline news if it was real. Just as proof of room temperature superconductivity, even if it couldn’t be made in enough quantity for anything.

  18. North Korea is number one on CIA list of countries they cannot do much about: NK can make plutonium and test bombs using established methods. Number last on that list is Iran, which almost can, but not quite. That demonstrates the minimum sovereignty and capabilities required for making a bomb using established methods. That threshold is very high. Anything and anyone else below it will be detected, targeted and “extra-judiciously” blown up. Iraqi reactor was blown up. Syrian reactor was blown up. South Africa chose HEU, hence needed no reactor and produced several bombs, yet suddenly after all that effort it abandoned the coveted weapons. Lesser efforts were quietly discouraged in so many ways. So you see now that you are quite wrong: a small reactor can only do one job – get one blown up before even a chance of making anything. Any operating reactor emits radioactive inert gases that are easily detected in minute concentrations. There is a global sensor network for detection of nuclear tests, which detects isotopic signature of fission. The nearest place one can operate a small reactor undetected is in space, and that a bit more trouble than a powerful neutron source of non-fission kind, no matter which.

  19. What is the latest on those researchers who claimed to have created metallic hydrogen? IIRC after the Harvard incident a couple years ago, a French group claimed to have done it and I haven’t heard anything since.

  20. North Korea is listed at number 113 on the CIA list of countries by GDP, and they still managed to make nukes both by enriching uranium and by making weapons grade plutonium. No need for some miracle neutron generator, a small reactor can do the job.

  21. One small correction: as it is presented, it is a prospect for generation of cheap neutrons. A kilowatt-range or megawatt-range neutron source is an extremely useful asset, but it is far more dangerous than a small nuclear bomb: it can produce plutonium for bombs without anyone noticing – with no detectable signature at all, for years, decades if it lasts that long. If they really aim at fusion energy generation, they should just drop all talk involving D-T, D-D and even D-He3 reactions. Only p-B11 for energy (nearly aneutronic) and He3-He3 (strictly aneutronic) for space, everything else will end up regulated into oblivion, as much less dangerous ways of democratising nuclear weaponry were de facto banished at international level (the incessant “non-proliferation” babble).

  22. Physics is sound, net energy production probably doesn’t take in to consideration energy needed to reform the Hydrogen as a metal.

  23. I’m pretty sure when you slap some deuterium condensate with a bajillion muons and transmute enough D&T to make 1 MW that the remaining Hydrogen isn’t anywhere near a condensate.

    … and it’ll take more than 1MW to press it back down.

  24. For all your stable ultradense hydrogen needs, you should try that new startup JMC(Jupiter Mining Corporation).

  25. Just an aside, there is a real physicist who claims that people have achieved net power output from muon fusion.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion#Alternative_estimation_of_breakeven

    He calculates that some experiments have already achieved a Q of about 1.2 to 1.3.

    Note that this is thermodynamic breakeven, you need a much larger Q = 10 or so to have a chance of actually having a functional power source. And sadly the current approach seems to be up against some hard physics barriers to further improvement.

  26. Bacon, eggs… also need a frying pan, a stove, a spatula, probably some tomato, onion, knife, fork, plate…

    Other than that we are ready to go!

  27. Not just stable ultradense hydrogen, but room temperature superconducting stable ultradense hydrogen.

    Which is apparently a “quantum material”.

    Sounds like useful stuff. Pity the local supermarket was all out when I tried to get some.

  28. If we had bacon, we could have bacon and eggs … if we had eggs.  

    Seems — as another poster has so vociferously opined — that it all depends on super-über-dense D₀ … deuterium ultra-condensate.  Which, while almost comically said to be a superconductor at room temperature (i.e. so far from posited operating conditions as to beggar belief), is also substantially more dense than the most dense materials we’ve yet made in a diamond anvil test cell. But no matter … unobtainium is commonplace amongst science fiction patents.  

    Just Saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  29. be fooled into thinking a patent gives any thing contained within any credibility. You can patent anything, as long as it’s ‘novel’, with zero requirement to prove it works.

  30. If stable “ultradense” hydrogen were a thing, don’t you think NASA etc. would use it as a rocket fuel? Seems more an ‘invention’ based on wishful thinking, not experimental evidence.

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