Formation of Ultra Dense Hydrogen/Deuterium : Holmlid / LENR-Cars

IMO, I see here an emerging interesting field for engineering. Concrete the application of 3D metal powder printing (laser sintering) to manufacture the structural setup and different catalyst layers to enable LENR reaction. All of this manufactured in one piece, including feartures for heat transfer / cooling, similar to a PEM fuel cell.

Quote from Rob Woudenberg

The transition of Molecular Hydrogen into Atomic Hydrogen uses Palladium as a first 'catalyst'.

Where did you read that Holmlid's method comprises Pd as a first catalyst? The styrene catalysts he uses are also capable of dissociating molecular hydrogen into separate atoms (see further below).

Quote from Rob Woudenberg

[...] The transition of Rydberg Hydrogen into Ultra Dense Hydrogen occurs spontaneously, but there will be some conditions (pressure, temperature) required including e.g. a Nickel surface (third catalyst).

It is not Rydberg Hydrogen directly that is spontaneously transitioning to the ultra-dense form, but clusters composed of Rydberg (excited) Hydrogen in a specific state (circular state). Such clusters are called Rydberg matter.

The transition to the ultra-dense form is apparently favored on metal and metal-oxide surfaces but also occurs inside the styrene catalysts used, and on their surface. Early 2010s papers from Holmlid's group were mainly focused on breaking such clusters formed on the surface of the catalysts with a pulse laser and perform various time-of-flight studies. So there's not really a tiered catalyst system similar to what you proposed, although its usage could be conceived to make the overall process more efficient.

For a concise description of the processes involved have a look at one of Holmlid's recent patent applications here https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2018093312A1/ with particular focus for example to the excerpt below:

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Catalytic conversion

The catalytic process for converting hydrogen gas to ultra-dense hydrogen may employ commercial so called styrene catalysts, i.e. a type of solid catalyst used in the chemical industry for producing styrene (for plastic production) from ethylene benzene. This type of catalyst is made from porous Fe-O material with several different additives, especially potassium (K) as so called promoter. The function of this catalyst has been studied in detail by several different groups.

The catalyst is designed to split off hydrogen atoms from ethyl benzene so that a carbon-carbon double bond is formed, and then to combine the hydrogen atoms so released to hydrogen molecules which easily desorb thermally from the catalyst surface. This reaction is reversible: if hydrogen molecules are added to the catalyst they are dissociated to hydrogen atoms which are adsorbed on the surface. This is a general process in hydrogen transfer catalysts. We utilize this mechanism to produce ultra-dense hydrogen, which requires that covalent bonds in hydrogen molecules are not allowed to form after the adsorption of hydrogen in the catalyst.

The potassium promoter in the catalyst provides for a more efficient formation of ultra-dense hydrogen. Potassium (and for example other alkali metals) easily forms so called circular Rydberg atoms K^* In such atoms, the valence electron is in a nearly circular orbit around the ion core, in an orbit very similar to a Bohr orbit. At a few hundred °C not only Rydberg states are formed at the surface, but also small clusters of Rydberg states K_N ^*, in a form called Rydberg Matter (RM).

The clusters K_N ^* transfer part of their excitation energy to the hydrogen atoms at the catalyst surface. This process takes place during thermal collisions in the surface phase. This gives formation of clusters H_N ^* (where H indicates proton, deuteron, or triton) in the ordinary process also giving the K_N ^* formation, namely cluster assembly during the desorption process. If the hydrogen atoms could form covalent bonds, molecules H₂ would instead leave the catalyst surface and no ultra-dense material could be formed. In the RM material, the electrons are not in so-called s orbitals since they always have an orbital angular momentum greater than zero. This implies that covalent bonds cannot be formed since the electrons on the atoms must be in s orbitals to form the normal covalent sigma (o) bonds in H₂. The lowest energy level for hydrogen in the form of RM is metallic (dense) hydrogen called H(1 ), with a bond length of 150 picometer (pm). The hydrogen material falls down to this level by emission of mainly infrared radiation. Dense hydrogen is then spontaneously converted to ultra-dense hydrogen called H(0) with a bond distance of 0.5 - 5 pm depending on the spin level. This material is a quantum material (quantum fluid) which may involve both electron pairs (Cooper pairs) and nuclear pairs (proton, deuteron or triton pairs, or mixed pairs). These materials are both superfluid and superconductive at room temperature, as confirmed in several experiments.

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Or you could also have a look at section 4 in the recently published review paper here: https://iopscience.iop.org/art…02-4896/ab1276#psab1276s4

Quote from Rob Woudenberg

I recall an early publication with a close-up photo of the gas nozzle where it described a palladium tube being pre-heated. This may be 'overkill' at that time. I have to dive into my Holmlid archive to find it.

That "emitter" construction was first used here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3514985 and it employed a platinum tube with a catalyst pellet on one end forming a plug, through which hydrogen (deuterium) was forced to flow. However ultra-dense deuterium was formed also in earlier and later studies with different constructions.

The patent application I linked earlier for the more recently used "emitter" I doubt uses a Pt support for the catalysts (element 31).

Quote from Rob Woudenberg

Thanks for the corrections. Holmlid's latest patent application is indeed a good reference (but may not contain all details).

It's true that the patent application does not contain all details. It says nothing for example regarding catalyst preparation (the reader is mostly redirected to the existing catalyst literature on the subject) and the apparently crucial role of carbon on the surface of the catalysts and their surroundings for the formation of Rydberg matter and the ultra-dense hydrogen form.

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I had a closer reading of LENR-Cars's Patent Application titled "method of producing energy from condensed hydrogen clusters" to better understand what UDH creation processes they are suggesting.

Holmlid dense hydrogen technology has similar problem like Randell Mills hydrino based technology: if they should generate an energy, then the resulting form of hydrogen should be thermodynamically very stable and widespread into account of this normal one. Which keeps me in belief, they're both bogus and if some energy generation is involved, then it's overunity effect. This doesn't imply, that dense hydrogen or even hydrino couldn't exist after all - but only as a metastable volatile form of matter.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Which keeps me in belief, they're both bogus and if some energy generation is involved, then it's overunity effect. This doesn't imply, that dense hydrogen or even hydrino couldn't exist after all - but only as a metastable volatile form of matter.

May be you should start to read papers and not just spread opinions... UDH is stable and has been measured in detail by Mills.

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UDH is stable and has been measured in detail by Mills

So could I get link to paper?

In a nutshell, rather than using a styrene catalyst such as a K doped iron oxide with excited atomic H/D created at its surface somewhat indirectly, Lenr-Cars is using a more direct way through the desorption of atomic H/D from the bulk of a metal or metal oxide into a low pressure cavity. The desorption energy is increased either by a rapid increase of temperature in a dry cell or by electrolytic means in a wet cell. The latter step is required because the natural desorption of H/D from all metal hydrides/deuterides is never energetic enough to lead to excited enough atoms of H/D to form Rydberg matter. This method makes the link between most LENR/CF work (F&P, Storms, Mizuno, etc ...) and the seminal work of Holmlid.

That patent application seems mainly to focus on the design of the UDH generator and the motivation for it being like it is in the fact that accumulating the ultra-dense material produced makes triggering it with an external pulse more effective, rather than providing a complete method for its production, or at least that's how I see it.

Another unmentioned issue is that the presence of magnetic fields (particularly changing) can negatively affect the transition to the ultra-dense form and that it's important to keep them down. This was—I was told—a reason why when Holmlid started probing UDH on surfaces away from the catalyst (which was indirectly heated with an AC current) he obtained better results and also started seeing larger amounts of ultra-dense protium, which seems more sensitive to these issues than deuterium.

This might have particular relevance in LENR reactors which have a more integrated construction than the vacuum chambers used in Holmlid's UDH experiments.

The recent open access review I linked earlier mentioned about this issue in general terms:

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A magnetic field stronger than 0.05 T prevents the formation of H(0) (Andersson et al 2012). Thus the formation of the chain clusters is inhibited by the magnetic field. Since these clusters possibly are involved in the formation of the small clusters H3(0) and H4(0), the density of small clusters may also decrease strongly in a magnetic field. This means that it is difficult to selectively destroy or remove only the chain clusters in a magnetic field and still be able to study the small clusters H3(0) and H4(0) in the magnetic field. In fact both the interacting cluster forms H(0) and H(1) are suppressed in a magnetic field, as shown very clearly in figure 20. Instead, the lowest energy RM cluster form that can exist in the magnetic field is H(2), which is difficult to observe in other experiments probably since the material then is rapidly deexcited spontaneously to H(1) and H(0). This means that it is not absolutely clear that the small clusters H3(0) and H4(0) can exist in a strong magnetic field where the chain clusters disappear, since the small clusters may be few when the reaction path forming them is broken.

Rob Woudenberg

It's somewhat more complicated, in that the ultra-dense hydrogen clusters where nuclear reactions take place are not superfluid (source), but apparently their formation involves those that instead are superfluid (as the excerpt I linked above points out).

Holmid - Norrønt neutron source, 2019 state

Holmid - Norrønt neutron source, 2019 repeatability and strenght

Holmid - Norrønt - Bonphysics compact high intensity neutron source project

Bonphysics - ISIS Pulsed Neutron and Muon Source, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory paper / fundamental research