“Why 62Ni? The Complete Justification” (MFMP Video Update)

So - I've done Bob the courtesy of listening all they way through this video (I normally prefer written accounts of theories).

I think it is an outstanding enthusiastic and motivational presentation.

I wanted to summarise the facts, claims, and arguments contained in it, for those who like me hate watching videos. BUT - you really should watch it for the motivational aspects - particularly the way that Bob is so excited by the word "heavy"!

Facts:
(1) Rossi bought some commercial Ni-62
(2) Piantelli's LENR theory says LENR works with transition elements, specifically with "heavy" group X transition elements
(3) Ni is a "heavy" transitional element
(4) Ni-62 is heavier than Ni-58
(5) Ni-64 "goes around" to Ni-62 (I was not sure why, and hope this will be explained in further material from Bob)
(6) Piantelli/Rossi LENR works with Ni-62 because it is heavier than N-58
(7) balls dropped on Saturn fall faster than balls dropped on earth
(8) There will be many replications of the MFMP work, better instrumented, covering many aspects of the phenomena, whether critics like this or no.

• I find (1) the most interesting of these facts and claims, because although I suspected it, I had no proof.
• I find the connection between transition metals and claimed LENR interesting because there is non-LENR work that supports anomalous high excess heat from hydrated transition elements (only it has a chemical mechanism and is of order 50ev/H).
• I find the claimed connection between relative mass of Ni-58, Ni-62 and LENR reactivity difficult to follow, because the difference is so small, but in any case gravity is so very much weaker than other forces (e.g. Coulomb) and has the same relationship (inverse square) so it is difficult to see how it could possibly enter into things.
• I also find it difficult to understand why higher atomic number group 10 transitional elements are not preferable to Ni if "weight" is the deciding factor.
• I find it difficult to understand why Ni-64 "goes around" and therefore is not seen with Ni-62 in the Lugano ash. (Although I have an alternative hypothesis for that which does explain it).
• I await the subsequent videos with great interest - especially given we are promised some QM since this is something I can do the equations on and also have a decent intuitive grasp of.
• I don't understand why critics would not like replications. I find this story compelling, and am all for replication of the MFMP claims. And I'm most definitely a critic.

The results from Lugano are not useful in reverse engineering the LENR reaction at the initial rudimentary stage of analysis that MFMP is now. On the contrary, those Lugano results have led Rossi to a very advanced understanding of the LENR reaction. Rossi said that the Lugano results inspired him to create the design of the E Cat X. IMHO, that XCat insight goes beyond the NI62 question and more into the LENR reaction in the vapor stage.

The purpose of fuel preprocessing is to make the nickel particles porous through sintering and able to produce hydrogen nanocrystals. In Lugano, the nickel melted and lost the ability to produce the LENR active effect using it porosity. The melting of nickel during the Lugano test took away nickel's role in the LENR reaction.

The melted nickel became passive and its ability to flow in the liquid state allowed the mixing of the nickel to completely transmute into the Ni62 isotope. After the nickel converted to Ni62 as a side reaction off the main LENR reaction, the Ni62 stopped participating in the LENR reaction as a dead end. It is a dead end because no Ni64 was found.

The active LENR agents in Lugano were in place after nickel melted. In other words, nickel played a role in initiating the LENR reaction but after a time became inactive when it melted. The core of the Lugano reactor has all the metallized hydrogen required to keep the LENR reaction going.

Rossi used this observation to setup the XCat to operate at a temperature greater than the melting point of nickel(over 1500C).

The active agent in the LENR reaction at those high temperatures is metalized hydrogen. Once that form of hydrogen forms, it takes over the LENR reaction from the melted nickel particles.

Think of the LENR reaction like a multistage rocket where each stage is discarded after its function has completed.

Rossi has gone beyond Piantelli on the design of the XCat. It is bad analysis technique and therefore confusing to mix the XCat design with Piantilli design thinking.

When Bob G says heavy, he means the most nuclear binding energy per nucleon. Ni62 has the most nuclear binding energy per nucleon of any element, In that sense, Ni62 is the heaviest element.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_binding_energy.

It could be that this nuclear binding energy is the quantity that must come into a state of equilibrium by way of the LENR reaction among all the elements that the LENR reaction effects as covered by the nuclear condensate.

If a Bose condensate is formed among all the nuclear components inside the reactor, then all those components may want to become energetically equal through a multi-particle entanglement process in terms of nuclear binding energy.

As nuclear energy is removed from the condensate through the action of black thermal radiation from the metalized hydrogen, total binding energy in the condensate goes up.

Small nuclei that are larger than hydrogen can combine into bigger ones and release energy. By releasing energy, they increase their nuclear binding energy. But in combining such nuclei, the amount of energy released is much smaller compared to hydrogen fusion. The reason is that while the overall process releases energy from letting the nuclear attraction do its work, bose condensation energy must rebalance nuclear forces between all the elements in the process of condensation.

Nuclear energy is removed from the nickel nucleus until the nuclear binding energy is maximized.

The nuclear energy is removed from all the elements under the influence of the bose condensate and moved to the metalized hydrogen EMF surface field which continually leaks energy away as hawking radiation in the thermal spectrum.

The most enhancement of the LENR reaction might be to use pure Ni58 which has the most energy to give over to the LENR process before the Ni62 ash product is reached.

What is telling in understanding that binding energy is the critical quantity in the LENR nuclear equation is because Ni64 becomes Ni62. This happens because by giving up its nuclear energy to the condensate, its binding energy is increased and maximized as Ni62.

It might also be that when nickel is a liquid, its flow allows more nickel to be converted to Ni62 than if it were a solid.

axil wrote:

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When Bob G says heavy, he means the most nuclear binding energy per nucleon. Ni62 has the most nuclear binding energy per nucleon of any element, In that sense, Ni62 is the heaviest element.

That doesn't fit with Bob G's saturn analogy though, where it is clear he is talking about the increased mass of the planet.

And the highest binding energy per nucleon means the lowest mass per nucleon. That is, Ni-62 is the lightest nuclide per unit nucleon.

Ni is the 7th or 8th lightest transition metal of the 30 or 40 elements so identified, so "it's because they're heavy" doesn't seem as important as other factors. Also, the gravitational force is about 10^36 times smaller than the Coulomb force between a proton and Ni-62 nucleus. Seems kind of too small to matter.

Quote from joshua cude

That doesn't fit with Bob G's saturn analogy though, where it is clear he is talking about the increased mass of the planet.

And the highest binding energy per nucleon means the lowest mass per nucleon. That is, Ni-58 is the lightest nuclide per unit nucleon.

Granted, Bob G will sharpen his analogy as discussion progresses.

LENR seems to want to minimise nuclear energy per nucleon. We can extract nuclear energy from Ni58 but not from Ni62.

axil wrote:

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Granted, Bob G will sharpen his analogy as discussion progresses.

Not a matter of sharpening. If he doesn't mean absolute mass (weight), then the Saturn analogy is wrong. He was talking about gravitational force, not nuclear binding. His comments in the forum bear that out.

Anyway, you shouldn't be making excuses for Greenyer -- he's not making them for you.

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LENR seems to want to minimise nuclear energy per nucleon.

You mean maximize the average nuclear binding energy per nucleon. And it's not LENR, it's nature. In an *exothermic* nuclear reaction, the *average* binding energy per nucleon increases.

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We can extract nuclear energy from Ni58 but not from Ni62.

But then why does he want to put Ni62 in the reactor?

And actually, you can get nuclear energy by reacting Ni62. If it captures a neutron or a proton, it will release energy as a gamma. That's because the *average* binding energy for Ni63 is higher than it is for [Ni62 + n]. That is BE(Ni63)/63 > BE(Ni62)/63.

Shane wrote:

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I detect some generational conflict that may possibly interfere with sound judgement. It seems the unorthodox presentation of a veritable "youngster", has aroused the Ivory Tower (since the theme for the day is Towers) custodians out of their tenured slumber.

Sure. That must be it. Because the skeptics have never criticized the stodgy Storms, or the well-coiffed and well-spoken McKubre. They willingly accepted pronouncements from the lettered Levi, the educated Essen, and the bookish Kullander.

---

Look, it doesn't matter who claims gravity influences nuclear reaction rates, they're not gonna be taken seriously, no matter how much they crouch and growl as they say it.

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Look, it doesn't matter who claims gravity influences nuclear reaction rates, they're not gonna be taken seriously, no matter how much they crouch and growl as they say it.

Just to be annoying: gravity almost certainly does influence nuclear reaction rates, and everything else, when the space curvature scale becomes comparable with the dimensions of a nucleus. But those conditions are so extreme that calling them LENR is as bad an energy miscalculation as saying gravity is comparable in strength to e-m force.

Back in 2011, Rossi claimed on the JONP that he had found a way to enrich natural nickel:

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Andrea Rossi May 30th, 2011 at 8:25 PM:We buy regular Ni powder, then we make a treatment of it wich changes the isotopical composition. In that paper I referred to the powder as we buy it, not to the composition of the powder after the treatment we make. In any case, the composition of Ni, as we buy it, is well known: 58 (67,88%), 60 (26,23%), 61 (1,19%), 62 (3,66%), 64 (1,08%).After that, we change it.

Other Rossi claims from 2011 regarding Nickel enrichment (here I'm paraphrasing- it's all from JONP):

- Ni58 is not eliminated, just reduced
-"We enrich Ni 62 and 64 isotopes, but this is not an effect of the operation of the reactor."
- (Regarding the cost of enrichment) "Few hundreds of euros activate for 6 months the 1 MW plant."
- The reaction would be weaker without enrichment
- "we have invented a process of ours to enrich Ni without relevant costs"

More recently, he seemed to have implied that he mislead us and the enrichment is a result (side-effect?) of operating the reactor. However he was surprised to find a 99% Ni62 result (possibly a sampling result)

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Andrea Rossi
October 9th, 2014 at 10:45 AM
H-G Branzell:
You are right.
The results of the analysis have been partially surprising also to me. I perfectly expected the depletion of 7Li ( I have a patent pending for this, filed much before the test), I knew that during the operation 62Ni is formed ( we found many times a shift toward 62Ni in our private tests) and its percentage grows, but not in that measure. We are studying this fact to try to understand.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

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Andrea Rossi: We think that our process, the so called “Rossi Effect”, is , as a serendipity, also a system to produce 62Ni, because only this fact can explain the formation of atoms of stable Cu, even if in very small amounts; we also noticed that using eventually powders of Ni enriched this way, the efficiency of the E-Cats increases. But we are not sure of this fact, because there may have been errors in the analysis, so we are studying , as a side effect , this phenomenon.

As you point out, Rossi seems to have misled us, but we can't be sure because we don't really know what he is saying. That is a good summary of Rossi's statements about his technology.

I therefore find these comments unhelpful in the collection of facts related to BG's conviction that he understands all about Ni-62.

Consider, which of my questions above do Rossi's comments answer? None.

Adding unclear and unproven complexity to the table does not help, and can mislead.

Best wishes, Tom

Quote from Thomas Clarke

Consider, which of my questions above do Rossi's comments answer? None.

Did you actually ask any questions? It looked like you just made of list of things that you don't understand.

Quote from Thomas Clarke

Adding unclear and unproven complexity to the table does not help, and can mislead.

And such is life...

Rossi's comments are useful when deciding what hypotheses to prioritize when designing upcoming tests. In a way they complement " Rossi bought some commercial Ni-62", a fact that you found interesting.
There are two contradictory hypothesis:

1) (Axil) Ni-62 is a dead end and using pure Ni-58 will enhance the reaction.

2) Using enriched Ni (i.e. adding more Ni62) will enhance the reaction.

Based on Rossi's comments, I would guess that (2) is the more likely hypothesis. Therefore, if I was MFMP I would prioritize testing 2 over 1. The lead time for an experiment being 3-4 weeks and the cost of Ni-62 for an experiment being in the hundreds of dollars, this matters quite a bit.

Now regarding the NI-62 is heavier than other isotopes, I have to admit that I am a bit confused as well.

My personal uneducated guess is that the enrichment/transmutation of Nickel in the reactor is taking away frmo the desired reaction.

For example, if we have those two reactions happening:

Ni61 +p -> Ni62 (1)

Li7 +p -> 2 alpha (2)

then having (1) happening could be detrimental to having more of (2) happening.

I have to thank Tom Clark for being civil and constructive in his strong skepticism, if only a bit sarcastic toward Bob Greenyer. Mr. Greenyer does seem like a cross between Mr. Wizard on steroids and Professor Corey these days. Possibly justified, but even my non technical understanding of physics finds it all just a bit daffy. One thing that no one should ignore, however: relatively modest experiments have been described which, if he is on to something, should produce results in short order. He is putting his money where his mouth is and even the most vitriolic skeptics ala MY should applaud this - if it is bogus we will know soon. Either a growing number of experimenters will find the effect, or a dreary string of technical "glitches" will start to issue forth, or, perhaps, Bob will time it right to have a swell April Fool's this year when he let's us know it's just a send up.

Hi the Gomp,

I absolutely agree about MFMP. They are replicating, and as you say, if the "Signal" (which is being talked about like a religious artifact) turns out not to be an experimental artifact MFMP's enthusiasm will be well rewarded. If it does not - well Bob will have learnt a valuable lesson about the nature of scientific experiment.

More reflectively, it has always been the case that LENR research is like a lottery ticket. The pay-offs if you win are much larger than for any normal scientific research - which is why the world got so excited after the original P&F announcement. It is a very big carrot, and so not surprising, though regrettable, that those doing it can get carried away.

I'd wish myself more focus on the nuts and bolts of the experiments and less on the potential high payoffs.

Why focussing on Ni62?

When we study the mass spectrums of the Lugano fuel and the corresponding ashes, we may notice that virtually two different transmutation process happen.
Inside the powder Ni(_xy) is more ore less completely transformed to Ni62.
On the surface the transmutation progresses farther to even higher element numbers.

May be Rossi and others speculate, that the surface process is much more promising because of higher energy gains. The accompanying risk should not be underestimated, as we not yet know how much waste will be produced.
Other papers even report (on surface MS's) mass numbers up to 243 which also belongs to Americum, well known as a the main content of the neutron bomb. The interest for this isotope can also be read out of the the US-state related reports dealing with LENR, where it is named “strategic material”.

We might not all like the style of how the MFMP delivered those recent results (I personally think it could have been done in a more humble way), but a consequence of all that hand waving is that the MFMP has raised more than $5,000 since the whole "reveal".

This means a new optris ,better radiation detection equipment for the replication. Seems like a good thing to me.

Quote from LENR Calender

We might not all like the style of how the MFMP delivered those recent results (I personally think it could have been done in a more humble way), but a consequence of all that hand waving is that the MFMP has raised more than $5,000 since the whole "reveal".

This means a new optris ,better radiation detection equipment for the replication. Seems like a good thing to me.

It looks like hand waving is a good funding method. When you get piles of government money like all the humble and reserved critics here, then you can afford to be humble and pragmatic.