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

Quote from Alan Smith

BTW- 304 S/Steel seems reluctant to accept much hydrogen, at least at the temperature level in the tank. I know you can hot gas load it, but electrolysis only yields around 10mV.

Watched the Mission Hydrogen webinar this afternoon. Quite interesting, but nothing particularly groundbreaking. The presenter did seem to be worrying some of the Hydrogen equipment suppliers, though

As usual, there was an emphasis on all the various theories being incomplete - with plenty of mysteries left.

One thing I noticed was that encouraging a passivation/oxidation layer is being seen as a convenient way to reduce the unwanted migration of hydrogen into the surface of some metals. Maybe the effectiveness of natural surface passivation, as a hydrogen barrier, is better than implied by the normal literature.

So - perhaps a more aggressive oxide removal method is required, for some of the more "reluctant" materials, before trying to load them with hydrogen.

There's a lot going on inside the metal.

One thing mentioned in the webinar was that as atomic hydrogen migrates along grain boundaries, it can concentrate in certain locations and recombine back to H2. This results in intense localised pressure, and some heat - and can create sudden cracks.

I immediately thought about the "surface eruptions" and sonic "popping" seen in some hydrogen-loaded electrodes.

However, a mundane pressure and recombination heat effect would not account for the transmutation that is sometimes seen when scanning the resulting craters - unless it was a trigger for something else.

Apologies in advance : I haven't looked at the LEC in detail before. Some of this may have been covered. And of course all this is in that curious foreign language patentese.

The patent is at https://patents.google.com/pat…1/en?oq=US+20210398767+A1 (Best viewer because it shows the text and diagrams side by side).

The key statement (to me) is in the description of Fig 2

> Ionizing radiation 227 is spontaneously emitted from the inner or active hydrogen host material 202 of the working electrode 201 that produces positive 225 and negative 226 gaseous ions in the gas 211 between the inner and outer electrodes 201 and 221.

and:

> Such behavior is indicative that the LEC cell is operating as a constant current source, which may also indicate the presence of diffusing ions and/or particulate radiation flux.

Fig 6 :

> The positive gas ions 613 and negative gas ions 611 drift between the electrodes under the influence of the electric field strength determined by the LEC voltage, physical separation of the electrodes, as well as the space charge in the gas due the presence of the ions.

Do the ions get neutralized when they get to an electrode? Or build up?

I didn't see an explanation of where the electric (electron) current comes from ... it goes through the resistor connected between the two electrodes from one electrode to another.

Fig 12 might have the answer ... I suppose the electrons collect on the metal which then conducts them to the resistor.

Quote from Alan Fletcher

The patent is at https://patents.google.com/pat…1/en?oq=US+20210398767+A1 (Best viewer because it shows the text and diagrams side by side).

This linked patent is by Frank Gordon and Harper Whitehouse, unless you wanted to post something else, they are the inventors and namers of the LEC.

Edit to add: Sorry Alan Fletcher , I just saw your question at the end, I really don’t understand what is what you don’t understand about it. Perhaps you can watch the presentation at the Srinivasan Memorial Symposia, at the beginning of this thread, it’s a great way to get up to speed.

This is the one I mentioned, Alan Fletcher

There is also a huge deal of information amassed on this thread, really worth reading the 68 pages (and counting).

Quote from Frogfall

There is a lot going on inside the metal lattice, once the hydrogen gets in.

One thing mentioned in the webinar was that as atomic hydrogen migrates along grain boundaries, it can concentrate in certain locations and recombine back to H2. This results in intense localised pressure, and some heat - and can create sudden cracks.

I immediately thought about the "surface eruptions" and sonic "popping" seen in some hydrogen-loaded electrodes.

However, a mundane pressure and recombination heat effect would not account for the transmutation that is sometimes seen when scanning the resulting craters - unless it was a trigger for something else.

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The transmutation evidence is incoherent (almost any transmutation product has been found, but 95% of them coincidentally are things that exist naturally) and difficult to evaluate because of the possibilities of surface contamination effects (would effect SEM) and spectrum misinterpretation.

Let me just give a (amateur - but we need a very experienced professional in this area) suggestion for many hours laser spot surface contamination. All that is required is tiny specs of dust in the air that land on the metal surface (encouraged by photon pressure and/or convective thermals caused by local heating). The dust would be melted by the laser and/or local effects caused by the laser and local lattice. Or maybe it would just land and stick. The contaminants look pretty usual for different types of dust (metallic / non-metallic) in a lab.

If there is real transmutation sufficiently careful repeated experiments done by different people can rule those things out - I'd suggest the LENR community engages non-LENR experts to look at this with fresh eyes and provide alternate explanations - then conducts further experiments as needed until everyone is convinced. I am pretty sure that now most scientists are neutral about LENR.

So I'd love to have convincing evidence - and would need it to be replicable and non-LENR-advocate convincing. For example, the SEM spectra claim very large conversion ratios on the surface. I'd like to here what SEM non-LENR experts say about that.

Quote from Alan Fletcher

Apologies in advance : I haven't looked at the LEC in detail before. Some of this may have been covered. And of course all this is in that curious foreign language patentese.

The patent is at https://patents.google.com/pat…1/en?oq=US+20210398767+A1 (Best viewer because it shows the text and diagrams side by side).

The key statement (to me) is in the description of Fig 2

> Ionizing radiation 227 is spontaneously emitted from the inner or active hydrogen host material 202 of the working electrode 201 that produces positive 225 and negative 226 gaseous ions in the gas 211 between the inner and outer electrodes 201 and 221.

and:

> Such behavior is indicative that the LEC cell is operating as a constant current source, which may also indicate the presence of diffusing ions and/or particulate radiation flux.

Fig 6 :

> The positive gas ions 613 and negative gas ions 611 drift between the electrodes under the influence of the electric field strength determined by the LEC voltage, physical separation of the electrodes, as well as the space charge in the gas due the presence of the ions.

Do the ions get neutralized when they get to an electrode? Or build up?

I didn't see an explanation of where the electric (electron) current comes from ... it goes through the resistor connected between the two electrodes from one electrode to another.

Fig 12 might have the answer ... I suppose the electrons collect on the metal which then conducts them to the resistor.

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My suggestion for mechanism, which AFAIK tick all the boxes:

Some effect caused by hydrided metal lattices allows thermal and/or chemical effects to free ions from the metal surface of both (or maybe just one?) polarities.

Cross electric fields will separate ions of different polarities (if these are generated) and increase emf (?not sure). Magnetic field will make ions go round in circle (! - I am also on shaky ground here) and decrease conductivity. The effects here are complex (at leats not understood by me - I have no enough background) because of the surface emf created by differential emission and absorption rates of ions, and how overall fields alter ion drift and ion movement close to the surface.

If generation of ions is unequal +/- this will change work function of surface. In all cases given a close metal surface which can collect and neutralise ions we get an emf from the different work functions. Since the active surface work function is changed by the relative +/- ion generation probabilities peculiar changes in emf are possible.

Without an external connection between the two plates charge build up as needed till differential ion drift back to the plates cancels out the plate work functions for zero current between plates - that causes the no-load voltage. Memory effects are possible over shortish time because of the population of ions between the plates which will change in response to plate potential.

It is anomalous to get this level of ion generation from a surface without high energy radiation or large electric fields. However, we have plausible ways in which local electric fields could be amplified by nanoscale effects and allow some parts of the lattice surface to catalyse ion formation. The energy for this would ultimately be chemical from the unusual build-up of H in the lattice, and not last forever. Understanding this effect seems very worthwhile to me. Anyway it is always possible such a boring explanation is not correct and this device generates weird radiation undetectable except fo rthe ionisation. It is also always possible this same effect that can generate ions with an energy of 10s of ev can do something with nuclei and energies thousands of times higher - we have electron screening after all. That possibility seems unlikely to me - but maybe will seem likely to others here.

THH

Re the "it can't be ions that cause the fogging". Well I am betting that in some circumstances ions in a mainly H atmosphere can cause fogging, and can get through materials as noted here. Or some other effect acting in an unusual way so breaking normal rules a bit. More data would be needed (which I might have missed - 88 pages is a bit intimidating).

Here's a link to my paper analyzing a LEC sample from Frank Gordon.

https://magicsound.us/MFMP/LEC_Analysis-2.pdf

My conclusions:

* The sample cell produced ~220 nW / cm2 , and up to 1 volt into 100 megohms.
* Surface morphology is complex and granular, particles ranging <100 nm - 2 um.
* The co-deposition layer contains substantial amounts of Zinc and Sodium.
* There is no significant x-ray emission from the sample cell 150 eV...100 keV .

Quote from magicsound

Here's a link to my paper analyzing a LEC sample from Frank Gordon.

https://magicsound.us/MFMP/LEC_Analysis-2.pdf

My conclusions:

* The sample cell produced ~220 nW / cm2 , and up to 1 volt into 100 megohms.
* Surface morphology is complex and granular, particles ranging <100 nm - 2 um.
* The co-deposition layer contains substantial amounts of Zinc and Sodium.
* There is no significant x-ray emission from the sample cell 150 eV...100 keV .

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Outstanding, thanks for sharing this with the forum magicsound , the “cauliflower” surface aspect (or “popcorn” as is called in some of the papers by Pam Mosier-Boss) is indeed very complex and perhaps the true surface area is far higher than 1 cm2. Thanks for providing an energy output estimate, 220 nano watts per square centimeter may not be much, but is a start and has immediate applications as is. This is really fascinating information.

The Hydrogen Embrittlement webinar, from yesterday, is now available on the Mission Hydrogen youtube channel.

The presenter certainly "knows his onions" - and covers a lot of introductory material at a fairly fast pace. His slides are quite "full" - but it is a complicated subject, and time is short, so I think he can be forgiven. There won't be a PDF of the slides published, but there is sufficient time devoted to each slide to grab a screenshot of any that interest you.

The intended target audience is people in the hydrogen transport and storage industry - so pipeline issues feature in many of the examples.

Note that this is now a 130 year old research topic - and yet there are still a lot of unknowns.

Quote from magicsound

Here's a link to my paper analyzing a LEC sample from Frank Gordon.

https://magicsound.us/MFMP/LEC_Analysis-2.pdf

My conclusions:

* The sample cell produced ~220 nW / cm2 , and up to 1 volt into 100 megohms.
* Surface morphology is complex and granular, particles ranging <100 nm - 2 um.
* The co-deposition layer contains substantial amounts of Zinc and Sodium.
* There is no significant x-ray emission from the sample cell 150 eV...100 keV .

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I forgot to ask where do you think the zinc comes from, the sodium might come from the electrolyte, if they used some sodium salt in the mix, but the zinc? Do you think that transmutation could occur during the codeposition?

Quote from JedRothwell

Typo alert. Pam BOSS.

Ouch, that happens when you comment at close to 3:00 AM, I am sure I wanted to write Pam Mosier-Boss and it came out like that. My apologies.

Quote from Curbina

where do you think the zinc comes from

I don't know, and Frank apparently doesn't either. Perhaps the stainless steel mesh substrate had some zinc plating. The amount I found is not contamination from casual handling though. And transmutation is very unlikely.

Returning to the observation of Na and Zn in the Codeposited Pd sample analyzed by magicsound , I am really intrigued by that, I wonder if Frank Gordon can shed some light on how this particular sample came to be in order to see if these features are easy to explain or are something anomalous in an on itself.

Quote from magicsound

I don't know, and Frank apparently doesn't either. Perhaps the stainless steel mesh substrate had some zinc plating. The amount I found is not contamination from casual handling though. And transmutation is very unlikely.

Thanks for answering that magicsound , I wrote my last comment unaware of yours. It’s intriguing and somehow unexpected.

Quote from Frogfall

Note that this hydrogen embrittlement) is now a 130 year old research topic - and yet there are still a lot of unknowns.

Quite right, lots of things about hydrogen isotope adsorption are mysterious, in fact in another email group not far from here there's a heavy duty argument going on about flux - the movement of hydrogen into, through, and potentially out of the metal lattice.

One of the interesting things about the LEC is that we don't know how much it depends on hydrogen in the bulk or merely hydrogen on the surface/ Pd and Fe take in bulk hydrogen readily, Nickel does if properly encouraged, but other metals can at least adsorb it on the surface as my own experiments show.

But I do suspect that at some level the hydrogen loses its electron when inside the metal, and becomes a naked proton, only regaining it when it re-emerges. And a naked proton could actually go deep into metals normally considered not to adsorb/absorb H but without affecting their gross physical structure in a readily detectable way.

Quote from Curbina

This is the one I mentioned, Alan Fletcher

Thanks. Answers my question of where the ions go : Shunt Current

My other questions are mostly "still unknown" .. what causes the ionization, what ions are produced. Why the electrons go to one electrode isn't discussed (Direction of the constant current source.)

I'll leave it at that, and come back to the whole thread later.

I'm not sure I know enough yet to ask more specific questions or make suggestions.

Quote from magicsound

I don't know, and Frank apparently doesn't either. Perhaps the stainless steel mesh substrate had some zinc plating. The amount I found is not contamination from casual handling though.

I would not be surprised if some manufacturers of stainless steel mesh also give it a shiny 5 micron 'BZP' (bright zinc plate) coating, purely for cosmetic reasons. It all depends what it was sold for, I guess. It certainly wouldn't help with corrosion resistance, and could actually make things worse in high temperature applications. But as most of these samples were produced on a very tight budget, its possible that the mesh was sold for domestic decorative purposes rather than as an engineering material.

Quote from Frogfall

But as most of these samples were produced on a very tight budget, its possible that the mesh was sold for domestic decorative purposes rather than as an engineering material.

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