Nature 342, 375 - 384 (23 November 1989); doi:10.1038/342375a0

Upper bounds on 'cold fusion' in electrolytic cells

D. E. Williams^*, D. J. S. Findlay^†, D. H. Craston^*, M. R. Sené^†, M. Bailey^†, S. Croft^†, B. W. Hooton^‡, C. P. Jones^*, A. R. J. Kucernak^*, J. A. Mason^§ & R. I. Taylor^*

^* Materials Development Division, ^† Nuclear Physics and Instrumentation Division and^‡ Nuclear Materials Control Office, Harwell Laboratory, UK Atomic Energy Authority, Didcot, Oxfordshire, 0X11 ORA, UK
^§ Reactor Centre and Centre for Fusion Studies, Imperial College, Silwood Park, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK

Experiments using three different calorimeter designs and high-efficiency neutron and -ray detection on a wide range of materials fail to sustain the recent claims of cold fusion made by Fleischmann et al. ¹ and Jones et al. ². Spurious effects which, undetected, could have led to claims of cold fusion, include noise from neutron counters, cosmic-ray background variations, calibration errors in simple calorimeters and variable electrolytic enrichment of tritium.

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