Posts by BobHiggins

From past experience with AC heater coils, it is possible to generate a large common mode AC signal on the thermocouple by coupling through the capacitance between the coil and the thermocouple; and, in this case, to the nickel container. This can be mitigated to some extent by using 100 ohm resistors from each of the thermocouple connections to ground and use of differential measurement of the thermocouple.

However, in this case, I don't think that is the source of the rapid fluctuations. Below 200C and above about 900C, the measurements smooth out even though above 900C the voltage driving the heater coil is highest and would produce the highest coupled common mode signal. The fluctuations are most noticeable around 280C and between 600C and 800C. Around 280C the first breakdown of the LAH occurs and between 600C and 800C another melting phase occurs. When these phase changes occur, H2 is released and the LAH foams and sputters. It is likely that as the LAH foams and sputters, hot spots come and go on the tube. Since only one spot is being measured, I think you are seeing the result of the LAH foaming/sputtering inside the tube.

To eliminate the rapid variation, the best solution I can think of is to use a more distributed temperature sensing or multiple thermocouples along the length of the fuel tube averaged together. One way to do the distributed sensing would be to wrap the length of the tube with an insulated wire (a little problematic at these temperatures) and measure the resistance as a function of temperature (a large coiled RTD).

Dear authors,

Given the temperatures that the reactor had been operating in actual operation, many of the constituents of the fuel powder would have either melted, vaporized, or sintered to the inside of the reactor core vessel. Thus, when removing the ash for test, the components that emerged may be completely unrepresentative of the active components which may have remained firmly attached to the inside of the reactor vessel. Perhaps only more benign and refractory components could have been extracted after the experiment. Thus, the analysis of this ash material should not necessarily be directly compared with the powder input at the beginning of the experiment as a before and after reaction analysis.

Given this, the question arises, did the starting powder that was supplied by Rossi as "about 1 g" actually represent the active powder of the reaction? If the reactor had been used before, its ceramic core may not have been virgin. There could remain remnants, perhaps intentionally active remnants, sintered to the inside of the reaction tube. In which case, Rossi may have supplied only the consumables - perhaps mostly hydride. This would make analysis of the input powder of less value because it is not the whole fuel for his reaction.

My question is, "Had the reactor used in this experiment ever been used by anyone for an active LENR test prior to the test conducted by your group? Conversely, was the reactor virgin in the respect of having never before been used for a LENR reaction?"

Of course, this will still not entirely answer the question of whether the input powder was actually representative of the entire active LENR material. It could be that the active Ni portion had already been sintered onto the inside of the reactor vessel as part of preparing the apparatus. Then Rossi would only have added the consumable portion at the beginning of the experiment. Even if this active material had been sintered onto the inside of the reactor, it would not have been active in the dummy experiment without the consumable portion having been added.