New swedish patent paper - Holmlid, Leif

Hmm, thats sad that there are more and more patents.
Patenting and licensing anything is step backward and can make LENR adoption much slower while not easy at all for manufacturers.

That tends to be what is happening in "high tech' Silicon Valley style, where patent portfolios of the thousands are regularly bought and sold through mergers and acquisitions and so on.

But of course the original and continuing purpose of patents was, and is, to give a limited monopoly in exchange for FULL DISCLOSURE. Although clever patent attorneys now often manage to get patents with inadequate disclosure.

Please, you pioneers, note that failure to properly or adequately disclose can later be grounds for denial of an infringement suit--- your only tool to enforce your claims.

AR's patent application in the US was recently denied (probably a first of several rounds) not so much because of the examiner's or USPTO antagonism, but due to the utter lack of transparency in the application. It failed the full disclosure test, unfortunately.

By contrast the Lipinski patent application (UGC) is so revealing it is almost a tutorial in every aspect of their technology--

The Lipinski's application follows the letter and the intention of patent statutes.

In a burgeoning field of newer technology, the "art" and the "science" is pushed forward by the sequence and parallelism of disclosures. I'm a lonely inventor type, but today, even since Edison's time, the work is often not by lonely inventor types toiling in their garages hoping to spring forth fully formed as a modern Henry Ford or Nikola Tesla. It rarely works that way any more.... you read about the exceptions occasionally because they are exceptions. There is a large and growing body of "prior art" in CF and LENR, CANR etc. already, some new, some expired but the numbers are so large that diligent search world wide search for prior art in the area is difficult.

Do the work, make the disclosures, cite ALL the relevant prior art, and hope some of your claims are upheld. Prepare to litigate against infringers but be prepared for them to search the prior art in both patents and publications that you never thought of, or heard of, back to dates you never imagined. Or prepare to license your patent to the deep pockets out there-- let them collect the portfolio and let them sue the infringers.

Lipinki's appear to have made at least some of their bundle selling cc:mail to Lotus-- they were lucky, look what happened to Lotus.... The entity that squashed them is now looking at CF and LENR.

Bottom Line: Every modern invention has a complex history, the media tend to focus on hero individuals as we all do because we ourselves are individuals. Progress in LENR is already very much a group effort at nearly every stage, and is becoming more that way all the time.

Note: By the way, I have nothing to do with the Lipinski father and son team, I had never heard or read of them before seeing them referenced here on the LENR Forum, by David the Founder if I recall correctly. Further, in spite of the great efforts they have made, I would not necessarily endorse their theory yet. And I don't think their theory of MEE or Unified Gravity is necessary to progress in the field. It is curious that they themselves in their WIPO patent application, appear to deny that their work has anything to do with CF or LENR, I believe this may be an IP legal strategy, [but that strictly a guess] could be just semantics to avoid being submerged in the more moronic aspects of media. In any case, I am sure that belief in their theory is not necessary to make their invention operate.

Quote from David

https://data.epo.org/publicati…P2680271NWA1/document.pdf

My first take on this is that it is a possibility that one might someday improve the efficiency of laser ignited hot fusion by some such means-- just not this particular one in this particular guise.

As this patent application presently reads, no one working in LENR needs to worry. Essentially these "inventors" are like would be gold miners staking out a claim on land that looks good because the terrain vaguely resembles a photo of something that someone once panned a few ounces of gold from. Sort of like "cargo-cult science" that Feynman used to write about-- thanks to anthropologists who described such cults in the S. Pacific--- the appearance of a landing field will surely bring the longed for riches of military cargo drops.

And as for the "ultra dense hydrogen" falling off the catalyst for transport to the ignition site.... not a chance, if the "catalyst" or reagent somehow enabled this very thermodynamically unfavorable "reaction" that is loss of bonding, loss of electrons, compaction to huge densities, then someone has to have paid (done real work) for that unstable state-- I predict that the "catalyst" has to stay with this state for it to be stable-- hence that reagent whatever it is, would not be a true catalyst, otherwise the hydrogen nuclei will simply spontaneously return to their initial H2 gaseous equilibrium state (or liquid if it is cryogenic), utilizing the same catalytic "tunnel" that [supposedly] got them to this described "never never land". As for the "thick layer" of ultra-dense hydrogen--- I am extremely skeptical. My reaction is "no way", regardless of the work and catalysis done, the pressure away from the magical surfaces, where protons are then packed only against each other is going to be very responsive to Coulomb-- far greater fugacity than helium, because there are no electrons. One layer, possibly a second in the interstices, but no further "thickness" for such packed density to be stablilized by whatever force or shielding.

Sure some structures may enable a modest amount of proton compaction if the concentration gradient is maintained and the time for diffusion is allowed and/or the necessary work is done. We know palladium shows some of the features, but not even a tiny fraction of the density claimed here-- and remember packing H into Pd requires not only time but also energy (a.k.a. work)-- at least as applied pressure. In all the readings I recall, Pd, for example, requires some thermodynamic or electrolytic work as well--- and this is work that either shows up when the metal is "unloaded" if the reverse reaction is exothermic, or has to be delivered to the un-"catalyst" if the unloading in endothermic. Or take LiAlH4, it does not "grab hydrogen" on the contrary it has been engineered to contain hydrogens and give them up as hydride (H and H minus). And the thermodynamics indicate that removal of the hydrogens is endothermic so they may "fall off" in a heated reactor, but only because real work was done to put them there. Under STP conditions LiAlH4 hydride release will lead to regeneration of H2, not regeneration of the hydride, unless some work or other reagent intervenes to receive the hydrides.

Let's examine catalysis, which is apparent in the application description but may be absent in fact. Classic catalysts enable work, they themselves do not do net work. Classic catalysts should remain unaffected by participating in the reactions they enable, that is their identity chemically and physically should be at least functionally the same. And catalysis at standard conditions (1 molar reagent concentrations etc.) never enables unfavorable reactions without external work being done. Something is missing in this patent application... and that is what is doing the work of making the ultradense hydrogen, a very thermodynamically unfavorable state. The work itself is not being done by the catalyst, to be certain. The catalyst may in theory at best enable such work to be efficiently done by something else.

Many of the "mechanical details" here sound like a description of some coal fired power plant, down to the conveyer belts and the delivery hopper. Perhaps this is a fishing expedition for buried treasure, that is patent trolling... a phenomenon of gaining patents without actually inventing. Such egregious trolling is now, it seems to me, being used as a legislative club by corporate interests to suppress patents by the genuinely lone inventor types.

Quote from Curbina

Inertial confinement fusion is hot fusion, the likes of the Z machine. It's about creating conditions above 4 billion degrees K to induce Li-H and/or B-H fusion.

Agreed its hot, but....

I won't contest that laser driven inertial confinement is hot fusion. Nor would I contest that the new EP patent application here is essentially hot fusion, or at least equally unlikely to work.

But Curbina, temperature in the billions is way too high for a confinement scheme, 4 million up to 40 million K should cover all the NIF goals and then some [although the goals may be throttled down or even eliminated as LENR rises in public consciousness]. As I understand it the reason the NIF programmers believe they can meet the Lawson criterion is the photon pressure, which is immense. I don't recall any hot fusion program that was reaching even 1 billion K. I see ITER is touting 150 million K. [other examples and corrections welcomed]

For me the dividing criterion is really how hot the initiation is, that is what is the activation energy. Tentatively, I would suggest that If it is above 1 MeV, then it is essentially collisional and hence "hot". If activation is below 100 keV it is somehow avoiding collisional physics paradigms and it is cold. But that's just a suggestion to those much more experienced in this realm than I am.

Quote from Curbina

Well Longview, the temperatures over 2 billion degrees were achieved in 2006 within what's known as the Z machine of Sandia Labs. Here's one link to one of the related publications from Dr. Malcolm Haines, who unfortunately passed away not so long ago. (http://www.jp-petit.org/science/Z-machine/article_Haines.pdf). Actually I was mistaken as it did not reach 4 billion, but 3,6 billion degrees Kelvin, and it was done several times as the team in charge did not know how they had gone so high (http://www.livescience.com/614…-billion-degrees-lab.html). Unfortunately, as Sandia Labs was and is working with US DoD contracts, and the implicance of such a result should be rather unescapable for people involved in the field (classical aneutronic fusion at the end of the road, at a fraction of the cost of the well known multinational projects), the Z machine was soon after "repurposed".

Very interesting, Curbina. Thanks. I hope we are not missing out on going that direction. I suppose that nearly everyone in one or another hot fusion research program gets on their particular bandwagon and forgets about the other possibilities. And of course that can happen in LENR as well.

My understanding was that the real issue is getting the confinement time, the temperature and the density all sufficiently high as the same time and in the same place.

One of the lessons of the apparent success of some cold fusion or CANR or LENR experiments is not only that the whole paradigm of hot fusion may be flawed, but that the modeling also may be defective. Essentially the Lawson Criterion may "feel' comprehensive and gives non-physicists something promising to look at. But it may be quite wrong.

Is there something more about "classical aneutronic fusion" we all here should read?

I find this link: http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/category/C63

And there these are the suggested candidates:

1H + 2 6Li →
1H + 7Li →
3He + 3He →
1H + 11B →

It appears that by lowering the temperature way down, to 200 to a 1000 eV, and of course making some other manipulations including square wave target target biasing, the Lipinski WIPO patent application claims do involve the first two lithium reactions, or at least the second. Their application made very clear that higher energies made for very low collision rates. They replicated the 1938 work of Herb that showed tiny fractional yields. On lowering their velocity / energy the yield
greatly improved.

I believe I have seen here mention of Boron 11 as a target. I imagine the Lipinski duo and company "UGC" are trying that right now.

Quote from AlainCo

It seems hot fusion, but with condensed matter target...

I don't feel it is LENR

If there is no gamma radiation and/or high energy neutron production, then it's LENR. I believe that the reactions Leif is working with are LENR since Holmlid is still alive.

Quote from Curbina

Well Longview, the temperatures over 2 billion degrees were achieved in 2006 within what's known as the Z machine of Sandia Labs. Here's one link to one of the related publications from Dr. Malcolm Haines, who unfortunately passed away not so long ago. (http://www.jp-petit.org/science/Z-machine/article_Haines.pdf). Actually I was mistaken as it did not reach 4 billion, but 3,6 billion degrees Kelvin, and it was done several times as the team in charge did not know how they had gone so high (http://www.livescience.com/614…-billion-degrees-lab.html). Unfortunately, as Sandia Labs was and is working with US DoD contracts, and the implicance of such a result should be rather unescapable for people involved in the field (classical aneutronic fusion at the end of the road, at a fraction of the cost of the well known multinational projects), the Z machine was soon after "repurposed".

There are a number of ways to reach ultra-high temperatures. But of course fusion output scales with confinement time and density and temperature, and the large energy required as input to get a Z pinch means that there is little hope of even (heat) energy out comparable with energy in, let alone the Q > 6 needed for a viable power plant. OK, if you reckon all the unspoken edirect conversion issues can be solved make that Q > 1.5. It does not matter because getting to energy out comparable with energy in is so very difficult.

For alternative approaches hoping to get useful fusion you have much choice, and no sign of the government suppressing anything:

Polywell
Focus fusion / Lerner (close to Z pinch in strategy)
General Fusion
The RFC guy whose name i forget

All with different approaches as to how they can meet the Lawson criteron

Gene

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366203429_Generator_for_Large_Fluxes_of_Kaons_and_Pions_Using_Laser-Induced_Nuclear_Processes_in_Ultra-Dense_Hydrogen_H0

Generator for Large Fluxes of Kaons and Pions Using Laser-Induced Nuclear Processes in Ultra-Dense Hydrogen H(0)

December 2022Energies 15(24):9391

DOI: 10.3390/en15249391

LicenseCC BY 4.0

Lab: Leif Holmlid's Lab

Abstract and figures

Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) produce mesons with both relatively low kinetic energy and with high kinetic energy. The kaons have up to 100 MeV of kinetic energy, thus a velocity of 0.55 c. Each laser pulse of >0.1 J of energy and length of 5 ns produces 1013 mesons. The operation of the meson generator is here demonstrated by measuring all decay times for mesons in the ns range after induction by a pulsed laser. These decay times are the unique fingerprints of the mesons, and they also produce the kinetic energy of the mesons created from their time-dilated decay. The charged pion decay time at rest from this generator is measured to be 25.92 ± 0.04 ns (standard fit error), in reasonable agreement with the tabulated results of 26.033 ns. A similar accuracy is found for the other mesons as for the charged kaons, with 96 MeV of kinetic energy, at 14.81 ± 0.05 ns. The same general behaviour is found with both deuterium and normal hydrogen forming the ultra-dense phase H(0) on the laser target. This meson generator gives intense meson showers useful for many types of particle physics experiments at a small fraction of the cost of using particle accelerators. A particle accelerator would need an energy of at least 1021 eV to produce a similar shower of 1013 mesons. Thus, the described generator is among the most intense meson sources that exist....................ratorInduced Nuclear Processes in Ultra-Dense Hydrogen H(0

This puts the whole NIF dog and pony show in perspective.

In the publication that Alan Smith shared, Holmlid mentions a COP of 1000. (5W in, 5KW out). Take that, NIF!!!

Direct link to the pdf version. https://www.researchgate.net/p…tra-Dense-Hydrogen-H0.pdf

Interestingly, this paper clarifies some aspects of the patent which weren't described in the patent itself (e.g. the heater).

Quote from Alan Smith

Each laser pulse of >0.1 J of energy and length of 5 ns produces 1013 mesons.

This only shows that there is no COP > 1.. cracking 3-400 protons does not produce 0.1J ... Even if you have follow up fusion events.

Be also aware that a 0.1J Laser pulse means at least 10x more energy needed to produce it. 1J = 6.2 10E18 eV.

So something is totally wrong here.

It's 10^13 mesons, not "1013"; the superscript didn't survive copy&paste.

Quote from can

It's 10^13 mesons,

Sounds much better. Now he only must solve the containment problem. Neutral Pions cannot be guided and even have no magnetic moment that could allow to deflect them like neutrons.

And a nuclear reactor today has at least 1000MW so he would need 1 mio factor scale up of the same experiments. Looks like a problem with highest vacuum that is needed.

So this is on square one. A solution will take 20-30 years.

The high vacuum was mostly needed for studying better the particles generated. It's suggested that "the formation of H(0) works at least up to 200 mbar of hydrogen pressure".