Tritium Production from a Low Voltage Deuterium Discharge on Palladium and Other Metals

Over the past year we have been able to demonstrate that a plasma loading method produces an exciting and unexpected amount of tritium from small palladium wires. In contrast to electrochemical hydrogen or deuterium loading of palladium, this method yields a reproducible tritium generation rate when various electrical and physical conditions are met. Small diameter wires (100 250 microns) have been used with gas pressures above 200 torr at voltages and currents of about 2000 V at 3-5 A. By carefully controlling the sputtering rate of the wire, runs have been extended to hundreds of hours allowing a significant amount (> 10’s nCi) of tritium to accumulate. We will show tritium generation rates for deuterium-palladium foreground runs that are up to 25 times larger than hydrogen-palladium control experiments using materials from the same batch. We will illustrate the difference between batches of annealed palladium and as received palladium from several batches as well as the effect of other metals (Pt, Ni, Nb, Zr, V, W, Hf) to demonstrate that the tritium generation rate can vary greatly from batch to batch.