'Cold fusion' co-discoverer Martin Fleischmann dies at 85

British chemist Martin Fleischmann, who surprised the world by announcing that it has obtained nuclear fusion in a glass bottle, has died after a long illness.

His son Nicholas said he died Friday at home in England.

Electrochemistry Fleischmann was one of the leaders in the world when he and his partner Stanley Pons announced in 1989 that had led to the merger, the nuclear process that heats the sun, in an experiment at the University of Utah.

The reaction occurred at room temperature was reported, and seemed to emit little radiation, a huge contrast to the still ongoing search for fusion with conventional means, in billions of dollars of reactors at temperatures of millions of degrees.

The announcement sparked hopes of a shortcut to fusion as a source of clean, renewable energy and economic development.

However, when other scientists were quick to replicate success, no more junk science, and the "cold fusion" was quickly labeled. Physicists Fleischmann accused of incompetence and fraud.

Pons and he continued to work - and defend - their results, but were discouraged by the way their work is ignored by scientists after the disaster of 1989.

"This was a terrible experience," said Fleischmann Telepolis German news site in 2005.

Search the "cold fusion" continues on the shores of the scientific world.

Fleischmann was born in Czechoslovakia. When the Nazis occupied the country in 1938, the family fled to England. To obtain a legal status for the move, Fleischmann was adopted by a British title.

He studied chemistry at Imperial College London and became known for a good knowledge of mathematics and fantasy unusual for a chemist.

He took over the Department of Chemistry, University of Southampton in 1967 and gave him international fame. He was a member of the Royal Society of Great Britain, the Academy of Sciences.

After leaving college, he spent much time working on experiments with his friend Pons, an American.

Fleischmann was a "genius of exploration," said Michael role played a friend of Fleischmann and research professor of physics at the Naval Postgraduate School in California.