Cold fusion reactor heats room in Sapporo

Modifications to the cold fusion energy reactor designed by Tadahiko Mizuno have dramatically increased excess heat production. Thermal power output of the cell is now able to exceed the air-flow calorimeter’s heat removal capacity of 1 kilowatt.

This is reported in the paper Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel [.pdf]. Co-author Jed Rothwell will describe the spectacular results at the 22nd International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science ICCF-22 this September 2019 in Assisi, Italy.

When the input is 300 Watts heat, thermal power output is estimated to be between 1 – 3 kilowatts. This is based on the fact that Prof. Mizuno heated his room in Sapporo last winter with the cold fusion reactor, and he felt the room’s temperature to be as warm as when using a 3 kilowatt electric heater.

Tadahiko Mizuno’s R20 reactor heats a room in Sapporo. Graphic from Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.

The jump in power occurred after he placed the heater that regulates the reaction at a new location inside of the cell, as well as new and different applications of pressure to the reactor.

But he also changed the way he made the active cathode material.

Nickel-mesh physically rubbed with palladium rod provides the reactant

Previously, to produce active nickel-mesh cathodes Prof. Mizuno, lead researcher at Hydrogen Engineering Application & Development HEAD, had been using glow discharge to “erode the center of the palladium electrode and sputter palladium on the nickel mesh”. This method could reliably generate 232 Watts excess heat with 248 Watts input, but it took months of applying the discharge to complete an active cathode. He needed a new method of applying palladium to the nickel-mesh.

Old cruciform design used glow discharge to prepare the cathode for reaction. Excess heat was reliable, but the whole process took months. Graphic from Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.

Electroless deposition gave good results, but the chemical solution was expensive. So, Prof. Mizuno started physical rubbing a palladium rod on the nickel-mesh to save money.

Three separate nickel mesh pieces are prepared by rubbing “vigorously” with a palladium rod. A careful WARNING is included: the procedure should take place in a glove box or appropriate facility as the fine particles of nickel dust are toxic and pose a health danger. Only those “skilled in the art” should attempt reproduction.

Using a glove box for safety, a palladium rod is rubbed one way, and then, 90 degrees the other way until 15-20 milligrams of palladium is deposited. Graphic from Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.

The three mesh are carefully weighed during rubbing until 15-20 milligrams of palladium is deposited on each mesh. Then, the three mesh are stacked and rolled up. Inserted into the steel cylindrical reactor, they are unrolled inside, and spring-out against the cylinder walls.

Three palladium-rubbed nickel mesh against the interior walls of the reactor. Graphic from Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.

This new method of cathode preparation is faster than glow discharge, however, first attempts to activate the mesh saw excess power results dropping to 12 Watts, about 12% excess heat, a marginal result.

Heat regulates the reaction

Then, in this last year, Prof. Mizuno changed the design. A sheath heater was installed inside the center of the cylindrical reactor R20.

Sheath heater now sits symmetrically in the center of the cylinder of the R20 design, heating the unit internally. Graphic from Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.

That design change, along with “changes in the methods and pressures”, has “apparently enhanced the reaction, producing the results shown in Fig. 6.”

The R20 power results raw (in gray), and adjusted for heat loss through the walls of the calorimeter (in orange). Graphic from Increased Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel.

Jed Rothwell was surprised at the result of moving the heater. He says, “I might have moved it inside just to reduce overall input power, but I had no idea that might increase output.”

Observations on this system has led to some important conclusions.

“First, the excess heat should be an exponential function of absolute temperature,” says Mizuno. “Second, the deuterium concentration in nickel affects the amount of excess heat. Third, the influence of deuterium pressure is small. Also, excessive heat generation requires treatment of the nickel surface. Also, there is a need for dissimilar metal layers. That’s all.”

The R20 is described as the “latest and most effective reactor”. After two hours of operation, it provides a stable ~250 Watts thermal excess power output when the input is a 50 Watt heater, and power generation can continue indefinitely.

However, an input of 300 Watts thermal will produce heat overwhelming the lab’s air-flow calorimeter heat removal capacity. There is an effort to test the R20 reactor in a bigger calorimeter in time to report definitive power output levels at ICCF-22 in September.

Air-flow calorimeter withstands scrutiny

The air flow calorimetry Prof. Mizuno used to measure the heat from the R20 has not changed since the report last year. Calorimeter specifications are described in detail in the previous paper Excess Heat from Palladium Deposited on Nickel [.pdf], which was presented at the ICCF-21 conference. Jed Rothwell, who has worked with Mizuno for over 30 years, invited the CMNS community to help find weak spots, and he has investigated every critique. So far, the calorimetry appears tight.

“Jed’s contribution is huge,” says Prof. Mizuno. “He looked at and analyzed my experimental results in detail, and gave me appropriate advice. He also corrected my dissertation, corrected my analysis errors and corrected sentences. I think Jed is a collaborator.”

Tadahiko Mizuno has shared specific details of these successful experiments in his papers and he is encouraging those “skilled in the art” – and with the proper equipment and protection from toxic nickel dust – to replicate the results. He promises to help replicators, too.

Jed Rothwell has heard from several people planning or starting replications. “Some of them seem to be trying new approaches,” he says. “I am following Dennis Cravens and one other closely. I think they are sticking to the protocol, except that one of the reactors is considerably smaller, so the mesh is only 2″ wide. I hope that has no effect on the results. We’ll see.”

Dr. Dennis Cravens, LENR researcher from New Mexico, is one of those who plans to replicate the active nickel-mesh cathode material process, though he’ll use a different calorimeter.

“Yes, I will be trying a replication in a general way,” he says. “But I have no real support in that effort so it may take some time. I have built an air-flow system using controlled temperature intake. But I have never been comfortable with air-flow systems after using one for checks of molten salt systems. They provide many “targets” for others to “throw darts at” and the questions and “advice” never ends. I am presently assembling a 1 meter long Seebeck for a future attempt.”

Hope is regulated with reality, and Jed Rothwell sums up the feeling of someone who has seen great news come and go, without a technology materializing.

“Once again, cold fusion barely survived. If this cannot be replicated, it may not survive. I do not know of any other approaches that could be widely replicated,” he says. “Without widespread replication, the field will surely die.”

“I hope this can be replicated.”

Says Prof. Mizuno, “I think the most important thing is to know how to generate the excess heat. In addition, it is important that there is a control factor.”

Earthquake almost ended research

Less than one year ago, Tadahiko Mizuno almost quit research after 29 years when a damaging earthquake hit the lab, destroying sensitive equipment.

“The earthquake in the early morning of September 6 was awful”, recalls Tadahiko Mizuno. “The damage was severe; the central part of the SEM is not usually fixed in order to not sway around from earthquakes. This caused a disaster, and the central electron tube hit the surrounding stand and broke. Repair cost is a lot of money. Other than that, machinery was broken. I was unable to work for several months.”

Dennis Cravens started a GoFundMe page and brought the CMNS community together to fundraise just enough cash to clean-up a bit, and continue operations.

“It was an outpouring of help by many in the field,” says Dr. Cravens. “We all have had set backs and often feel alone, alienated, ridiculed and sometimes think of giving up. If we can help each other, we just may have a chance to change the world in a good way.”

As a thank-you, Prof. Mizuno gave small reactor to the community, though not the new nickel-mesh version. Sindre Zeiner-Gundersen, who has been getting his PhD while working with Drs. Leif Holmlid and Sveinn Ólafsson on ultra-dense hydrogen, is now in preparation to test the reactor.

Says Zeiner-Gundersen, “Mizuno is one of the leading scientists in this area and brings great research, results and provides data to the field. He is a true pioneer. The reactor I have is a closed system and should produce excess heat just by applying deuterium and heat to the materials inside. ”

“I’m finishing the last programming on calorimetry and construction of the calorimetry system now, so I will be testing this fall.”

Of course, the small funding from the CMNS community has ran out this past February and Mizuno says, “Now I am testing with debt. The amount is 30 million yen. If this remains the case, I have to leave the company in a couple of months.”

But if replications confirm the kilowatt effect, funding won’t be a problem, and Prof. Mizuno isn’t waiting around. He’s put reactors that he calls HIKOBOSHI in the hands of users, for other labs to independently test.

“I rented and sold 12 CF furnaces to Japan and overseas. They are collecting data and having a lot of data, I am going to announce the data.”

“I have named these reactors as HIKOBOSHI. This means the star Altair. I also like that I feel the meaning in Japanese, which is to “flood the lights”. Hiko is also the last kanji notation of my name.”

Had Tadahiko Mizuno not continued research, this breakthrough bump in kilowatt power would have been unrealized. Now when the world needs a zero-carbon option, the HIKOBOSHI reactor is a step closer to fulfilling that mission.

Dennis Cravens says, “You are guided by your experience and your gut and I only hope that others follow their dreams and come to a greater understanding of the process and possibly, just possibly, find the key to a reliable working system. “

The 22nd International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science on the 30th Anniversary of the Announcement of Cold Fusion in Assisi, Italy. To register, go to https://iscmns.org/iccf22/

Andrea Rossi EcatSK demo

“The EcatSK is available now for industrial applications. If you want safe, reliable, competitively priced heat, we encourage you to contact us.”

That was the announcement on the EcatSK demonstration broadcast live on the Network at http://www.ecatskdemo.com/ January 31, in an event dedicated to Swedish scientist Dr. Sven Kullander.

From the Press Release:

“The E-Cat SK produces kilowatts of energy while consuming only grams of inexpensive and abundant fuel (hydrogen, nickel, lithium) over a period of six months.”

A screenshot from EcatSKdemo.com shows:

Watch a video of the demo here on Youtube.

But videos don’t translate into the real, physical world, yet.

LENR bad-boy Andrea Rossi, inventor of the EcatSK, draws ire from working scientists in the CMNS field for his theatrics and demonstrations that have yet to be confirmed by the community-at-large. He does not attend conferences or meetings, does not publish in JCMNS, and has little contact with active CMNS researchers. Documents from the very public trial with former partner Industrial Heat showed a decidedly uncooperative Leonardo Corporation working outside the bounds of normal business expectation.

Listen to the Cold Fusion Now! podcast episodes with Abd ul-Rahmann Lomax, who documented the trial, and Mats Lewan, who authored An Impossible Invention, a book that follows the development of Andrea Rossi’s Ecat.

But if LENR had a Human Resources center, they would be hard-pressed to find anything that resembled a mainstream scientific organization. The people who would tread into the pariah science of cold fusion, conduct advanced nuclear research in basement labs at their own expense, banned from publishing any corroborated results, and derided by their peers adorned with money and fame – are by self-selection uniquely fashioned individuals, and that quality intensifies at the fringes of the fringe.

Andrea Rossi escaped the US with $10 million and moved his enterprise to Sweden, where the QuarkX and new EcatSK have been developed. The EcatSK reactive material based on nickel and light-hydrogen has had a long history of making big heat.

Precedence for excess heat from nickel-hydrogen systems

In August of 1989, University of Siena Professor of Physics Francesco Piantelli discovered the anomalous heat effect in Nickel-Hydrogen systems, and made exceptionally large output power in the process. His collaborations with Professors Sergio Focardi and Robert Habel began in 1990.

Mathieu Valat of MFMP (L) and Francesco Piantelli (R).

Seventeen years later, Andrea Rossi asked Dr. Focardi to evaluate his then-Energy Catalyzer, and got a positive review. The relationship continued through Sergio Focardi’s death in 2013.

Sergio Focardi portrait after October 6, 2011 demonstration of E-Cat.

Dismissed as a con man taking advantage of an elderly scientist, we believe this early LENR pioneer deserves more credit. Cold Fusion Now! accepts that Andrea Rossi can make a reaction happen, but has problems controlling the reaction to make a technology, just like everybody else in this field.

Mats Lewan, author of An Impossible Invention, a book on the development of the Ecat, writes on his blog, that the new device “uses only minute amounts of abundant elements such as hydrogen, nickel, lithium and aluminium”.

Has this fuel changed from previous mixtures?

Nickel is a catalyst for the fuel

In Analysis of New Rossi PCT filing based on US Patent 9,115,913 issued 25Aug15 patent lawyer David French writes:

Among the embodiments are those in which the fuel mixture includes lithium and lithium aluminum hydride, those in which the catalyst includes a group 10 element, such as nickel in powdered form, or in any combination thereof.

In other embodiments, the catalyst in powdered form, has been treated to enhance its porosity. For example, the catalyst can be nickel powder that has been treated to enhance porosity thereof. [In those embodiments that include an electrical resistor, the].The apparatus can also include an electrical energy source, such as a voltage source and/or current source in electrical communication with the [resistor.] heat source.

Among the other embodiments are those in which the fuel wafer includes a multi-layer structure having a layer of the fuel mixture in thermal communication with a layer containing the electrical resistor. heat source.

In yet other embodiments, the fuel wafer includes a central heating insert and a pair of fuel inserts disposed on either side of the heating insert.

Read full article Analysis of New Rossi PCT filing based on US Patent 9,115,913 issued 25Aug15 by David French for more on brackets.

Furthermore,

The powder in the fuel mixture consists largely of spherical particles having diameters in the nanometer to micrometer range, for example between 1 nanometer and 100 micrometers. Variations in the ratio of reactants and catalyst tend to govern reaction rate and are not critical. However, it has been found that a suitable mixture would include a starting mixture of 50% nickel, 20% lithium, and 30% LAH. Within this mixture, nickel acts as a catalyst for the reaction, and is not itself a reagent. While nickel is particularly useful because of its relative abundance, its function can also be carried out by other elements in column 10 of the periodic table, such as platinum or palladium.

Reproductions of the Rossi Ecat have been conducted world-wide, with mixed results. The successful fuel recipe with the combinations and concentrations of critical elements is still unknown.

“Any element that reacts with hydrogen appears to support LENR – titanium, nickel, zirconium have all been explored. The big challenge is to find out what it is about those hydrides that is unique and makes it possible to initiate a nuclear reaction.” says Dr. Edmund Storms, a nuclear chemist and LENR researcher. “Rossi found that nickel is important, but there’s a certain lack of understanding of what Rossi did.”

“Rossi identified nickel as being where the nuclear reaction was occurring. But that is actually not the material he was using initially; he was using a nickel catalyst. A nickel catalyst is not pure nickel. It’s nickel that has been applied to some inert substrate. That’s the way catalysts work.”

Edmund Storms spoke with Ruby on the Cold Fusion Now! podcast and gave a tutorial on catalysts.

“There’s an acting metal that can break the hydrogen bond, and then, there’s an inert substrate on which the hydrogen atom can diffuse, causing what’s called spillover hydrogen. It’s that spillover hydrogen that is active for the reaction, not the hydrogen in the nickel. So there’s reason to think the nickel is not where the action is.”

Historical example of catalytic fusion

An example is found in the work of Les Case, a chemical engineer with four degrees from MIT who discovered what he called catalytic fusion using palladium and deuterium systems. Case found that a catalyst made by depositing palladium – in finely divided form – on charcoal, could be made nuclear active.

Graphic: Les Case in 1998 from http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/zpt/case.html

Ten years ago, Case wrote, “I discovered that using certain standard commercial catalysts, one could get this fusion to occur under reproducible, mild conditions. This is the catalyst that I’ve set upon as being about the most effective that I currently have available. This is a standard palladium on activated carbon catalyst. One-half percent by weight of palladium loaded on this activated carbon— this is the key. You change this just a little bit and it doesn’t work— at all! But if you stay within the approved ranges, it works basically all the time.” -Infinite Energy Magazine July 1999

This was the experiment eventually reproduced by a team at SRI International led by Dr. Michael McKubre that also correlated the excess heat with the nuclear product Helium-4.

“Now, people said, ok the reaction is happening on the finely divided palladium,” continues Storms. “but that’s not necessarily true. The reaction could also be happening in the charcoal.”

“The charcoal cracks a lot. Look at it on a scanning electron microscope and you can see the cracks. All the charcoal has to do is allow the hydrogen atoms being generated at the palladium to diffuse across the surface to find a crack where the nuclear reaction occurs.”

This hypothesis is supported by the fact that when the source of charcoal, made from a particular coconut collected from a South Pacific island, was no longer available, Case could not get the reaction to work ever again; no other charcoal would work in his device.

“We have to be very careful in imagining where this nuclear reaction actually occurs. Even in palladium, in the electrolytic experiments, it only occurs very near the surface. And the surface of the cathode is not pure palladium, it’s a very complex alloy, and it’s also complex metalgraphically, so there’s a lot of stuff going on there, that has no relationship whatsoever to how people imagine palladium to look.”

According to Edmund Storms, there is no reason to believe that the nuclear reaction was occurring in the palladium itself, and likewise, the same situation would apply to the nickel-hydrogen reactions.

If Andrea Rossi has found the right mix of elements to catalyze and control the reaction, only time will tell as we wait for confirmation.

Pure Nickel Coins

Left: Euthydemos II – c.190-171 BC – Nickel didrachm 24mm diameter, 7g. Apollo bust / tripod monogram to left “Of King Euthydemos” Right: Agathokles – c.171-160 BC – Nickel drachm 19mm diameter, 3.3g. Dionysos bust / Panther touching vine monogram behind “Of King Agathokles” [Source]

Three rulers in the Bactrian kingdom were first to issue nickel coins in the first century AD. Two of the coins are pictured at the top. The coins were 25% nickel and 75% copper alloy, just like today’s U.S. nickel coin. The source of the ancient nickel is unknown.

Let’s surrender our Nickels to our Senators and Representatives, sending a message regarding the coming shift in the energy paradigm. —Paul Maher

Send a link to your reps along with coin image to Cold Fusion Now for posting.

Print a few coins to a page saying

1.25 grams of nickel can make energy equivalent to 5 barrels of oil!
LENR/Cold Fusion Works!

to post on bulletin boards around your neighborhood.


Cold Fusion Now has a particular interest in numismatics. Author John Francisco is an ancient coin collector whose specialty is the Pythagorean coins of Magna Graecia. His research on ancient coins is regularly published in The Celator magazine. [visit]

Personally, my favorite is the ancient electrum from Lydia and Ionia, some of the first coins ever minted, but more recently, I’ve been snagging nickels.

While in Florida last winter, I met Steve Schor at the Hollywood Coin Club. [visit] Steve is a huge resource on coins from every age. His breadth of knowledge commands the whole club be asking him “What’s up with this coin?”

Of course I give him the cold fusion now rundown – and he goes for it!

I had a table at a coin show last October 2011 in Hollywood, Florida, and here’s a photo showing the portion dedicated to clean energy. Notice Edmund StormsThe Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, .pdfs of the 2011 MIT CF/LANR Colloquium, and Cold Fusion Now stickers.

Steve borrowed my copy of Storms’ The Science of, but luckily, I got it back.

Cold Fusion Now represents at the Hollywood Coin Show in Hollywood, Florida last October 2011.

Yes, there are plenty of coin collectors in the South Florida area who will not be surprised when technology is released thanks to this event.

Steve Schor, former engineer and coin collector, just compiled a list of “all nickel” coins. I can’t believe how many there have been. If you’ve got any of these coins, take a picture and send it to me, cause I collect pictures of nickels, too!

Schor’s file has been re-formatted and v.2 of Pure Nickel Coins is available as Excel spreadsheet [.xls] or exported to [.pdf]. Note: weight is in grams.

Look at all that power – in your pocket!

If you have any questions about these coins, email Steve here.

LENR is widely replicated and the answer to our prayers

I found this gem comment the other day while doing some background on LENR:

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2011/05/swedish-skeptics-confirm-nuclear-process-in-tiny-4-7-kw-reactor

“I do not think it is “amazing that the media has not paid more attention to” Rossi. His claims seem astounding. They resemble those of many previous energy scams. Reporters and scientists dismiss Rossi for this reason.

Continue reading “LENR is widely replicated and the answer to our prayers”

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