Freethinker's replication attempts

I think that there are many ways how to achieve desired effect. Using EM is probably not reason for excess heat, It is only way, how you can achieve particular thing that is required later.
You can use even one heater for multiple purposes at the same time. You can use it for heating only, but also as induction heater later.

Rossi is in the state, that he know limitation of each part and he want to sell reliable product. So one thing is to make it work, second to make it durable.
So even there are many ways to get excess heat, you have to find the best one.
I think that he is fighting with some mechanical limitations even now.

Quote from AlainCo

I would bet on powder treatment

Rossi's patent says something about heating wet nickle particles, to create steam, in order to create or enlarge surface cavities.

My guess is he's actually drying it out because he preloaded it by electrolysis.

Both Storms and McKubre write about a lower limit of loading that needs to be reached. Is a few hours exposure to a few bar of H in a replicator's reactor enough to reach this limit?

Can a plastic bottle top full of nanopowder be an effective cathode? Lithium salt electrolyte, nickle anode... Dry it out in the oven.

&"that say surface structure is important. I would bet on powder treatment, rather than on RF."

Of course the surface structure is important. The proton interaction with the surface periodicity is what overcomes the coulomb repulsion. Nanoscale NiO powder when heated to hydrogen dissociation temperature will initiate proton fusion. The transmutation results in helium. I've constructed the reactor, witnessed the resulting fusion, measured the helium produced and have been burdened with the results since then. This energy source is presently unacceptable in the world economy. We'll be burning oil for a long time and afterwards there is an enormous supply of methane. We'll probably consume all the atmospheric oxygen and the problem will solve itself.

Quote from colwyn

Both Storms and McKubre write about a lower limit of loading that needs to be reached.

Ed Storms now calls into question the need for high loading. His position is subtle and is not exactly "high loading is not needed," but more like, "what high loading accomplishes can be accomplished through other means," if I have understood it. Note also that nickel does not really load hydrogen.

I should add that I take no position on whether Ed Storms's view about loading is correct.

Quote from ogfusionist

Nanoscale NiO powder when heated to hydrogen dissociation temperature will initiate proton fusion.

Here are some p+Ni reactions -- is that what you think you were seeing?

p + 64Ni => gamma + 65Cu + 7454 keV
p + 62Ni => gamma + 63Cu + 6122 keV
p + 61Ni => gamma + 62Cu + 5855 keV
p + 60Ni => gamma + 61Cu + 4800 keV
p + 59Ni => gamma + 60Cu + 4477 keV
p + 58Ni => gamma + 59Cu + 3418 keV
p + 64Ni => 4He + 61Co + 663 keV
p + 61Ni => 4He + 58Co + 489 keV
p + 62Ni => 4He + 59Co + 347 keV

If business was proceeding as usual, there would be gammas all over the place. Either something would have to be changing the reaction pathways to avoid the gammas, or, possibly, the helium you saw came from something else? BTW, what did you do to measure the helium, and how much above background levels was it?

Quote from Eric Walker

Here are some p+Ni reactions -- is that what you think you were seeing?

Neither of them. I think ogfusionist has been writing all along that he's seeing p-p fusion.

Given the description of what he's doing from other forum threads, I believe he might be creating a dense form of hydrogen catalytically just like Leif Holmlid does (through molecular hydrogen dissociation and desorption of atomic hydrogen from the active sites at the nano-scale), which has a density is such that nuclear fusion can spontaneously occur within it. Note that Holmlid did observe ultra-dense protium, and that the process he's describing is not limited to potassium/iron oxide catalysts. A very relevant paragraph from his patent (for convenience, as I don't know exactly where he's written this in the papers he published):

https://www.google.com/patents/EP2680271A1

Quote

[0011] A "hydrogen transfer catalyst" is any catalyst capable of absorbing hydrogen gas molecules (H2) and dissociating these molecules to atomic hydrogen, that is, catalyze the reaction H2 → 2H. The name hydrogen transfer catalyst implies that the so-formed hydrogen atoms on the catalyst surface can rather easily attach to other molecules on the surface and thus be transferred from one molecule to another. The hydrogen transfer catalyst may further be configured to cause a transition of the hydrogen into the ultradense state if the hydrogen atoms are prevented from re-forming covalent bonds. The mechanisms behind the catalytic transition from the gaseous state to the ultra-dense state are quite well understood, and it has been experimentally shown that this transition can be achieved using various hydrogen transfer catalysts, including, for example, commercially available so-called styrene catalysts, as well as (purely) metallic catalysts, such as Iridium and Palladium. It should be noted that the hydrogen transfer catalyst does not necessarily have to transition the hydrogen in the gaseous state to the ultra-dense state directly upon contact with the hydrogen transfer catalyst. Instead, the hydrogen in the gaseous state may first be caused to transition to a dense state H(1), to later spontaneously transition to the ultra-dense state H(-1). Also in this latter case has the hydrogen transfer catalyst caused the hydrogen to transition from the gaseous state to the ultra-dense state.

Al₂O₃-NiO catalysts do exist commercially and are employed in dehydrogenation (or "hydrogen transfer" in Holmlid's words) reactions as well.

EDIT: this process would also not conflict with Edmund Storms' findings in that once the proper nanostructures are created loading is irrelevant and that excess heat (and nuclear fusion products) mostly depends on temperature and the amount of hydrogen flowing (ie desorbing) through the NAE. The ultra-dense hydrogen observed by Holmlid also has the characteristics of metallic hydrogen that Storms speculates his "Hydroton" has. The very fact that there appears to be several things in common among observations by these researchers, one of whom with a well established reputation in the LENR field, deserves more attention in my opinion.

@ ME356: I do agree that a proper IGBT based power source is needed, if only to apply adjustible high frequencies and study the effect. It should enable AC and DC supply and high current peaks. I do also believe that a current through the fuel may be effective and that designs should focus on that as well. AR's patent does not exclude this either.

For those who may wonder why IGBTs for nanosecond power switching, It is otherwise difficult to get to this end using solid state circuitry, see link below if you have institutional or member access (I don't):

"The pulsed power generator produced a pulsed-high-current of 3.7 kA with a rise time of 7 ns at a repetition rate of 1000 pulses
per second (pps). This generator is able to generate an output voltage of about 20 kV with voltage rise time of less than 10 ns. We did the operation test and generate the streamer discharge with 1000 pps"

Linked here:
eeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6191403&url=http%3A%2F
%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D6191403

And a white paper here:
https://www.fairchildsemi.com/campaigns/wp-field-stop-igbts/

Pulsed Power Conference (PPCP, 2011 IEEE
19-23 June 2011
Page(s):
140 - 145
ISSN :
2158-4915
Print ISBN:
978-1-4577-0629-5
INSPEC Accession Number:
12696753

For an easy access application page, see this Fairchild link:
https://www.fairchildsemi.com/products/discretes/igbts/

ogfusionist. It looks to me that the various ideas and experiment data are converging. This is a good sign I think. I have a question about the He you saw in your experiments:

Did you make an isotopic analysis of the gas to see the relative proportions of He3 and He4? I suppose it could be done with a spectral analysis of the gas?

Since He3 can only be produced in certain ways it's relative proportion might tell us something about what process are occurring. He3 can be produced from Tritium decay, Proton bombardment of Lithium 6, Pion induced Fission of Lithium 6 and Lithium 7, maybe some others I did not think of. I suppose there might be a characteristic signature based on final and initial abundance the produced radiation and processes involved.

Edit: If I understand correctly your experiment didn't use Lithium is this right? It might still be interesting to see the He3 relative abundance though. It might be also interesting to look at the Hydrogen Protium/Deuterium ratio if possible

Here is a link to a white paper from Fairchild Semiconductor on 4th generation IGBTs

https://www.fairchildsemi.com/campaigns/wp-field-stop-igbts/

Quote from StephenC

ogfusionist. It looks to me that the various ideas and experiment data are converging. This is a good sign I think. I have a question about the He you saw in your experiments:

Did you make an isotopic analysis of the gas to see the relative proportions of He3 and He4? I suppose it could be done with a spectral analysis of the gas?

Since He3 can only be produced in certain ways it's relative proportion might tell us something about what process are occurring. He3 can be produced from Tritium decay, Proton bombardment of Lithium 6, Pion induced Fission of Lithium 6 and Lithium 7, maybe some others I did not think of. I suppose there might be a characteristic signature based on final and initial abundance the produced radiation and processes involved.

Edit: If I understand correctly your experiment didn't use Lithium is this right? It might still be interesting to see the He3 relative abundance though. It might be also interesting to look at the Hydrogen Protium/Deuterium ratio if possible

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[Do not want to bump StephenC's good question from the top.]

Quote from Ecco

Neither of them. I think ogfusionist has been writing all along that he's seeing p-p fusion.

What is thought to produce helium from pp fusion? (Note that pp fusion in the sun proceeds extremely slowly, because it is rate-limited by the weak interaction.)

@Eric Walker: I can't claim to be an expert on the matter so I'm referring to this explanation on Wikipedia on the p-p chain reaction occurring in stars like the Sun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…0%93proton_chain_reaction

1H + 1H fuse into a diproton which decays to deuterium. 2H + 1H can then fuse into 3He. The entire process can also produce 4He through different pathways.

This reaction is indeed rare in the sun, but what if protium density was much higher than commonly found in stars?

That implies several reactions in a chain:

p + p => 2He + gamma
2He => d + e+ + neutrino (<-- rate limited)
d + p => 3He + gamma

If something like this is going on, the one proposing the process must find a way to deal with both the gammas and the rate-limiting by the weak interaction. (Much of trying to understand LENR consists of choosing your battles.)

I have very little faith that Ed Storms has a handle on what's going on, for the above reasons and for several others. His experiments seem sound, however.

EDIT: another difficulty with the pp chain is that the positrons are produced in quantity, and these rapidly combine with ambient electrons to issue in two 511 keV annihilation photons, which will escape any apparatus.

&"Did you make an isotopic analysis of the gas to see the relative proportions of He3 and He4? I suppose it could be done with a spectral analysis of the gas?"

Yes, spectral analysis using a GC. The reactor allowed hydrogen fusion to produce helium.

Do you plan to continue in experiments?
I think that we are extremely close to discover all important mysteries about this phenomenon.

From my point of view experiments are very important. More = better. Even if they are not successfull we are mapping the behavior.

&"Do you plan to continue in experiments?"

I'd like to continue but since retirement don't have the necessary equipment.
It isn't necessary to repeat the catastrophic meltdown of my reactor, once witnessed it's very convincing. There is no mystery about this phenomenon, basically it is possible to initiate proton fusion with a suitable catalyst. A waste of effort to pursue this "free energy" for general use, there is a lot of oil to burn before being economically justifiable.