Frank Gordon's "Lattice Energy Converter (LEC)"...replicators workshop

Quote from Frank Gordon

This morning, the conference organizers posted the 15 minute LEC presentation on the conference web site so people could watch it at a convenient time in their time zone.

Good presentation Frank Gordon! It goes straight to the key points. The plots extending to quite low resistive loads and the current levels are really noticeable. Good to know that it is possible to verify immediately the effect in air, without even using hydrogen.

Just one question: what treatment do you apply to the working electrode after plating with Fe? Does it need to be dryed in a specific manner (e.g. by baking it)?

Thanks James. Regarding the question about treatment to apply to the working electrode after plating with Fe? I just tap it on a paper towel to knock some of the water off or lightly touch it with a paper towel and at most, let it dry for a couple minutes before inserting it into a larger pipe. I didn't want to wait too long because of oxidation on the iron. The codeposition protocol seems to be flexible. I used 0.1 M FeCl2 4H20 in distilled H2O. I would start with a current of approximately 50 µA/cm² for 30 minutes. Then increase it to approximately 100 µA/cm² for an additional approximately 30 minutes. The current was then increased to approximately 2 mA/cm² for times ranging from 4 hours to one day or more. One of the electrodes actually worked after 4 hours but I codeposited some more iron just in case.

With regard to control experiments, we conducted experiments similar to what you did but not to the precision that you used. Another experiment that we did was to apply a potential between the electrodes while the gas contained water vapor at high relative humidity’s. Carlon published a couple documents while working for a U.S. Army laboratory entitled “Electrical properties of atmospheric moist air, A systematic, experimental study” 1988; and “Electrical conductivity and infrared radiometry of steam” 1980. We were particularly interested in this possibility when we were conducting experiments where we applied several hundred volts between the electrodes. Based on the results published by Carlon and the experiments that we conducted at high voltages up to 1000 volts, we concluded that any contribution due to relative humidity and temperature was 2 or more orders of magnitude below what our cells were producing. For the voltages produced by LEC cells, we concluded that the impact of humidity can be neglected.

Quote from Frank Gordon

I just tap it on a paper towel to knock some of the water off or lightly touch it with a paper towel and at most, let it dry for a couple minutes before inserting it into a larger pipe.

Thank you, i will do the same. I asked because I also noticed some rust forming in a couple of days on the parts i plated for test some time ago.

Quote from Frank Gordon

For the voltages produced by LEC cells, we concluded that the impact of humidity can be neglected.

I haven't done specific tests on the effet of humidity, but I noticed that daily variations of humidity do not affect the results at all.

Is the effect noted in the following link possibly related to LEC function?

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-…ectricity-scavenging.html

This is an interesting article and thank you for bringing it to our attention but without more information, we don't know how to compare it to a LEC. In one LEC replication, a leak allowed some alcohol vapor to get inside. The voltage increased but we don't know if this was a temporary increase or what the reaction might have been that caused the increase. Perhaps an electrochemist in the community could explain the energy balance required for the reaction.

Quote from Frank Gordon

This is an interesting article and

Sorry has been linked at least 2 times before!

Quote from fabrice DAVID

Yes, of course, with an energy released of 24 MeV, I wanted to talk about the fusion of two HEAVY hydrogen nuclei.

I have a vial of heavy water in front of me, and I can testify that the Coulomb Barrier actually exists, and it is fortunate for my neighbors.

Regarding light hydrogen, I have listed some possible reactions above.

The important thing is that this fusion energy can be used by a Lattice Conversion Energy.

It's much easier to do than calorimetry. I suggest you try to replicate Frank Gordon's results.

In this regard, here is my poster that I present to ICCF 23:

http://ikkem.com/iccf23/PPT/IC…-28%20David%20Poster.pptx

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This is a small video of presentation of my poster:

http://ikkem.com/iccf23/PPT/ICCF23-P-28%20David%20video.mp4

Hi all! I have a relevant and wondeful news: I successfully replicated the LEC!

I will write a dedicated post with full details, but for now I just want to communicate this result and to tell you the "making of" and the context.

I started yesterday morning at home the electroplating process. In my intention this first attempt would be more a test of the setup and process than the actual experiment. So it was done without special cares (better, I would say in a relatively scruffy way...) In particular I didn't had the FeCl2 and even deionised water at hand, so I used a diluted solution of HCl as the electrolyte with Fe wires as anode, and ordinary tap water for dilution and rinsing (!).

The regulation of current was a nightmere due to the very low currents and voltages involved. The power supply with fine regulation that I brought did non helped so much (a current generator made with a BJT would be a better choice...). I tried to follow the indication given by Frank Gordon, but there were some spike of 2 to 4 x nominal currents from time to time during manual regulations.

I was very unhappy about the plating, because at first it was very slow and very uneven. Moreover the HCl caused a partial "dezincification" of the brass that turned slightly reddish. Then something abruptly changed in the last part of the process: the working electrode suddendly became black and the coating appeared very uniform.

The entire process took about 8 hours, so in the afternoon I had the working electrode ready to be tested.

I rinsed and gently dried it with a paper towel, then I inserted it into the counter electrode. I immediately measured the voltage with a multimeter and I read something very close to 0 mV. This do not surprised or disappointed me because it was just a sloppy test for the process, and the first attempt usually is never the good one. Hovever, after few seconds, the voltage started to steadly rise: something was happening! Wow 20 mV! Wow 100 mV! And still rising... The voltage finally stabilised around 242 mV: this was behond any possibility of errors. The thing was unequivocally generating a voltage! I throw immediatly all the things in the backpack an run to the lab, where I had better instrumentation to make measurements.

I will describe the tests and results in a following post.

The thing that I would like to stress here is that the LEC worked well at my first attempt, even if the process was done in a very "non canonical" way. This means that it is not critical or particularly sensitive to parameters, and so it apparently is very very easy to replicate.

[Stay tuned for full data and pictures!]

As anticipated, I will report here details of the my recplication of a working LEC device. Construction of the device and preliminary tests can be found in my previous posts. The device used here (brass-brass) is exaclty the same tested before as control (Fig. 1).

- Electroplating/Co-deposition process

The working electrode (WE) was gently rubbed with fine sandpaper and cleaned with alcohol, then it was placed in the electrolytic cell.

The cell was realised with a normal test tube, with four 1 mm iron wires sourrounding the WE. The iron wires were connected to positive voltage while the WE was connected to negative (ground). The electrolyte was 1/4 HCl 20%, 3/4 tap water. The current was set by finely (manually) regulating the power supply voltage. The cell is shown in Fig 2 (note that the colour of leads is inverted, please not consider it).

The current was set and maintained as follows, trying to follow Frank Gordon's indications:

8:00 - 8:35: 0.7 mA [80 uA/cm^2] (0.167 V)

8:35 - 9:05: 1.7 mA [190 uA/cm^2] (0.254 V)

9:05 - 12:00: 16 mA [1.8 mA/cm^2] (0.375 V)

12:00 - 16:00: 25 mA [2.8 mA/cm^2] (0.450 V)

Temperature was 26.4°C, 45%RH at the beginning, 26.6°C, 51%RH at the end.

At 15:30 the electrode appeared as shown in Fig.3 (it became black quite abruptly).

- Preliminary test

The plating process was ended at 16:00, the power supply dusconnected and the WE was extracted, rinsed with tap water and dryed accurately with soft paper towel. The plating appeared quite uniform, well attached to the brass substrate and with a fine porosity. The thickness was not measurable (probably less than 10um). An unexpected phenomenon noted while taking out the WE from the cell was that it, as well as the iron wires, were magnetised. This is not easy to explain considering the very low currents involved and the opposite current path, that should almost cancel out the generated magnetic field.

The WE was inserted into the brass counter electrode (CE) in air at atmospheric pressure. No hydrogen was added. The voltage was measured with a multimeter with 10 MOhm input impedance.

The initial reading was close to 0 mV, then in tens of seconds, it started rising and stabilizing around 242 mV. This was a clear indication that a voltage was generated by the device (the noise level was around 1 mV). This immediately triggered other tests and experiments, that were carried out in another lab. The device was closed but not permanently sealed, in order to allow further experiments. These were done as fast as possible, in order to avoid the the oxidation of the Fe plating and hydrogen desorption.

- Voltage measurements

The first test was to accurately measure the open circut voltage and short circuit current of the device, using the brass CE as well as the aluminium and copper one. The positive probe of the multimeter (10 MOhm impedance) was connected to the WE, the negative to the CE. Signs of voltages and currents reflects this choice. The voltage of device with the brass CE was -307 mV, the short circuit current was -2.4 uA. The voltage of the aluminium CE was 223 mV, and the current 1.5 uA. The voltage of the copper CE was -234 mV with a -0.69 uA short circuit current. The voltage of the brass CE device increased slowly overt time, so probably also with the other two metals higher figures would be obtained by extending the measurement time. During this experiment the peak voltage with brass CE was about 330 mV, as shown in Fig.4.

Another test was done by loading the device (only brass CE from now on) with various resistors. The result is shown in the attached Voltage plot. The behaviour is exaclty the one reported by Frank Gordon at ICCF-23, showing an internal resistance in the order of 100 Kohm.

- Current measurements

The capability of the active device of conducting current was tested, as previously done with the control device, by applying an external voltage. The result is shown in the Current plot. The device was able to conduct a significative amount of current, so the voltage range was limited to -+10V, in order to avoid to damage the device (e.g. desorb the hydrogen). Maximum current at 10V was about 136/140 uA, compared to less than 10 pA measured on the control device: the active device is 7 order of magnitude more conductive. It can be noted from the plot that the current tend to saturation with higher voltage, this however was not explored during this experiments.

- Additional experiments

In order to verify the capability of the device to generate useful power/energy, the LEC was connected to a 100uF capacitor, and the charging process was monitored. The result is visibie in the Capacitor_GM plot. The capacitor was fully charged in about 90 seconds, it was disconnected and separately measured. The stored voltage was 309 mV, so the stored energy was 4.7 uJ. The time constant of the charging curve was 15 s, this is equal to the RC product of the circuit, so the internal R of the LEC is about 150 kOhm. This is in good agreement with the load plot.

Another test was done on the naked WE (in air), with a Geiger-Muller counter (LND712, alpha sensitive), in order to detect potential radiation. The counts for background, for sample and for sample + plastic sheld are reported in the plot: no significative evidence of radiation were found.

Lastly, the naked CE was left in air and in the darkness for about 1 hour, in contact with a glow-in-the-dark plastic strip (based on ZnS(Ag)) and some fluorescent substances. No fluorescence or phosphorescence was visibly excited in the materials.

- Final considerations

All the tests made were limited by the short time available before signs of oxidation (rusting) appeared on the Fe WE plating layer. Probably this effect can be reduced if the WE is sealed with hydrogen inside the CE. The day after the experiment, the condition of the WE was that shown in Fig.5, where visible oxidation can be noted. In this condition the LEC performance decreases (voltage is 50 mV or less). This problem probably is not presenti in case of Ni or Pd plating.

- Conclusions

A working LEC device was replicated successfully. The entire process was not difficult or critical in any way. The capability of the LEC of conducting a current should only be explained by the emission or generation of ions by the WE. The kind of emission of the WE remains unknown and require further investigation. Some magnetic anomalies were noted during the production and test of the LEC, that also need to be better investigated.

A critical note, although I don't want to spoil the fun:

To prove that extraordinary power is generated (LENR assumed) it's necessary to perform an energy measurement, not a short term power measurement. Total amount of continuously delivered energy should surpass any possible chemical energy. Only in such case enthusiasm is founded.

[edit]

To give a rough indication, assume a volume of 3 cm³ of hydrogen oxidized to H₂O:

Curbina , see my added rough calculation in above post.

Let's discuss whether this is a correct assumption.

I agree on the ionization, but in theory this could also be the result of a catalyzed chemical reaction as I pointed out earlier in this thread.

Quote from JedRothwell

Charging the capacitor shows there is energy. Doesn't it? How would you interpret the capacitor results otherwise?

Jed, I don't doubt there is an energy release.

To prove LENRs are occurring we should exclude any other (conventional) source of energy.