Quote from Rob Woudenberg

The presence of a magnetic field has also been suggested when replicating F&P experiments, but I failed to find references unfortunately.

There are some papers on LENR-CANR.org describing the effect (or lack thereof) of magnetic fields, but results are not always clear.

As far as I am aware of, static magnetic fields can increase the lifetime of Rydberg states considerably especially at high excitation states. This is a graph I recently made from the data in a related (paywalled) publication. The lifetime of circular Rydberg states with negative magnetic quantum number m is increased, that of those with a positive one is decreased:

Intuitively it looks like magnetic fields would be helpful in forming more Rydberg matter, but Holmlid has reported also in the latest publication that they can prevent condensation of Rydberg matter to the ultra-dense state.

Perhaps (just my speculation) they can be helpful if condensation to H(0) is allowed to take place away from the catalyst and the magnetic field source (e.g. heater)—which might not be the case in many compact LENR reactors like tubes and so on—or if the magnetic field is intermittently applied at a low rate.

Quote from Rob Woudenberg

What seems relevant is to produce a constant flow of Rydberg atoms rather than produce uncontrolled bursts (of too small amounts) given the limited lifetimes of Rydberg states.

The deliberate presence of an excitation source, or high temperatures with a material that can thermally emit Rydberg states (of alkali metals) seems the easiest way, although one thing is in theory and another in practice.

Rob Woudenberg

To clarify, I meant that forming Rydberg atoms of Pd (or Ni, Cu, ...) in Fleischmann–Pons-type electrolytic experiments (during electrolysis) seems unrealistic. I find more likely that the alkali atoms and gaseous atoms (H/D) that can be absorbed in the material can form Rydberg atoms and matter for example by diffusion into segregated pores and cavities. Some have proposed that the highly H/D-loaded and stressed lattice could by transiently produce high voltage discharges by brittle fracture processes, but I think the amount of ionized solid material from these would be very low.

Formation of excited atoms and clusters of also transition metals during vapor deposition processes, laser ablation, sparking etc. seems more plausible, but these would have a limited lifetime and so the LENR experiments would have to make these processes as part of their normal operating mode.

EDIT: one thing to consider is that Rydberg atoms at high excitation levels have enormous sizes and can easily interact with ground-state atoms and other excited atoms or clusters. Alkali atoms are simpler to bring to a high excitation state due to their low ionization energy.

I could draw an example myself, but have a look at this one from https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511524530 (paywalled, often cited book on Rydberg atoms)

All atoms have Rydberg states. A Rydberg state is an "almost ionized" atom or molecule where the excited electron is far enough from the positively charged core that it behaves similarly to a hydrogen atom. Gaseous atoms with a low ionization energy will be easier to excite in large numbers and possibly form Rydberg matter clusters.

This seems unlikely to easily happen with the atoms of a metal lattice. You would first need to vaporize it in some way.

https://qudev.phys.ethz.ch/sta…rgLecturePresentation.pdf

Curbina

Thanks for the proposal, but I'm afraid that I don't have the expertise and suitable tools and environment for arranging&performing such an experiment. The usage of a tattoo-removal Nd:YAG pulsed laser (sourced from Chinese vendors on Ebay or elsewhere) is also an unproven way to cut costs; I don't have experience with them, although their main specifications seem ok.

For best results a vacuum chamber with at least a window for the laser beam is required, but a very deep vacuum is not. It might be possible to perform the same measurements in the atmosphere, but I think air molecules would brake the high-energy particles emitted from the target material.

Researchers or experimenters with small laboratories will likely already have most of the equipment and materials needed.

Regarding vacuum by the way, in the latest paper it's pointed out:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.02.221

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Silicon containing pump oils appear to destroy the surfaces needed for catalytic H(0) production by giving a silicon or silicon oxide layer on the surfaces used. This type of insulating contamination is well-known in mass spectrometry high-vacuum experiments and is difficult to remove. This contamination is one reason why silicone pump oils are often not recommended for use in mass spectrometry experiments. [...]

Curbina , the TOF detector is an oscilloscope (triggered by a photodiode) which measures the signal from a "collector" (you can think of it as an antenna) at a predetermined distance from the pulsed laser target, usually in a vacuum chamber in Holmlid's experiments.

By measuring the time it takes for the signal to reach the collector (i.e. the time-of-flight), the kinetic velocity (MeV/u) of the emitted particles can be calculated. With H(0) on/in the target material, the signal is large and often relativistic. Further analysis can then be done in various ways.

The pulsed laser is the most expensive piece of equipment here, but it depends on what type it is. Laboratory models can be very expensive. Similar lasers are also used for tattoo removal and can be purchased for less than 1000$, but beam quality and long-term reliability are unknown. Furthermore, adaptation work will be necessary.

Curbina

Far less than 1 million $ is needed for that, but even with low-end equipment and cheap Nd:YAG pulsed laser adapted from other uses, it would still require at least a few thousands $. Muon detection with the method used by Holmlid/Norront could be a cheaper alternative, but for suitable hardware I think total costs would still be about 1500$ at the minimum.

Quote from JulianBianchi

Agreed though using another alkali to have H atoms in an excited state seems impracticable to me in that experimental framework.

Admittedly I only wrote that because I recalled something along these lines being suggested in a general report on Pd-D LENR by Mosier-Boss, Forsley, McDaniel. The authors suggested that "Lithium can enter the Pd lattice" but I don't know the extent to which this can happen.

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MosierBossinvestigat.pdf

Miley appears to be working with Industrial Heat so he might have had the occasion of applying the concept in actual experiments. There do not seem to be many new experimental papers on LENR from him, however.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US8603405B2/

https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2019084416A1/

Along what is being suggested in the paper, perhaps desorption of hydrogen or deuterium in pores and cavities in the material, similarly to what was described in 2009 (see references below), with possibly in addition to that the help of alkali and other impurities which would be easily introduced by electrolysis and in the initial Pd manufacturing.

https://www.allmystery.de/date…6882190,MileyClustLPB.pdf

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MileyGHclusterswi.pdf

Alan Smith

My previous understanding was that Rydberg matter clusters (UDH precursor) wouldn't easily form at pressures close to (or higher than) atmospheric, since the desorbing Rydberg species (e.g. of alkali atoms) would rapidly lose energy by collision with ground-state atoms and molecules in the surrounding atmosphere and thus be prevented from forming RM clusters. This has been sometimes explicitly suggested in past publications.

If now it's being proposed that alkali RM is necessary for H RM to form, and that UDH (formed from H RM) has a crucial role in catalytic hydrogen transfer reactions in industrial reactors—which take place at a very wide range of pressures—this means that the initial alkali RM is not that sensitive to collisions and will be formed also under atmospheric conditions and higher.

The loosely-bonded form of UDH involved catalytic reactions as suggested should have a much lower (at least a few hundred times) bond energy than the precursor alkali RM, so if that can exist on their surface, the ordinary RM form should be able to as well.

On a related note (speaking of pressure), this 'submitted' / upcoming paper was listed in the recently published one.

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[36] Holmlid L, Olafsson S, Zeiner-Gundersen S.

Geophysical effects of ultradense hydrogen H(0) from the large muon-induced fusion energy release in or below the Earth's crust.

Submitted n.d.

Wyttenbach

How is it obvious, since so far it seemed implied that vacuum conditions are necessary for its formation? Catalytic hydrogen transfer reactions (in general) may take place at pressures ranging from below atmospheric to hundreds of bar in rather chaotic conditions, often in the presence of oxygen or water/steam.

He's been saying that before ultra-dense hydrogen became better known; I don't think he has any particular opinion on it.

See: Robert Godes of Brillouin Energy Visits Finnish Officials and Statoil in Norway [Updated with Picture] | E-Cat World (e-catworld.com) (2014)

Whether the fast and intense current pulses in the Brillouin system have an effect similar to the applied electric field in the study cited earlier, I don't know. The pulsing method I proposed (between a high and low voltage to ionize and desorb the adsorbed H atoms, and recombining the ions with electrons in a high excitation state) does not necessarily involve large currents.

Thermal runaways are sometimes reported in the industrial chemistry literature, and Robert Godes of Brillouin Energy often suggests that they might be due to LENR. He also wrote that in the latest IEEE Spectrum article on the US Navy LENR, although no reference was provided. I have read something about this in the past, but I'm not up to date on modern references on the topic.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech…y-researchers-reopen-case

In any case, if the excerpt I posted earlier is true, even an ordinary chemical microreactor with suitable catalysts and flowing hydrogen gas might be able to produce UDH, although the big question is how much of it is normally produced in a non-transient form.

In the latest paper by Holmlid, Kotarba and Stelmachowski it's suggested that industrial [de]hydrogenation reactors may be producing ultra-dense hydrogen and that a related form of this type of hydrogen may actually be directly involved in catalytic reactions. It seems a bold suggestion; it also implies that conditions for its formation may be much less strict than previously thought.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.02.221 (open access)

Rob Woudenberg

A low bias voltage applied to the surface should be able to recombine the ions leaving the surface with electrons in high states. As the paper points out, this was observed for K ions a few years ago:

in this publication: (PDF) Emission of highly excited electronic states of potassium from cryptomelane nanorods (researchgate.net).

There, the catalyst sample had an applied voltage of 0-25V with best results observed around 5–8V. For H atoms, a higher voltage would be probably needed due to their higher ionization energy, together with also a separate more energetic means for intermittently ionizing the adsorbed atoms since they might not be able to easily leave the surface as ions with temperature alone like K in these catalysts. Or perhaps the bias voltage itself could be cycled between a low and a high state.

I don't think the mechanism is substantially different. As far as I understand, hydrogen-active metals (like platinum group metals and in particular iridium as suggested in the recently published paper, but also occasionally in previously published ones) catalyze the H2 -> 2H reaction, and since all hydrogen atoms are hydrogenic by definition—thus Rydberg atoms—they may form Rydberg matter clusters in desorption from such surfaces like alkali atoms do.

If the process is mediated by Rydberg matter of alkali metals though, the clustering process of H atoms on the surface will be easier since they may easily form mixed clusters with them due to their size and long interaction distances. Once H atoms get incorporated into K RM, they have essentially become themselves RM.

It's not entirely clear here, but I think in the paper it is argued that alkali elements are very often present as impurity or contamination in the materials used and so they are almost always involved in some capacity in the H RM desorption process.

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[...] The electrons on the desorbing H atoms from the surface are of course hydrogenic per definition, thus also in Rydberg states, which may be excited to high Rydberg states, for example by collisions with the surface.

Alkali metals are added as promoters to the catalysts or are present as impurities from the raw materials (e.g. iron ore) or even as human contaminations (e.g. manual handling). The formation of RM clusters of alkali atoms is concluded to be a necessary step before RM clusters of hydrogen can be formed.

In this way, RM clusters of H are formed, by energy transfer from the alkali Rydberg atomic species, and especially from the alkali RM clusters, as described above. This process of energy transfer between the different species is quite similar to the energy pooling processes investigated and described in Ref. [72]. The H atoms behave similarly to alkali metal atoms on the surface and in the desorption process. Thus HN RM clusters form in desorption in the same way as the alkali metal RM clusters do. This agrees of course with the common notion that H is the lightest alkali element [40].

A new paper published regarding the production of ultra-dense hydrogen got published. Will it be sufficient to convince the patent examiners? (rhetorical question)

Production of ultra-dense hydrogen H(0): A novel nuclear fuel

Leif Holmlid, Andrzej Kotarba, Pawel Stelmachowski

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.02.221

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Highlights

• The use of hydrogen nuclear fuel is tabulated for several types of fusion reactors.
• The steps in the formation of ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) at surfaces are described.
• The main function of the catalyst is to give enough density of bound alkali atoms.
• High density of alkali atoms is required so that alkali RM clusters can be formed.
• The use of catalysts forming H(0) in chemical industry is investigated.

Quote

Abstract: Condensation of hydrogen Rydberg atoms (highly electronically excited) into the lowest energy state of condensed hydrogen i.e. the ultra-dense hydrogen phase, H(0), has gained increased attention not only from the fundamental aspects but also from the applied point of view. The physical properties of ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) were recently reviewed (Physica Scripta 2019 https://doi.org/10.1088/1402-4896/ab1276), summarizing the results reported in 50 publications during the last ten years. The main application of H(0) so far is as the fuel and working medium in nuclear particle generators and nuclear fusion reactors which are under commercial development. The first fusion process showing sustained operation above break-even was published in 2015 (AIP Advances) and used ultra-dense deuterium D(0) as fuel. The first generator giving a high-intensity muon flux intended for muon-catalyzed fusion reactors was patented in 2017, using H(0) as the working medium. Here, we first focus on the different nuclear processes using hydrogen isotopes for energy generation, and then on the detailed processes of formation of H(0). The production of H(0) employs heterogeneous catalysts which are active in hydrogen transfer reactions. Iron oxide-based, alkali promoted catalysts function well, but also platinum group metals and carbon surfaces are active in this process. The clusters of highly excited Rydberg hydrogen atoms H(l) are formed upon interaction with alkali Rydberg matter. The final conversion step from ordinary hydrogen Rydberg matter H(l) to H(0) is spontaneous and does not require a solid surface. It is concluded that the exact choice of catalyst is not very important. It is also concluded that the crucial feature of the catalyst is to provide excited alkali atoms at a sufficiently high surface density and in this way enabling formation and desorption of H(0) clusters. Finally, the relation to industrial catalytic processes which use H(0) formation catalysts is described and some important consequences like the muon and neutron radiation from H(0) are discussed.

From the declarations of competing interests at the end of the paper, by the way:

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LH has partial ownership of the company Norrönt Fusion Energy which develops fusion energy reactors using ultradense hydrogen. The company felt that there is a risk that other companies may learn more rapidly how to produce ultradense hydrogen from this review. However, I believe strongly in free exchange of ideas and results in science and technology for the benefit of all.

Quote from Curbina

(BTW, can , you have to tell me where does one find that description of the administrative steps of the application, I haven't been able to find it!)

An alternative is also through the USPTO global dossier, which can be more easily linked in discussions, etc. For example see this previously published patent. The one being discussed right now is not yet available.

https://globaldossier.uspto.go…tails/US/13420109/A/71357

Click "View Dossier"

On a related note, I don't think plagiarism matters in patent descriptions as long as a new implementation is being defined in the claims.

The patent application has already had a non-final rejection but the related documentation showing the reasons why doesn't seem to be yet available.

Rob Woudenberg

Thermionic converters are based on the principle that heated surfaces in a vacuum (in particular) emit electrons, and this capability increases the lower their work function is—the energy required for electrons to leave the surface.

The condensation energy of UDD is indeed very high compared to conventional chemical processes, but I'm not sure how a thermionic converter based on the UDD<->D RM interconversion would work. The high density of low-excitation level RM and particularly ultra-dense hydrogen implies that the work function of surfaces covered with them would be at the very least of about the same level of ordinary metals (for H(1)) and potentially much higher (for UDD) and so that they would not be very efficient as thermionic emitters.

High-excitation RM formed from alkali metals often has a low density compared to ordinary metals, as the table above also suggests (see the interionic distance). This low density decreases the work function considerably.