Patent possibly related with Rossi - claims Focardi performed some calculations

Point well taken and you might be right, but I think we would be better off following @me356 advice later in that thread:

Quote from me356

We are only doing blind tests without understanding. One day it could work, but we can start from the opposite side and study each part of the process separately. And especially see some actual results that can tell us if the development is going well.

If you are trying to do 10 very specific operations without understanding, the luck must be enormously high to succeed.
We should start with elemental things and then to handle each one. At the final step, to connect all the knowledge together.

As replicators we've been trying to build the finished recipe without understanding each of the ingredients. We keep hoping that if we just add another ingredient, or stimulus that the finished recipe will work. I think we need to take a step back and look at the parts. We know (or believe) that Ni-H by itself can produce excess heat. Let's master that before we move on to the next ingredient.

Quote from wishfulThinking

We know (or believe) that Ni-H by itself can produce excess heat. Let's master that before we move on to the next ingredient.

I guess for me that's a fundamental question — does NiH by itself work? I suspect it doesn't in a pure form, or if it does, the heat that is seen is only released at threshold levels, and that when people have gotten NiH to work in the past (e.g., Piantelli), it's because there's been something else there as well. But if someone can get a robust reaction out of a pure NiH system, that will be very interesting and useful information to have as well.

A relevant detail here is that 58Ni can theoretically decay to 58Fe via double electron capture. Between electron capture, beta decay and alpha decay, electron capture will release the least amount of heat by a large margin. So the heat that is seen in a pure NiH system might go back to a threshold phenomenon such as this.

Anyway, just food for thought.

Quote from wishfulThinking

As replicators we've been trying to build the finished recipe without understanding each of the ingredients.

After studying some 100+ of the latest papers and following mfp I can draw the following conclusions which seem to work (for Ni,H/D reactions) in many cases:

- LENR is a surface process (like chemistry). At least it starts near surface.
- If you use H/D to produce (H/D)_x compounds then it is much easier to generate them in a 'pressure release' cycle because this is a synchronous event and not a statistical behavior.
- (H/D)_x compounds can only be formed on highly regular surfaces or in well defined cavitations.
- Cavitations are stimulated by ultrasonic waves. (see papers)
- Surface (H/D)x must spin-align. Here, a homogenous E-field my help. A B-field is much more trickier as any metal on its path leads to a distortion (not in arc electrolysis!). At high temperature only cavitations will work (disturbance).
- Rossi & others use super-waves (see papers) instead of ultrasonic waves.
- The Japanese process with PdZrCuNi (+ Li,Ca) already runs below 300C. This would allow to place electrodes in an active reactor, which for a Rossi style E-cat would need high-tech knowledge.
- The Japanese often use Ca as cavitation promoter - to disturb the crystal structure. It increases the reaction band of a standard (crystal-) cell by about 200eV! (This seems to be the magic input to start the D/D H/H Fusion reaction.)