NASA Lattice Confinement Fusion [2020]

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NASA Lattice Confinement Fusion [2020]

Lattice confinement is the idea of constraining smaller atoms with bigger ones.
In this case the crystalline layer of a metal is used to hold deuteron atoms, just like pouring water into sand.
For this experiment they used Erbium and Titanium at 99.9% purity. Erbium is a rare earth metal mainly found in Sweden, and it is used in optical amplification media such lens and lasers for optical fibers. It is also used in nuclear technology as control rods for neutron-absorption.
The reason they used Erbium for this experiment lies in fuel density, where it can hold about 8.1022 Deuteron atoms/cm3. It is also very stable where losses from fuel loading to testing were minimal. Lastly, it showed enhanced nuclear reactions.
A sample of Erbium is pumped with deuterium which is packed with a billion times more fuel than what magnetic confinement of tokamaks are able to constrain.
The ability to pack more atoms in a given volume, especially a billion times denser, increases the chances of deuterons hitting each other.
All you need now is a source of energy to excite the atoms and start the reaction.
In this case they blasted the sample with 2.9+Million electron Volts of gamma beam or energetic X-ray which causes the dissociation of the atom.
That is where the magic happens, this dissociation creates the necessary energetic neutrons and protons. The neutron collides with a static deuteron giving it enough energy to collide with another deuteron ultimately fusing.

Softwares Used:
Blender 2.8 EEVEE
Apple Motion
Final Cut Pro X

Sources

Wikipedia
Attribution

[ZerCre]

"Do you people still use fossil fuels, or have you discovered crystallic fusion?" -- Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story, 1995

[marcus]

Something that wasnt mentioned in the video, but really should be:
I get that Tritium is pretty rare on earth, but there are ways to make the system *self sustained by creating your own Tritium*, as planned with ITER.
They use escaped neutrons from the plasma and try to fuse it with certain Lithium isotopes (L6 and L7) which gives off Tritium as a byproduct.
Of course you would still need to supply a certain starting amount of Tritium, but estimates suggest that the plant can remain active for 1000 years without any further Tritium input.
And with an natural occurence of more than 90% of L7 it should not be a problem economically.
Edit: corrected an expression error which induced false information

[rayceeya]

Theoretically tritium could be "bred" within the neutron flux of the fusion reactor. So that's not a long term problem... Theoretically...

[skaterfugater]

4:28 that is actually amazing. it really surprised me. 8x10^22 atoms is around 0, 13 mol. (which weighs 0, 26 g in the case of deuterium). considering that in gaseous state 1 mol always equates to 22.4 l this means that the method allows 2.9 l of gas to be stored in just 1 cm^3 of the metal crystall or 2900 l D+ per l. that is alot more than even liquid hydrogen storage solutions in discussion such as dibenzyltoluene which stores 660 l h2 per liter.
now this has nothing to do with deuterium or fusion specifically but maybe a video on hydrogen storage would be interesting. there are so many options in discussion.

[coolcarlgaming]

“You look like you’re having fun. What are you watching?”

Me: I HAVE NO IDEA

[brynduffy]

Regarding metallic hydrogen, producing this is looking to be just as hard or even harder than creating the fusion reaction in a tokamak.
The deuterium erbium lattice system sounds much smarter.

[christophertstone]

5:03 "They blasted the sample with 2.9 MeV of energetic X-Rays"
That makes it sound like 2.9 MeV is a quantity of energy flow; it's not. It's a way of measuring the excitation energy; like wavelength or frequency.
Also, not sure where you got "X-Ray" from, 2.9 MeV is way up into Gamma Rays; X-Rays stop in the keV range.

For example, blue-green light has a wavelength of 500nm, frequency of 600THz, and excitation energy around 2.4eV
The experiment used gamma rays around 430fm, 700EHz, and 2.9MeV.

[Vivaswaan.]

Nobody explains like Subject Zero! Almost all necessary areas are covered, the topic is made so comprehensible through the marvelous animation.... Learnt a lot.

[daprela]

I bet that they will eventually develop a crystal for the fusion and call it dilithium

[reticenti]

Omg! Amazing! The other thing to consider is that now room temp superconductors are becoming possible with the offset graphine stuff. Incredible time to be alive

[michaeltout]

Brilliant as always. Thank you Subject Zero 🙏🏻

[MAJRTOM]

"the power of the sun in the palm of my hand"

[azurealism]

I feel like Pons and Fleischman are owed a huge apology...

[markfernandes]

Hold on, what's the difference from this type "lattice confinement", to the same idea in LENR AKA "cold fusion"? They are using x rays to excite the atoms when packed tight in the lattice but apart from that, seems suspiciously similar no?

[benjaminbazi]

5:16 The term X-rays is used for photons which fall in the energy range of 0.1 to 100 keV. Photons in the MeV energy range fall into the gamma-ray spectrum.

[fredcrayon]

Holy crap, it just hit me, this is the precursor to the dilithium crystal! Of course dilithium is used to regulate the rate of annihilation of matter and anti-matter. But I see the connection!

[FrancescoDiMauro]

is this similar to what Fleischmann and Pons were trying to achieve back in 1989? With palladium instead of erbium?

[CausticLemons]

This is not a topic I would choose on my own. But somehow this channel explains it well enough that I can walk away a little smarter than before. Thanks!

[geoffrygifari]

Man... your visuals...

Top tier science outreach

[debrainwasher]

The much better way to accomplish fusion without the need for unhandy temperatures of a supernova and to satisfy the Lawson criterion (self sustaining fusion) is easier, most people think. Exactly three things are required: i) A fast, pulsed electrical discharge in a Z-pinch configuration, ii) a magnetic field structure, that breaks. Reconnection the field lines provide further compression to high three-digit MPa-Range for a couple of ns (enough for fusion) and expel (nearly) all electrons from the Hohlraum. This minimizes losses. iii) Use of boron and protons instead if T and D. Conveniently, both elements are contained in a close stoichiometric ratio in decaborane (B10H14). Since most of the energy of the reaction B-11 + p -> 3·He-4 is released as kinetic energy in alpha-particles, this radial particle stream can be guided by magnets along electrical coupling loops (like in a transformer). This creates pulses of electricity, that can be stored in capacitors and used to drive vehicles, ships, aircrafts and trains. Since fossile fuel industry and countries, who take mineral oil taxes are not very keen on this stuff, our institution for nuclear physics have been closed down and we scientists and engineers are placed in food stamp programs. Whenever somebody of our former staff would blat out the technology he ended like Jamal Kashoggi. Therefore, it will take about 400 years (end of coal), until we can turn to fusion.