Search for energetic-charged-particle emission from deuterated Ti and Pd foils

Searching for evidence of ''cold'' nuclear fusion in deuterium-loaded Ti and Pd foils with plastic track detectors, we detected the emission of α particles from trace-heavy-element decay, but found no evidence of dd fusion. Cycling TiD2 and PdD>0.4, in high-pressure D2 cells between 1 and 15 bars and 77 and 300 K, gave an upper bound of 0.7 cm−3 s−1 for the mean rate of dd→3He+n fusion. For electrolytically deuterated PdD0.8 our upper bound is 0.0018 cm−3 s−1 for the mean rate of dd→p+t. This is ∼1.5×106 and 180 times lower than ''cold''-fusion rates reported by Fleischmann, Pons, and Hawkins and Jones et al., respectively.