For the last five years, from the first public demonstration in 2011, the development of the E-cat had a significant progress in engineering of the commercial product. In contrast, less clear is the LENR mechanism, even after publishing the patent and two reports of E-cat tests. The major input in heat generation, according to Rossi’s patent, have alpha particles generated from fission of beryllium nuclei as a product of lithium nuclei and protons interaction. The problem with this reaction is the lack of energy of the protons. The energy of protons from heating is far less as it should be to overcome the classical Coulomb repulsion between proton and lithium nuclei. Even if some mechanism like tunneling can be suggested, there are not enough protons having such a high energy to maintain intensive LEN reaction generating the observed heat excess.
If we look on LENR field outside the E-cat story the current understanding of LENR mechanism is even more uncertain since the prevailing idea of LENR is still inherited from Cold/Hot fusion concept. The researches from both hot-fusion and LENR fields believe that the fusion of deuterons should result in the helium synthesis and heat excess. At the begging of E-cat development the same idea was popular. Transmutation of nickel to cupper and generation of heat excess was considered as result of fusion process in the E-cat fuel.
The h-space theory is a variant of theory of everything. It presents a reevaluation of physics from the ground. In h-space theory LENR is natural process, but LENR explanation in this theory faces a major problem, the validity of the h-space theory itself. Acceptance of the LENR explanation requires at first the theory verification. The proposed interpretations of many physical phenomena are not enough. The theory needs a key experiment for its verification. Such an experiment exists and it is about determination of the charge-to-mass ratio of a free proton. It is quite confusing to hear this since the charge-to-mass ratio was determined long time ago and repeated many times in different experimental variations. Nevertheless, in h-space theory the charge-to-mass ratio of free proton is different. This is due to the corrections of the electron charge and proton mass. The proton mass is equal to 2/3 of its textbook value. The proton charge is equal to 1/3 of the electron charge. Both charge and mass of the electron are about 450 times larger than their values from the textbooks, so the charge-to-mass ratio of electron stays the same as in textbooks. The charge-to-mass ratio of proton is about 9 times (not 1836 times as in textbooks) less than that of the electron. All this is the consequence of the electric charge definition in h-space theory. It modifies the Coulomb law at atomic scales and introduces the model of atomic nuclei as a complex composed from positrons and electrons. According to h-space theory in atom:
1. at distances between 10−10 to 10−15 meters, there is no attraction/repulsion of electrons and positrons;
2. attraction/repulsion increases from zero at 10−10 meters to a maximum at 10−5 meters from the nucleus;
3. the nucleons are not held by strong interaction.
These properties of atoms and nuclei allow naturally explain LENR. The problem of overcoming the Coulomb repulsion between the nuclei and protons becomes not relevant for the distance range from 10−10 to 10−15 meters. In the range of distance 10−5–10−10 meters the repulsion takes place and decreases from 10−5 meters to 10−10 meters. The same decrease is true for the distance bigger than 10−5 meters. In condense matter, in the range of 10−5–10−10 meters, the repulsion between the nuclei and protons can be compensated by an attraction to the electrons placed at the same distance from the nucleus. The heating of a proton-saturated nickel powder in E-cat would increase the mobility of electrons and protons. Additionally, the pulsed magnetic field can also accelerate protons and electrons. The protons released from nickel powder can collide with themselves and lithium nuclei (as well as with nickel, aluminum and other elements nuclei). The protons in nickel lattice can collide with themselves, electrons and nickel nuclei. All these can lead to:
1. the fission of proton and lithium nuclei (as well as nickel, aluminum and other elements nuclei);
2. the fusion reactions generating neutrons and the nuclei not present initially, as the complexes of positrons and electrons.
In h-space theory, the LEN fission reactions should be more effective at the distance range of micrometers since at the distances from 10−5 to 10−10 meters the Coulomb repulsion between the nuclei and protons decreases. This implies that nickel powder in size of microns can be favorable for effective LEN reactions. For this distance in space between the nickel particles, the colliding protons and lithium nuclei will have the decreasing Coulomb repulsion from maximum to zero. If the distance between the protons and lithium nuclei is bigger than 10−5 meters, their collisions will face the opposite effect, the increase of the Coulomb repulsion having its maximum at 10−5 meters. This makes less probable the collision of the protons and lithium nuclei, followed by their fission, from the distance bigger than 10−5 meters.
All fission reactions will generate heat and nuclear transmutations. The high level of heat production seen in the E-cat is due to the fission of lithium resulting in production of alpha particles. The energy of generated alpha particles can be consumed by the protons, and this will keep the LEN reactions in self sustain mode, without external heating. The low efficiency of the earlier experiments with nickel rods can be explained by a lower rate of protons and nickel nuclei fission in comparison with E-cat having lithium as fuel.
In h-space theory, the nuclear fusion reactions are possible as secondary processes and they do not generate the heat excess. The only nuclear source of energy is fission of stable atomic nuclei in LENR or conventional fission of radioactive isotopes. The claimed thermonuclear effect of deuterium fusion in the thermonuclear explosion can be interpreted as the lithium fission since lithium (6Li) deuteride fuel was used in this process.
As it was mentioned above, the proposed LENR explanation can be true if h-space theory will have crucial experimental support. Such an experimental verification can be achieved in the experiment design as a modification of the experiments made in the past by W. Wien and J.J. Thomson (Thomson J.J. On rays of positive electricity. Philosophical Magazine Series 6 Volume 13, Issue 77, 1907; Wien K. 100 years of ion beams: Willy Wien's canal rays. Braz.J.Phys., 1999, 29, 401). In this experiment it can be demonstrated that the value of the charge-to-mass ratio of proton, i.e. atomic hydrogen ion determined by J.J. Thomson’s and W. Wien is not correct. Thomson and Wien had detected the ions spots the upper part of which (corresponding the most declined ions) they identified as hydrogen ions spots. However, Thomson detected neither oxygen nor nitrogen ions, even when he used air as the gas for discharged-tube. Wien could not find carbon ions spot when he used CO2 as the fill gas in his device. Thomson found out also that at low pressure, whatever kind of gas was used, the spots of deflected ions were always the same. One of them corresponded to the atomic hydrogen ion (proton) having the ratio about 1/1836, while the second one had the charge-to-mass ratio of the molecular hydrogen ion, 1/3672. The absence of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon ions spots in these experiments surprised them since all these ions were in abundance in comparison with hydrogen ions. Nevertheless, the only logical explanation of observed results was to suggest the presence of hydrogen ions, even though the source of the hydrogen gas was unknown. In h-space theory these strange results have a following explanation. The charge-to-mass ratio of C+ is approximately 1/1974 of the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron. For O+, the ratio is about 1/3528. It means that the spots of H+ and H2+ ions were actually the spots of C+ and O+ ions. This explains the absence of oxygen and carbon ions spots, for which Thomson and Wien expected the ratios 1/22032 for C+ and 1/29376 for O+.
To demonstrate the presence of oxygen and carbon ions in the spots detected by J.J. Thomson his experiment should be modified for additional chemical detection of oxygen and carbon. For this purpose, the chromium metal plate as a detection screen can be used in addition to the screen used for detection of deflected ions. If the proposed theory is correct, then the ions spots defined as hydrogen spots from the deflection should have different color corresponding to chromium oxide and chromium carbide. The chemical reaction of hydrogen with chromium should not give the colored spots. Other metal screen can also be considered in this experimental setup.
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