Posts by Ecco

@Thomas Clarke: I believe the wiring was physically changed between the dummy and the active run for undisclosed reasons. I won't go as far as saying that Rossi used completely different devices like Gary Wright suggested, but now that we know from the [lexicon]Industrial Heat[/lexicon] patent that the E-Cat tested could be disassembled, this hypothesis might make more sense and explain how the IR emission differs between both runs. See the thermal image from page 15 and photos from page 25.

How could the same wiring produce this difference?

(enhanced)

(Source)

@Thomas Clarke: what about this scenario.

The experiment was deliberately designed that way. The testers actually couldn't push temperatures further during the dummy run because the internal inconel wire would indeed have melted and they knew about it.

You might have noticed that the wiring was probably changed between the dummy and the active run. I'm proposing that this was in order to use the internal ceramic tube (which is a separate element) as a high temperature, semi-conductive resitor, as if it was a Nernst glower. This would also explain the "shadows": they were due to the inactive inconel wire embedded in the finned alumina cast, the glowing internal ceramic tube used as a resistor, and not necessarily the result of anomalous heat production. I expect this would also cause issues with electrical measurements as the resistivity of semiconductive ceramics decreases significantly with temperature.

(Diagram from the [lexicon]Industrial Heat[/lexicon] patent)

Quote from Thomas Clarke

Do we take from this that he is saying he thinks the Lugano reactor to have been operated at 1400C?

I took that as an implicit admission that the reactor was not operated at 1400°C. According to the report, as soon as input power was increased to 900W, the average reactor temperature increased to 1400°C within a few minutes (see page 7). Table 6 on page 21 (and plots 6-8) is also reporting that the average temperature was about 1400°C for about 20 days. Even the abstract is referring to operating points rather than peak temperatures.

So either Rossi himself doesn't believe that at some point the reactor has been operated at 1400°C on average, or I am reading the report wrongly and that's why I asked here. To clarify, I'm aware that actual temperatures were most likely way lower than that.

To those of you who have read the Lugano report carefully: regardless of what the actual temperatures might have been, is it as Rossi is saying here, that according to the report the quoted 1400°C temperature was a maximum limit rather than a set point/average temperature? It looks like I am imagining things up

http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=885&cpage=24#comment-1129397

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Andrea Rossi
November 14th, 2015 at 1:34 PM
Ecco liberation
Read carefully the Lugano Report: 1400 has been the max limit. A
complete different thing is maintain this T constantly. Besides,there
are other issues I can’t disclose.
Warm Regards
A.R.

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@Ugo Abundo: are you going to use a prepared Fe2O3:K catalyst or simply using its elements in the powder charge?

@David Fojt: I think it's difficult to find similar graphs because the absorption of hydrogen in nickel metal at low pressures is very small. At 1 bar the H/Ni ratio at the melting point of Ni is just below 0.001; it takes pressures in the order of several thousands bar to obtain any appreciable absorption.:

@Arnaud: admittedly, you're right on (Al2O3)NiO. Low pressure hydrogen would have to be used to avoid completely reducing the catalyst. Some researchers use low pressure in their LENR experiments which might be related with having to deal with similar issues, but I agree it's probably best to wait for more details from ogfusionist before venturing into further speculations.

At ~800°C neither Al2O3 or SiO2 will be reduced by hydrogen, but at "Parkhomov temperatures" SiO2 slowly will. See these links:

https://books.google.com/books?id=aA3vCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA150#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://i.imgur.com/uUIdkoY.png (excerpt)
http://i.imgur.com/tJTF5t2.png (excerpt)
http://i.imgur.com/4uSf06i.png (excerpt)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_monoxide
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s…icle/pii/0022459674900929 (paywalled)
http://i.imgur.com/LzWemi1.png (excerpt)

@Arnaud: it's not my intention to write for him, but as far as I understand ogfusionist is reporting to have dipped his FiberFrax glass fibers (which he often recommended getting the version with the highest alumina percentage possible) in a colloidal NiO slurry/solution, which means the particles are in the several nanometers range and will be easily adsorbed on the surface pores of the glass fiber strands. It's not mentioned in the excerpt I posted, but I believe there's a further calcination step that should make the Ni/NiO tightly bound with the Al2O3, after which it won't be reduced with hydrogen that easily, although a partial reduction of the oxides before actual usage should probably help making the surfaces formed even more active.

The process he's describing doesn't seem to be something completely novel and in fact documentation on similar NiO/Al2O3 dehydrogenation catalysts - commonly used in oil refining processes - already exists in the patent literature, and so on:

https://www.google.com/patents/US2985598
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2581228.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/2495700.html

I would agree with @David Fojt however that it would really be better to collect all this information in a single, easy to read document. Patents aren't meant to be easy to read, and related information scattered around in several forum threads isn't easy to find.

Quote from me356

ogfusionist: Can I find your protocol somewhere?

More information in this thread:
Fusionist's NiO FiberFrax experiments

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• heating done in alumina tube with nichrome winding
• NiO ball milled for months in all alumina system
• colloidal suspension in acetone test to insure colloidal dimensions
• binder probably methyl methracylate although nitrocellulose was also used in the factory, recall banana smell of amyl acetate
• FiberFrax firing time in hydrogen and then vacuum at least several hours for introduction in and out of furnaces
• FiberFrax was dipped into a bath of NiO slurry and allowed to soak using capillary action to infuse the slurry
• excess allowed to drain off
• infused FiberFrax stuffed into alumina tube
• hydrogen allowed to flow through at atmospheric pressure
• slowly increased temperature where the 830 C incident occurred

The particle size of the NiO is the most critical parameter in this process. A colloidal suspension is critical.

In short, he is creating a supported Al2O3-NiO nanocatalyst and heating it in a flowing hydrogen atmosphere.

Is anybody aware whether pure nickel can in some cases contain Zinc impurities? See the table on page 1 here ("unused Nickel"):

http://www.lenr-forum.com/foru…achment/12-NR20120412-pdf (source)

To be fair, the abundance percentage of Ni doesn't seem to be correct, so it could be an error of some sort.

I found that hard to believe but it looks like shipping for these detectors from the manufacturer is indeed expensive.

http://www.fusor.net/board/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=9278

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I recently asked the guys over at Bubble Technology Industries about the cost of a bubble detector, and I got an email back saying:

So is there a cheaper way to get a bubble detector? I really only need one, and I understood there would be a shipping/insurance charge, but $150???

@pjs: thanks for providing further background and information on these catalysts.

If the basic reaction is mostly what Leif Holmlid and colleagues have been observing (using just a well-used styrene catalyst in a flowing, low pressure hydrogen environment), additional elements besides those of the catalyst shouldn't be really needed. My belief - which could be incorrect - is that Rossi had to find a way to make it seem more complex and obscure than it really is. Knowing this, further interaction with other metals such as lithium, etc. could therefore be avoided.

I am aware that these industrial catalysts can't really exactly be used out of the box and need some sort of (not too complex) preparation beforehand is needed. Actually Bob Higgins of MFMP already has in a way some experience with them as in 2013 he attempted using partially reduced iron oxide as a catalyst for hydrogen dissociation, and the process needed for preparing it shouldn't be too different in principle than that required for these catalysts (See here: link), although as far as I know in real life applications syngas (CO+H2 gas mixture as in the paper you linked) is commonly used for this task.

Quote from pjs

As a summary, oxygen (air) and water vapor are harmful for metallic alkali metals and for these hydrogen catalysts.

I would agree with this. Unfortunately the Lugano experiment has been counterproductive in that it fooled people into thinking that removing initial gases and oxides from the reaction environment isn't needed, among other things.

Getting back to the topic, I've made a Google Document putting together the possible clues for dehydrogenation catalysts being used in Rossi's E-Cat reactors, at least according to the fuel/ash analyses published so far. I tried leaving aside most of the speculation although admittedly the document as it is right now might be seen as mostly the result of wishful thinking on my part.

https://goo.gl/mP6h6e

Quote from Mats002

However I don't see why photon frequency can not be efficient in the range of IR. As long as we have coherent light (visible or IR) in the 'right' frequency then the nanowires can densify and amplify EM as expected.

The spectrum generated by heat energy alone is spread along a very wide frequency range. If such energy was concentrated on a narrower band one could ideally use less power to achieve the same results (if the theory is true). So, using monochromatic light sources like sodium lamps as suggested might prove a very efficient and inexpensive way for providing the proper energy to the system.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…_lamp#Low-pressure_sodium

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What is the 'right' frequency (or multiply of) for Axils theory to work?

If it's infrared to visible light, that's into the several terahertz range. I have no idea if there is a "right" frequency and if it can be precisely determined.

@Mats002: I'm not really disagreeing with Axil, but rather saying that since there are likely very few people who really understand nanoplasmonics it's futile to throw related jargon in discussions like there's no tomorrow. Most will reject those explanations, even if they will turn out to be correct.

I don't understand the subject myself, but I found this post on vortex-l by Jones Beene quite interesting and to the point: link

In short, if the SPP hypothesis for LENR is true and if the SPPs are excited by photons (see also here) then it makes sense to use an efficient light source instead of heat (incandescence -> infrared light), which in turn might explain why Holmlid is seeing such amazing effects using coherent light pulses (laser). And if photons are what is really needed, then one could start look at past experiments in the LENR field for hints along those lines and possible ideas for the ideal experiment.

Perhaps this would also in part explain why @ogfusionist is saying he starts seeing effects with his catalytic Al₂O₃-NiO system from 830°C ? Who knows! But I guess that at this level the subject will be easier to manage for most people.

Quote from ogfusionist

Limited to the argument that LENR = nanoscale fusion, then the reaction is not unusual. My laboratory experiment produced helium from hydrogen fusion. Simply a proton transmutation where a catalyst allowed the Coulomb force to be nulled.

I would agree to keep it simple and to the observed effects until it is conclusively demonstrated.

My conclusion is also that generally speaking Rossi found out that by exposing all sorts of micro/nanostructured industrial catalysts to a pulsating/flowing hydrogen atmosphere, excess heat and some amount of helium and radiation emission were unusually being produced. In a way, this is basically also Leif Holmlid's reaction.

The rest is engineering together with a great deal of misdirection on Rossi's part to make it look like very complex process.

@me356: the main reasons why I'm still not convinced about previous experiments producing excess heat are:

• A low temperature shift compared to the calibration provided. This was first explained as the result of possible endothermic effects by the first decomposition steps of LiAlH4, but it turned out to be 100% repeatable.
• All runs performed after calibration performed very similarly, pretty much overlapping each other.
• No confirmation yet that the effect can be deactivated by destroying the (possible) micro/nano sites created on the wire.

I've added calibration and values with the Pd wire, even if it can't be really compared to the previous runs.

Maybe I'm missing out some information, but if this is true:

Quote from me356

Earlier experiments are uncomparable as the heater is very different.

How can this also prove that they were producing excess heat?

@me356: I think you're heating your wire excessively for absorption. Palladium isn't capable of absorbing much hydrogen at high temperature and relatively low pressure. See this diagram:

At 350°C at the current pressure the maximum H/Pd ratio should be less than 0.05.
In reality it will be probably even less as the local temperature will be higher.

On the other hand, perhaps you could take advantage of this for quickly releasing hydrogen just by increasing input power, once loading at lower temperatures is accomplished.

I tried sorting many of the translated claims of Rossi's italian patent on New Energy Times into something more coherent and readable. They do seem to describe a general process rather than a "recipe", which seems to be consistent with what I've been thinking all along:

• The powder, grains or bars residing in a hydrogen-saturated environment contain catalysts and are composed of any isotope of Ni, Cu and/or other metals (claims 1, 2, 6, 12, 13)
• Hydrogen is injected in pulses at a pressure preferably between 2 and 20 bar, rather than kept at constant pressure (claims 1, 4, 7)
• Temperature is varied within preferably 150 and 500°C rather than maintained constant (claims 3, 8.)
• Different kinds of exothermic reactions can occur and different atoms can be created in the process depending on the amount of protons interacting with the powder, grains or bars (claim 15)

These make me also wonder if:

• Celani got the idea of using CuNi wires from Rossi's old patent.
• Rossi used in some cases copper tubes on purpose so that he could employ CuNi based catalysts for hydrogen dissociation while claiming (in his blog, interviews, patent documentation, but NOT in patent claims) it was contamination (potentially, same for stainless steel tubes) or the result of nuclear reactions.
• Nickel powder hasn't actually been a smokescreen all along. The point seems to be having hydrogen continuously dissociating and recombining from catalysts in a hydrogen-saturated environment with the action of pressure pulses and varying temperatures (but not so high that catalysts are destroyed).

On this regard, then I can't help but wonder if the EDX analyses in Rossi's early patents aren't actually showing one of many different kinds of catalyst particles used rather than the result of nuclear reactions:

With Ni and Zn content this makes me think of Urushibara Nickel, which is primarily a Ni-Zn alternative to Raney Nickel, the famous Ni-Al catalyst used in many industrial processes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urushibara_nickel

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First nickel is precipitated in metallic form by reacting a solution of a nickel salt with zinc. (...) After the digestion with acid most of the zinc and zinc oxide is dissolved from the catalyst, while after digestion with base it still contains considerable amounts of zinc and zinc oxide

https://www.erowid.org/archive…chemistry/urushibara.html

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Both U-Ni-A and U-Ni-B are produced from the same precipitated nickel that is deposited by the reaction between nickel salt solution and zinc dust.

* * *

@axil: disregarding Holmlid's interpretation of the end result (Rydberg Matter) would you agree with him saying that something unusual - not necessarily of nuclear nature - might occur when diatomic or covalent bonds are prevented from forming, and that this can happen with hydrogen, but also water and some diatomic gases? In other words, that the key for obtaining some sort of anomalous effect is attempting to continuously cause certain compounds to dissociate and recombine, and doing it as efficiently as possible?