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Martin Fleischmann, FRS (born March 29, 1927 in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia) is an electrochemist at the University of Southampton and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is best known for his controversial work with his colleague Stanley Pons on cold fusion using palladium in the 1980s and '90s. He was also the first observer of what was later called Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering.

On March 23, 1989, while they were researchers at the University of Utah, he and Stanley Pons announced "N-Fusion" which was quickly labeled by the press as cold fusion -- a result previously thought to be unattainable. After a short period of public acclaim, the pair were attacked widely for sloppy, unreproducible research and inaccurate results, as Fleischmann predicted they would be. Fleischmann, Pons and the researchers who replicated the effect remain convinced the effect is real, but sceptics who oppose them are convinced it is not.

In 1992, Fleischmann moved to France with Pons, to work at the IMRA laboratory (part of Technova Corporation, a subsidiary of Toyota); the laboratory closed in 1998 after exhausting a research investment of $12 million USD. The pair parted ways in 1995, and Fleischmann returned to Southampton, where he remained as of 1999. He has recently co-authored papers with researchers from the U.S. Navy and Italian national laboratories (INFN and ENEA).

Fleischmann-Pons experiment

Fleischmann said that he began investigating the possibility that chemical means could influence nuclear processes in the 1960s. He said that he explored whether collective effects, that would require quantum electrodynamics to calculate, might be more significant than the effects predicted by quantum mechanical calculations. He said that, by 1983, he had experimental evidence leading him to believe that condensed phase systems developed coherent structures up to 10m in size. In 1984, Fleischmann and Pons began cold fusion experiments. In 1989, they reported that one of their experiments resulted in the melting and partial vaporization of the palladium cube used for their cathode, the partial destruction of their lab bench, a small hole in the concrete floor and damage to the fume hood.

In their original set-up, Fleischmann and Pons used a Dewar flask (a double-walled vacuum flask) for the electrolysis, so that heat conduction would be minimal on the side and the bottom of the cell (only 5 % of the heat loss in this experiment). The cell flask was then submerged in a bath maintained at constant temperature to eliminate the effect of external heat sources. They used an open cell, thus allowing the gaseous deuterium and oxygen resulting from the electrolysis reaction to leave the cell, along with some heat. It was necessary to replenish the cell with heavy water at regular intervals. The authors said that, since the cell was tall and narrow, the bubbling action of the gas kept the electrolyte well mixed and of a uniform temperature. Special attention was paid to the purity of the palladium cathode and electrolyte to prevent the build-up of material on its surface, especially after long periods of operation.

The cell was also instrumented with a thermistor to measure the temperature of the electrolyte, and an electrical heater to generate pulses of heat and calibrate the heat loss due to the gas outlet. After calibration, it was possible to compute the heat generated by the reaction.

A constant current was applied to the cell continuously for many weeks, and heavy water was added as necessary. For most of the time, the power input to the cell was equal to the power that went out of the cell within measuring accuracy, and the cell temperature was stable at around 30 °C. But then, at some point (and in some of the experiments), the temperature rose suddenly to about 50 °C without changes in the input power, for durations of 2 days or more. The generated power was calculated to be about 20 times the input power during the power bursts. Eventually the power bursts in any one cell would no longer occur and the cell was turned off.

In 1988, Fleischmann and Pons applied to the United States Department of Energy for funding towards a larger series of experiments. Up to this point they had been funding their experiments using a small device built with $100,000 out-of-pocket. The grant proposal was turned over for peer review, and one of the reviewers was Steven E. Jones of Brigham Young University. Jones had worked on muon-catalyzed fusion for some time, and had written an article on the topic entitled "Cold nuclear fusion" that had been published in Scientific American in July 1987. Fleischmann and Pons and co-workers met with Jones and co-workers on occasion in Utah to share research and techniques. During this time, Fleischmann and Pons described their experiments as generating considerable "excess energy", in the sense that it could not be explained by chemical reactions alone. They felt that such a discovery could bear significant commercial value and would be entitled to patent protection. Jones, however, was measuring neutron flux, which was not of commercial interest. In order to avoid problems in the future, the teams appeared to agree to simultaneously publish their results, although their accounts of their March 6 meeting differ.

In mid-March, both research teams were ready to publish their findings, and Fleischmann and Jones had agreed to meet at an airport on March 24 to send their papers to Nature via FedEx. Fleischmann and Pons, however, broke their apparent agreement, submitting their paper to the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry on March 11, and disclosing their work via a press conference on March 23.

Notes

1. Fleischmann, M. "Raman Spectra of Pyridine Adsorbed at a Silver Electrode". Chemical Physics Letters. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
2. Shelley, Tom (October, 2006). "Tiny reflectors boost sensing a billion". Eureka. Retrieved 2007-12-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
3. New Energy Times
4. Fleischmann, M., S. Pons, and M. Hawkins, Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium. J. Electroanal. Chem., 1989. 261: p. 301 and errata in Vol. 263.
5. Beaudette, C.G., Excess Heat. Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed. 2000, Concord, NH: Oak Grove Press (Infinite Energy, Distributor).
6. Voss, David, What Ever Happened to Cold Fusion, Physics World, March 1, 1999, retrieved May 1, 2008 from: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/1258
7. Szpak, S., et al., Thermal behavior of polarized Pd/D electrodes prepared by co-deposition. Thermochim. Acta, 2004. 410: p. 101.
8. Mosier-Boss, P.A. and M. Fleischmann, Thermal and Nuclear Aspects of the Pd/D2O System, ed. S. Szpak and P.A. Mosier-Boss. Vol. 2. Simulation of the Electrochemical Cell (ICARUS) Calorimetry. 2002: SPAWAR Systems Center, San Diego, U.S. Navy.
9. Del Giudice, E., et al. Loading of H(D) in a Pd lattice. in The 9th International Conference on Cold Fusion, Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. 2002. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing, China: Tsinghua Univ. Press.
10. Fleischmann 2003, p. 1
11. Fleischmann 2002
12. ^ Fleischmann 2003, p. 3
13. Leggett 1989 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLeggett1989 (help)
14. Lewenstein 1994 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLewenstein1994 (help) p. 21
15. Fleischmann & Pons 1989, p. 301, Krivit 2008, p. 9 harvnb error: no target: Krivit2008b (help), Browne 1989 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrowne1989 (help)
16. Fleischmann & Pons 1989, p. 301
17. ^ Crease & Samios 1989, p. V1 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFCreaseSamios1989 (help)
18. Fleischmann et al. 1990, p. 293
19. ^ Lewenstein 1994, p. 8 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLewenstein1994 (help)

References

• Physics Web article by David Voss
• Fleischmann, Martin; Pons, Stanley (1989), "Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium", Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, 261 (2A): 301–308, doi:10.1016/0022-0728(89)80006-3
• Fleischmann, Martin; Pons, Stanley; Anderson, Mark W.; Li, Lian Jun; Hawkins, Marvin (1990), "Calorimetry of the palladium-deuterium-heavy water system", Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, 287: 293–348, doi:10.1016/0022-0728(90)80009-U
• Fleischmann, Martin; Pons, Stanley (1992), "Some Comments on The Paper 'Analysis of Experiments on The Calorimetry of LiOD-D₂O Electrochemical Cells,' R.H. Wilson et al., Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 332, (1992)", Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, 332: 33, doi:10.1016/0022-0728(92)80339-6
• Fleischmann, Martin (1993), "Calorimetry of the Pd-D2O system: from simplicity via complications to simplicity", Physics Letters A, 176 (1–2): 118–129, doi:10.1016/0375-9601(93)90327-V
• Fleischmann, Martin (2002), "Searching for the consequences of many-body effects in condensed phase systems", The 9th International Conference on Cold Fusion, Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (PDF), Tsinghua University, Beijing: Tsinghua University Press
• Fleischmann, Martin (2003), "Background to cold fusion: the genesis of a concept", Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion, Cambridge, MA: World Scientific Publishing, ISBN 978-9812565648

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