Has Holmlid/Norront presented any idea for capturing the energy from the annihilation-like process?
Here there’s a preliminary and speculative assessment.
Has Holmlid/Norront presented any idea for capturing the energy from the annihilation-like process?
Here there’s a preliminary and speculative assessment.
Has Holmlid/Norront presented any idea for capturing the energy from the annihilation-like process?
Besides the relativistic drive from annihilation reactions as a possible application, not yet. It has been suggested that an annihilation reactor is "under construction", although no further details have been provided: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.01.212
Morning all, i didn't followed all things about Holmlid, so i would like to know the level of XSH he reached ?
The closest description of an experiment with "excess heat" is in this 2016 paper, written before the suggestion of meson and muon emission was put forward:
Heat generation above break-even from laser-induced fusion in ultra-dense deuterium
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4928572
Quote[...] Heat release of a few W is observed, at up to 50% higher energy than the total laser input thus a gain of 1.5. This is uniquely high for the use of deuterium as fusion fuel. With a slightly different setup, a thermal gain of 2 is reached, thus clearly above break-even for all neutronicity values possible. Also including the large kinetic energy which is directly measured for MeV particles leaving through a small opening gives a gain of 2.3. Taking into account the lower efficiency now due to the suboptimal fusion process, previous studies indicate a gain of at least 20 during long periods.
Well, i have no doubt about the veracity of his XSH and the seriousness and quality of his work.
However, I find this makes a lot of noise if you consider, in parallel, for example, the former and first results from Piantelli, more than 20 years ago already.
Rather than developing a heating product to compete with other LENR researchers, most of Holmlid's recent research work has been towards characterizing the observed high-energy particle current that has been interpreted as due to mesons and muons.
The gain calculation from the kinetic energy of the particles emitted over 4pi is higher: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.01.212
Quote[...] annihilation of around 1013 hydrogen atoms, or around 10 pmol annihilated per laser pulse giving of the order of 50 J to the fast particles from the laser pulse of 0.4 J thus an energy gain of >100. With 10 pulses per second from a normal Q-switched laser, this gives 500 J per second or 0.5 kW.
However it's unclear whether it is truly possible to extrapolate the signal over 4Pi like Holmlid does. It seems to me that the working principle presented for the "interstellar rocket" linked earlier would provide a concentrated meson beam to the collector portion from which the signal is generally observed, or that in any case a large portion of the collector signal would be from reflected mesons.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2020.05.034
QuoteMany of the particles formed can penetrate far through normal materials, thus an equal number of particles may be ejected in all directions giving no directed thrust. The simple inherent solution to this is to see to that thick layers of ultra-dense hydrogen are formed on the target which prevents the penetration by reflecting the mesons from these layers. This effect was studied for ions in Refs. [25].
Regarding the annihilation energy and trying to capture it – what would happen if you submerge the whole shebang in a large pool of light water, using the water to capture energy as heat while slowing down the (sub-)particles?
Big enough pool would absorb the energy and thus increase the temperature of the water. Heat pumps could harvest the heat.
I am not sure whether concrete slows down these high energy sub-particles better than light water, but let's assume it does. In that case it would be more efficient to have a first shell of concrete that in turn would be embedded in light water.
Thanks, the reason I am asking is that Holmlid/Norront seem to focus on muon-induced fusion in their papers and on their website (MK1) and suggest that capturing energy from the annihilation-like process requires many more years of R&D.
But if we take their statements at face value, for example
"The efficiency from mass (of two baryons) to useful energy is 46% (contrary to 0.3% for T + D fusion)"
"Neutrons are not formed or ejected so this is an aneutronic process"
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/…921004080?via%3Dihub#bib1
...it sounds like a crude, ineffecient, low-tech energy capturing method like a light-water bath could be good enough...
I still think that any advanced method for harvesting the energy of the mesons generated will probably also use at the same time the properties of the ultra-dense hydrogen material produced. For example, it could be possible to have them reflect off multiple times from superfluid layers of UDH in order to absorb their energy with materials along their path that do not support a layer of UDH. The construction could be very compact.
I still think that any advanced method for harvesting the energy of the mesons generated will probably also use at the same time the properties of the ultra-dense hydrogen material produced. For example, it could be possible to have them reflect off multiple times from superfluid layers of UDH in order to absorb their energy with materials along their path that do not support a layer of UDH. The construction could be very compact.
Can you motivate your choice to have a polymer-coated collector?
Is this because this may act as scintillator and thus also may generate light, as the stars in your figure suggest to indicate?
The idea is that UDH would not form a superfluid layer on such coating, and therefore it would not reflect the mesons like the surrounding metal surfaces would do. See for instance:
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4729078
QuoteD(−1) exists on organic polymer surfaces like (poly(methyl methacrylate)) PMMA even at a distance of a few millimeter from a metal in contact with the polymer. The density of D(−1) decreases from the metal surface to the open polymer surface, and is to some extent replaced by D(1) on the polymer surface.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2012.11.012
QuoteIn previous studies, the interaction between the superfluid D(−1) layer and various carrier materials prior to the laser pulse has been investigated. It was shown that organic polymer materials do not give a condensed D(−1) layer. Metal surfaces carry thicker D(−1) layers useful for fusion.
https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2018093312A1/
Quote[...]The barrier may advantageously have at least an outer surface facing the surrounded area that is made of a material that does not support creeping of ultra-dense hydrogen. Examples of such materials include various polymers, glass, and base metal oxides, such as aluminum oxide.
...it sounds like a crude, ineffecient, low-tech energy capturing method like a light-water bath could be good enough...
Problem is that low-grade heat is less useful than you might imagine. High pressure steam however would be of great interest.
Besides mesons that reflect off a superfluid UHD layer, other high energy lighter sub-particles will result from decay of mesons. Do you know whether it is known these lighter sub-particles also will reflect off superfluid UDH?
I would guess that only negative or positive charged sub-particles would bounce off superfluid UDH due to counter EMF (Meissner effect).
Muons may be reflected too:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01864 (open access)
Quote[...] Of special interest are the scattering properties of a layer of H(0) [19, 29]. Such a layer reflects charged particles even at high energy, due to the extreme density of this layer. This means that muons may have their final scattering interaction at such a layer on the target before moving to the detector.
Thanks! This confirms my thoughts that only charged sub-particles bounce off due to the Meissner effect.
Consequently, neutral sub-particles will probably escape and not be harvested this way. Or, absorbed by the superfluid UDH layer.
It's not clear. Neutrons have been suggested to have a very short mean free path through UDH (specifically, UDD), but I haven't tried calculating the range of energetic (~100 MeV) neutral kaons—which may also be generated in the annihilation reactions—through such dense layers.
From https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2015.06.116 (paywalled):
EDIT: I would say that in the same way that high-energy neutrons bounce off nuclei of ordinary atoms, energetic neutral kaons should still bounce off the protons or deuterons composing UDH.
Another sub-topic after some reflections: UDD-catalyzed lattice confined fusion.
LENR occurring by Deuterium in metal lattices as reported by e.g. NASA and Iwamura seem to have a Deuteron density as high as 1023 atoms per cm3. Theoretically, the interatomic distances are approximately 3 x 10-8 cm, which is far larger than the theoretical distance required to fuse: 10-13 cm (Coulomb barrier). As a consequence, there should be additional methods to establish fusion in such lattices.
NASA resolved this by bombarding such lattice with high energy EM radiation (2.9-MeV high-energy photons) causing chains of reactions within the lattice. Remains the question how excess heat is caused reported by the dozens of reported LENR experiments/methods that do not have such heavy trigger methods included.
One option fusion and/or transmutations is happening anyway is that UDD is unintended (and unawarely) formed by the presence of suitable catalysts, starting at the surfaces of these metal lattices which in turn is triggered and decomposed into sub particles that have high enough energy to cause a similar inter-lattice effects as NASA describes. The UDD trigger could be simple like increased temperatures to e.g. a few hundreds degrees C (examples: Mizuno R20, Iwamura). In such case UDD is supportive to lattice confined fusion/transmutation and not the main excess heat production source.
I don't know about their theory, but more than a precise value, 1023 atoms/cm3 sounds like a general order of magnitude indicating that they're referring about hydrogen atoms with solid density, i.e. metallic hydrogen. This is close to the density of Hydrogen Rydberg matter in the lowest energy level, which has indeed been defined as metallic hydrogen: https://doi.org/10.1088/0953-8984/16/39/034