MFMP: 18 steps to LENR excess heat (BasE-Cat recipe)

[quote='eros','https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/index.php/Thread/2800-MFMP-18-steps-to-LENR-excess-heat-BasE-Cat-recipe/?postID=14399#post14399']Have you idea why H(p,e+ ve)D 1.4Mev positron hit Ni and do brake radiation instead collision with electron and not do ̃511kev gamma?
We do not see any peak at 511keV in the GS5.2 spectrum. So, this reaction must not be happening at any significant rate. In fact, there can be no significant amount of positrons for lack of the 511keV peak.

Focardi did report some evidence of the 511keV peak in one of his papers, but I think he later retracted it.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

Or some other source of noise, maybe a sensitive electrical tie-in with the heater,

I feel that this possibility needs to be ruled out somehow as part of the protocol that is being worked out.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

I think that periodic testing of the detector, (or an equidistant parallel detector, one turned the other way... lots of possibilities), with a known weak radioactive source (bag of zircons, depression era uranium glassware, etc.), would give a better idea of what is going on.

I agree that it would be good to confirm that bremsstrahlung from an MeV beta source would look like the graph of the spectrum that was isolated from the background levels. I suppose this could be done with a weak source that is integrated over a long period of time. Or maybe someone will come along who's seen this kind of shape before and can confirm that it looks like bremsstrahlung. The graph looked quite choppy; I would have imagined that it would be much more continuous. This may have been a byproduct of the analysis that was used to extract it.

@Eric Walker
It does look like Bremsstrahlung, but where is the main emission line or peak from what would cause it? Off the detection range, but on the higher energy end, one would think, since it does not show up.
And when that happens, there should be other peaks and a broad bulge in between, from characteristic X-rays and Compton scattering.
So it looks weird to me. I have no good answer.

Below (left) is a spectrum from a radioactive pegmatite. 120 second count time. The green zones are for potassium, uranium and thorium decay products. Most of this is background counts, outside, standing on the pegmatite, but with the detector face on a radioactive zone.

The right side spectrum is the same detector, same count time, but in a hotel room. The K, U and Th are insignificant, even though K looks big compared to the total trend.
(fixed the scaling for 2)

Spectrum 3 is from an XRF, Beam One is 50 kV, Beam Two is 10 kV. Silica powder blank sample, with thick plastic between the detector window and the sample. The beam time was less than 60 seconds each beam.
Note the Bremsstahlung on the red 50 keV trace, and the Compton scatter (the big bulge).
(Filters are responsible for flattening the spectra towards zero counts in broad bands, depending on the beam. This is the primary detection area for elements with K and L band characteristic x-ray peaks in these "flat" regions. The different beam strengths have specific filters).

Edit: Note in the first spectrum, compared to the second, that the more counts there are per channel, the tighter the line trace gets. The scatter from channel to adjacent channel is greatly reduced with consistently high counts in that area of the spectrum. We do see this in the MFMP trace for the "big event".

Quote from BobHiggins

We do not see any peak at 511keV in the GS5.2 spectrum. So, this reaction must not be happening at any significant rate. In fact, there can be no
significant amount of positrons for lack of the 511keV peak.

Yep, it renders one claim in one theory lie. Or something quite strange happens inside Ni..? (Z+1, Ni->Cu ??)

There is posible H(p e-, ve)D, but it don't do braking radiation we have seen. And theory says that D produced in rest. So ve needs to generate extra
(1.4M+511k)=1.9Mev But ve already near c and it mass small. Can ve change it mass? Or where energy/mass can go?

Uh, normal star like
1/1H + 1/1H → 2/1D + e+ + νe + 0.42 MeV

where can extra 1Mev come? Is it energy from coulumb barrier and "cools" target?

Quote from David Fojt

By this way, we could purpose an explanation of Piantelli critical grain size.
It could need a certain level of "electronic/electric" exchange inside grain/lattice which gives the critical grain size, not to big not to small.
Now, in last Rossi's patent, he said to add electric current accross Ni powder, so it's going into the same direction..

Sorry I think that Ni grains need big enough to oxidize deep enough, but not all. (some claims are here forum that NiO powder can do also).
Then reduze lower temp enough long that it do deep enough bigger pores. Then (maybe vacuum during heat?),
heat over 1000C reduze more to do generated bigger pores full of smaller pores just enough small to some H2 fit..

Then add Li vapour to make sea of molten Li in pores. Then H2 pressure, work over Li (or alkaliM) melt point. Low temp is better for theory, but
reactions can go faster in hotter.
And give stimulus..

"Sea" of molten Li make easilly moving s-electrons and give astronomical rate enchancement. It's "only" extension for gibss theorems..

Pores make capillary pressure for H2. It may be high enough to do NiH or some weird H2 packing near astronomical pressures.

In patent: electric current is stimulus. Known things make fail in patent process so he can only write same (known) thing with other words and hope
that office employers are stupid enought that not find it is similiar than earlier patent. Maybe someone can drop some lines from piantelli patent
for such office..?

@Paradigmnoia
Bremsstrahlung is not caused by a "peak". Bremsstrahlung is fundamentally broadband emission caused by rapid braking of the light particle. However, usually this braking occurs by interaction/collision with the electron orbitals of a heavy atom. When that happens, you get the Bremsstrahlung radiation plus the characteristic x-ray radiation of the heavy atom that was struck. For most elements, this characteristic x-ray is below the 30keV cutoff of the NaI gamma spectrometer Alan used. Pb, Bi, and W are elements whose characteristic x-ray is higher than 30keV. We see the characteristic x-rays from the Pb and Bi that are excited by cosmic rays - the Pb and Bi are in the lead cave around the detector.

We have no lead, bismuth, or tungsten in the reactor, so we don't see that characteristic x-ray in the signal spectrum. Inside the reactor we have Ni, Li, Al, and the stainless steel fuel capsule having Fe, Cr, Mo, and there will be some Si in the mullite tube. The lower the atomic mass of the atom doing the braking of the light particle, the lower the energy of the characteristic x-ray. Mo has the highest characteristic x-ray for elements within the reactor - I think about 17keV. So, we would not expect to detect the characteristic x-rays of the reactor materials in the NaI detector in this spectrometer. For that we need an x-ray spectrometer.

Quote from David Fojt

Overall i'm agree with you.
But we need to test a lot of hypothesis so i'm going to do that..

Looks nice mech engineering

AISI part: pressure vessel to hold H2, with cooling ribs. Alumium calorimeter case?
Case top and interior parts you keep hide..
Big enough 10x, be careful that don't fry balls if play with nuclear reactions..
When say do big enough I mean some 10-20moles (at 10bar it maybe 5-40kw)..

Well some day I'll do some.. but it takes time..

spectrum 3, 5.7kev ?? Tritons?

Ni wire H2 load/unload experiment case make trirons.. This..?

@BobHiggins
I have spoken to hastily. I had to go back and look at some spectra I had on file, and think back to theory basics.
( I was changing my original opinion as I wrote and uploaded the spectra, which is part of the reason for so many edits there.)

The peak from the XRF can't be seen, because it is already Bremsstrahlung by the time it leaves the XRF. 50 keV and 10 keV electrons strike a gold-tungsten target in the XRF, near the window, then bounce a spectrum of X-rays out at an angle towards the target, which energize the inner electrons of various atoms enough so that they jump up a band, then relax, sending at least some characteristic X-Rays back out towards the detector... so no 50 keV "primary" line.

The interesting comparisons that can be made from the three images I posted earlier is that the XRF (third spectra) one is "reflected" from bombardment by two different energy levels of intentionally radiated Bremsstrahlung, while the first two are primarily from directly radiated Bremsstrahlung.
The first spectra image was from a fairly strongly radioactive location, attenuated by rock (K-feldspar mostly). The second one was in a low radiation area.

@BobHiggins

The nickel Ka line at 7.47 keV (and the weaker Kb at 8.26) is probably at least one important energy level to make sure you can capture with a lower keV range X-Ray detector, if most of the theory is to make sense, IMO.

If wishes are fishes...

Quote from Paradigmnoia

The nickel Ka line at 7.47 keV (and the weaker Kb at 8.26) is probably at least one important energy level to make sure you can capture with a lower keV range X-Ray detector, if most of the theory is to make sense, IMO.

Note, however, that the characteristic x-ray must have enough photon energy to penetrate the thin stainless steel capsule, the mullite reactor tube, the 60% coverage of the Kanthal wire, and the alumina heater cover tube. A characteristic x-ray at 7.47 keV will be highly attenuated going through these materials. If the spectral energy continues to climb as the spectrum above 30 keV suggests that it might, even with attenuation from the reactor materials, some of that line may be detectable.

Bob Higgins wrote:

Quote

I would like to know the nuclear basis for this statement. If the floor dust is that radioactive where Alan lives, I think it would be a dangerous place to call home. The amount of energy detected in the GS5.2 experiment would have been plenty to set off radiation alarms at most facilities that handle radioactive materials and monitor for radiation in the hallways. Such contaminating materials (radioisotopes) display a gamma line spectrum when detectable and are identifiable by this line - this was not seen. Radon and its daughters are very hard to detect via gamma because all of the decay chain emit alpha or beta.

The high energy broadband spectrum measured in GS5.2 had plenty of signal-to-noise and no evidence of radioisotope lines, making it a unique signal. The fact that the signal showed in only a few of the 24 integrations, and never while the reactor was inactive, provides further correlation of the signal to the reactor activity. The lead cave around the NaI scintillator limited the field of view of the detector to a small solid angle that did not include much more than the active LENR test cell. All of these combine to make your explanation for the signal source to be essentially null.

The much more likely explanation is that the gamma signal came from the active reactor....While not enough radiant flux was measured in GS5.2 to have created measurable excess heat, this radiation signal is a clear indication of the onset of some type of LENR.

You seem to have a double standard for your evidence.

Unable to conceive of an artifact that could explain the observation, you rule out artifacts, or at least judge their possibility as highly unlikely.

Unable to conceive of a nuclear reaction or a mechanism for such a nuclear reaction (only betas up to 1 MeV and no characteristic gammas) does not deter you at all from claiming that a nuclear reaction (associated with LENR in the reactor) is nevertheless much more likely.

And yet, the sort of signal observed in spectrum 7 has essentially the same profile as the background signal, only a factor of 5 higher. I think it would be difficult to account for the background continuum, and yet it is there, and it is not an indication of nuclear reactions in the cell. So, a factor of 5 excursion in a 4 hour period, amounting to an average of 20 counts per second, could also have an unknown origin that is not associated with LENR in the cell. Especially considering any LENR reaction that produces heat would have to occur at a rate some billion times higher.

Excursions like this, or anomalies in measurement of radiation are not at all uncommon at the level of a few times background. It's impossible remotely to find a specific artifact to explain what you saw, but they happen. Sometimes, it's just some kind of electrical glitch, as when Jones et al. claimed neutrons from LENR, and later retracted, or probably when Prelas claimed a strong neutron signal back in the early 90s. His subsequent attempts to reproduce with SKINR funding have failed. Sometimes it's a change (temporary) in shielding or, someone carries a set of gamma spectroscopy calibrants in the vicinity, or sometimes the discrimination level varies a little, and sometimes software can produce a scale change.

I'm not saying any of these are particularly plausible, only that the alternative is particularly implausible. LENR would represent a once-in-a-century revolution. So, between common artifact and revolutionary breakthrough, simple reasoning should suggest that artifact is many times more likely.

The correlation -- that an anomalous rate was not observed when the reactor was "inactive" -- is not significant. Isn't it true that most of the integrations taken when it was active produced no anomaly, and that there were many more of them. So this is statistically meaningless.

And because of this sort of reasoning, careful scientists who see such an anomaly, would never announce a revolution to the world, even tentatively, until at least the simplest and most obvious checks have been made.

The most obvious of course is to see it again, but at least as necessary is to run the spectrometer for a similar length of time (preferably much longer) with the reactor fired up without fuel (since electrical anomalies may be related to powering the reactor).

And GM tubes are cheap enough that you could have half a dozen situated around the reactor to look for a correlated event. As you say, the energy extends out to an MeV, so there should be no difficulty detecting them with GM tubes. (By the way, what have you found from your analysis of the GMC-320 data?)

And as others have suggested, try to reproduce that signal with known sources placed at the reactor position. Get a strong beta emitter and put it near similar materials and see if you can reproduce the data.

Or as I said before, look for characteristic x-rays with a lower energy detector, or add suitable elements that produce higher energy x-rays.

Still better, wait for it to happen again, and while it's happening, put some shielding around the reactor and see if it stops, and comes back when the shielding is lifted.

I seriously don't believe a reputable nuclear scientist would make a claim as has been made here without being able to generate the signal at will and to perform simple and unambiguous tests on it. You say it's a clear indication of LENR. It's the furthest thing from clear to me.

@BobHiggins
J Cude's comments bring to mind a question.
Is or has the spectra trace been normalized over time, or is it simply cumulative over time?
I can see the spectra trace climbing steadily over time in the other GS tests, then resetting lower with a new file start, then slowly climbing again.
True that the low keV tail looks wierd, but besides that...
Sorry if you have addressed this already.

Quote

Photons that have energies at least to 1.4MeV are difficult to explain without nuclear involvement.

The trace 7 graph is pretty similar to the background graphs above 100keV - so why must it be high energy photons when they are not?

Anyway - either this is reproducible or not. If reproducible you can quickly find out who is right. If not it has no value.

Quote from Thomas Clarke

The trace 7 graph is pretty similar to the background graphs above 100keV - so why must it be high energy photons when they are not?

Trace 07 resembles the background only superficially. The skirt in the background is a 1/E^1.3 slope where the slope in the signal is a 1/E^2.3. Also, there is no trace of the 40K peak in the signal and no trace of the Compton edge seen in the background.

As I listed in the original write-up, these are possible sources of error that I consider most possible:

• Massive electrical interference not seen before
• Loose cables
• Equipment failure of some type
• Particle flux incident on the NaI scintillator from the reactor causing non-gamma reactions to occur inside the crystal or the photomultiplier (a scarier thought than the unsuppressed high energy photons). This is commonly seen in a neutron flux where the neutrons enter the scintillator, activate the Na, I, or Th, whose decay causes gamma or Bremsstrahlung radiation originating inside the crystal.

Bob Higgins:

Do you have any thoughts on the complete absence of radiation observed from ecats by any person tasked with measuring it since 2011? The only report of radiation is anecdotal and completely non-quantitative from Celani, and that might have been caused by a person passing by with a calibrant, or recent thyroid treatment, or a malfunction.

1. In the Jan 15, 2011 demo (the one Celani saw his burst), Bianchini used an organic scintillator sensitive from 23 keV to 7 MeV, and reported "no evidence ... of meaningful differences in the measured values compared to the background...."

2. In the same experiment, Mauro Villa used 2 NaI scintillators and measured the radiation at close range through two 1-cm holes drilled in the shielding. He reported "no gamma radiation above the background level in the energy region > 200 keV has been observed, neither in single counting, not in coincidence" (By the way, the steps taken to characterize the counter and geometry using gamma sources is quite impressive.)

3. In Levi2013, Bianchini's report is "available on request", but the conclusions are "The measurements performed did not detect any significant differences in exposure and CPM (Counts per Minute), with respect to instrument and ambient background, which may be imputed to the operation of the E-Cat prototypes”.

4. Bianchini writes an appendix for the Lugano report, for which he used a NaI scintillator detector sensitive from 50 keV to 2 MeV, with a rate meter alarm and connection to a pc logger, a neutron detector, a GM tube, and 16 thermoluminescent dosimeters. Measurements were made before, during, and after, and no radiation above background was detected.

joshua cude
Piantelli was seriously burned on his arm by radiation emitted from a window on his reactor at one point.

Celani is a skilled nuclear researcher. I trust his report. Celani's detector was NaI, which is a more efficient scintillator.

In the Oct 6, 2011 test of Rossi's reactor a 2" NaI detector was used. I don't recall what was measured or if it was reported. That reactor was surrounded internally by 5cm of lead. This would have zeroed any emissions below about 500keV and would have transmitted only ~1% at 1MeV. This is a bunch of lead and Rossi is no fool. He put it there because he was seeing emissions and didn't want to be shut down by the regulatory agencies. Rossi is careful to have radiations checked and reported only on reactors he has carefully shielded - his product opportunity relies on that.

The MFMP test was perhaps the least shielded measurement Ni-H spectrum ever taken because the mass/cm^2 between the fuel and the scintillator was VERY small compared to most test setups historically checked. It is even less than Rossi's original, unshielded eCats.

Quote from joshua cude

Bob Higgins:

Do you have any thoughts on the complete absence of radiation observed from ecats by any person tasked with measuring it since 2011? The only report of radiation is anecdotal and completely non-quantitative from Celani, and that might have been caused by a person passing by with a calibrant, or recent thyroid treatment, or a malfunction.

Erik Ander
August 23rd, 2011 at 1:23 AM

Best mr Rossi!
Sorry if you have answered this before.
But i wonder about the gamma-radiation in the
e-cat. is it or is it not any gamma-radiation
from the reactor? and if no, why you need lead and boron?

Best regards! Erik

Andrea Rossi

August 23rd, 2011 at 9:52 AM

Dear Erik Ander:
We produce gamma rays, and our energy comes from their thermalization.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

Herald Patterson
May 30th, 2011 at 6:12 PM

Dear Mr. Rossi,

Thank you for refuting those two metropolitan legends. Unfortunately, there are other legends and unfounded rumors circulating around the internet as well. I will list a few of them here in case you would like to comment on them, and put an end to some ridiculous speculation that is taking place on the internet.

1) Other than the catalysts, hydrogen pressure, the special processing of the nickel powder, and the heat added to the system by the resistors there is some “other” factor that is critical to making the system work. For example, a source of radio frequency radiation to stimulate the processes inside the reactor vessel.

2) No gamma radiation is actually produced inside of the reactor vessel. They claim you will not let independent scientists measure the gamma radiation inside the reactor *not* because the signatures detected could reveal the patent pending catalysts, but because no gamma radiation would be found.

3) No nickel is actually transmuted into copper. They try to connect this to the lack of gamma radiation, to support their idea that some extraordinary but totally *non-fusion* process is taking place.

4) That you no longer think any form of fusion is taking place. They claim because you use the term [lexicon]Low Energy Nuclear Reactions[/lexicon], you non longer think a fusion reaction is taking place between the nickel and hydrogen.

5) Others claim there is no radiation being produced, except from beta-decay. Some push this idea to support a pet theory they religiously proclaim all over the net called, “Widom Larsen” theory.

I wish people would just take you at your word, instead of trying to twist the truth to support their own pet theories and ideas.

If you wish to comment on any of the above, I will do my best to spread your answers on the net to counter act the rumor-mongering taking place.

Thank you for all your work and willingness to interact with us.

I’m looking forward to October!

Herald

Andrea Rossi

May 30th, 2011 at 7:54 PM

Dear Mr Herald Patterson:
Thank you for your questions, here are the answers:
1- Yes: like Flash Gordon! Seriously: what happens inside the reactor is influenced only by what is inside; outside there is only cooling and thermalization
2- Gamma have been regularly measured by us
3- Analysis of powders are the evidence of the transmutation
4- Wrong
5-Beta decay has nothing to do with my process, Widom Larsen theory has nothing to do with my process
6- I am looking for October too, my friend.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

In 2011, Rossi changed his reactor to remove the generation of gamma radiation from his effect.

Back after Rossi had added an AC secondary heater to his reactor, Rossi said that removing the AC heat completely is dangerous.

Rossi's comments that it is "dangerous" to run without the auxiliary heat because the reactor must be heated above a critical startup temperature to avoid gamma radiation at startup.

Three E-cats without insulation and one insulated. Text in blue indicates hydrogen inlet, main heater, auxiliary AC heater used for startup and water inlet. Foto: Giuseppe Levi

I have a feeling that in order to remove the radiation danger from his reactor, Rossi created a fuel pre-processing process where radiation occurs during fuel pre-processing only. After the fuel is prepared, it can be put into a hot reactor without the danger of gamma radiation from being generated. The MFMP recipe as it stands now must run at low temperatures and that is when radiation is produced.