[Vo]:Rossi catalyst-fuel speculation
Since Rossi’s public display of his reactor and subsequent discussions of his technology, I have been anxious to reproduce his results – primarily just to know that it is a real phenomenon. I listen to the excellent exchanges on Vortex and have learned much from the posts here. As I continue down the path of trying to understand what Rossi, and potentially DGT have done, several people have asked me what I believe to be the catalyst-fuel that is used in Rossi’s and DGT reactors. To further stimulate open thought and development of a Rossi/DGT reproduction, I would like to share my thoughts on the catalyst fuel with Vortex and ask for your constructive feedback. Further, if you should try this and find excess heat, in the same spirit, please share your results with the rest of us. Some of this is re-hash of what has been previously posted on Vortex and some is my speculation of what Rossi has done. Just to be clear – I am speculating about Mr. Rossi’s invention and I salute his ingenuity and engineering. Clearly the bulk of the material is a NICKEL powder. I hear some speculations that the catalyst-fuel may be nickel nanopower – I believe this is clearly not Rossi’s catalyst-fuel. Rossi has said that the nickel powder has micro-dimensions, not nano-dimensions. Rossi says that Raney nickel (high surface area sponge nickel) will not work. I observe that the most likely powder for this application is a nickel powder produced by the reduction of nickel carbonyl (a common process for producing high activity nickel powder). This produces flower-like buds of roughly spherical diameter in the 3-10 micron range with “petals” in the 100 nanometer thickness range. This nickel powder has very high EXTERNAL surface area (as opposed to Raney nickel which has much of its area inside its sponge-like interior). Why the external surface area is important will become clear in a moment. Examples of this type of carbonyl nickel powder are Hunter Chemical’s AH50 ( http://www.hunterchem.com/nickel-powder-carbonyl-process-hydrogen-reduced.html) or Vale T255 ( http://www.vale.com/en-us/o-que-fazemos/mineracao/niquel/produtos/Documents/Nickel%20powders/T255-nickel-powder.pdf). I believe this type of nickel powder is the starting point. Rossi also talks of catalyst additives to the nickel powder. These are widely believed to be a nanopowder additive, but what nanopowder? Rossi states that the catalyst he used is inexpensive. One of the things found by examination of available nanopowders is that metal oxide nanopowders are far less expensive than pure elemental nanopowders. They are also far easier and safer to handle and to mix. Another clue is that partially oxidized (partly reduced) metal oxide nanopowders are good catalysts and will break the H2 molecules into monatomic hydrogen. However, the mean free path of an H1 atom, before recombining to form an H2, is very short. This means that the catalyst should be in direct contact with the nickel. I believe that the catalyst is a simple metal oxide nanopowder that is finely dispersed across the “petals” of the nickel micro-powder “buds” and subsequently thermo-chemically treated. I will go out on a limb and say that I believe the starting point for selecting a metal oxide nanopowder is to begin with Fe2O3 (for example Alfa Aesar 44895 http://www.alfa.com/en/GP100W.pgm?DSSTK=044895rnd=516031653 ). It is inexpensive, and a known catalyst when properly prepared (satisfies the Rossi criteria of being inexpensive). Further, in the Kullander report on a Rossi ash, 11% iron (a lot of iron) is reported from elemental surface analysis. Rossi explains the copper, but provides no explanation for the large amount of iron, perhaps because he knew it was an ingredient and did not want to call attention to that point. The nickel micro-powder is very heavy while the metal oxide nanopowder is very light and fluffy. I mixed an equal volume of nickel micro-powder and nanopowder, placing the nickel first and then the nanopowder on top in equal volume in the tumbling container. After 24 hours of tumbling, only the original volume of nickel powder remained – the nanopowder had found its way onto the nickel micro-powder surface and did not expand the volume. My experiments showed that simple tumbling of DRY nickel micro-powder and metal oxide nanopowder works very well at distributing the nanopowder across the nickel micro-powder surface area (as confirmed by SEM imagery - I have photos). This capability to finely disperse the metal oxide nanopowder across the surface area of the nickel micro-powder is the reason that EXTERNAL surface area is needed in the nickel powder, and is probably why Raney nickel would not work well for Rossi – the nanopowder would not disperse well across the bulk of the Raney (sponge) nickel interior surface area. But, do not believe that the powder is ready to use at this point! The catalyst is not active. Rossi has stated that he
Re: [Vo]:Rossi catalyst-fuel speculation
Thanks for sharing your process. Interesting. What is your proposed mechanism for the actual fusion? Do you have a hypothesis? I have done a similar process, but different, with no positive news to report. The process I have tried involved the Mircrowave Sintering of Nickel and Copper nanopowders in open air to result in oxidation which was then heated in an H2 atmosphere to reduce the oxides. But frankly, I have not been able to develop this process further as I had to postpone my experiments due to other considerations. When I get back, I will dedicate more time and effort into Carbon nanostructures than this path. It seems Carbon nanostructures are more promising NAEs. But, you might be on to something here. Jojo - Original Message - From: Bob Higgins To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 1:22 AM Subject: [Vo]:Rossi catalyst-fuel speculation Since Rossi’s public display of his reactor and subsequent discussions of his technology, I have been anxious to reproduce his results – primarily just to know that it is a real phenomenon. I listen to the excellent exchanges on Vortex and have learned much from the posts here. As I continue down the path of trying to understand what Rossi, and potentially DGT have done, several people have asked me what I believe to be the catalyst-fuel that is used in Rossi’s and DGT reactors. To further stimulate open thought and development of a Rossi/DGT reproduction, I would like to share my thoughts on the catalyst fuel with Vortex and ask for your constructive feedback. Further, if you should try this and find excess heat, in the same spirit, please share your results with the rest of us. Some of this is re-hash of what has been previously posted on Vortex and some is my speculation of what Rossi has done. Just to be clear – I am speculating about Mr. Rossi’s invention and I salute his ingenuity and engineering. Clearly the bulk of the material is a NICKEL powder. I hear some speculations that the catalyst-fuel may be nickel nanopower – I believe this is clearly not Rossi’s catalyst-fuel. Rossi has said that the nickel powder has micro-dimensions, not nano-dimensions. Rossi says that Raney nickel (high surface area sponge nickel) will not work. I observe that the most likely powder for this application is a nickel powder produced by the reduction of nickel carbonyl (a common process for producing high activity nickel powder). This produces flower-like buds of roughly spherical diameter in the 3-10 micron range with “petals” in the 100 nanometer thickness range. This nickel powder has very high EXTERNAL surface area (as opposed to Raney nickel which has much of its area inside its sponge-like interior). Why the external surface area is important will become clear in a moment. Examples of this type of carbonyl nickel powder are Hunter Chemical’s AH50 (http://www.hunterchem.com/nickel-powder-carbonyl-process-hydrogen-reduced.html ) or Vale T255 (http://www.vale.com/en-us/o-que-fazemos/mineracao/niquel/produtos/Documents/Nickel%20powders/T255-nickel-powder.pdf ). I believe this type of nickel powder is the starting point. Rossi also talks of catalyst additives to the nickel powder. These are widely believed to be a nanopowder additive, but what nanopowder? Rossi states that the catalyst he used is inexpensive. One of the things found by examination of available nanopowders is that metal oxide nanopowders are far less expensive than pure elemental nanopowders. They are also far easier and safer to handle and to mix. Another clue is that partially oxidized (partly reduced) metal oxide nanopowders are good catalysts and will break the H2 molecules into monatomic hydrogen. However, the mean free path of an H1 atom, before recombining to form an H2, is very short. This means that the catalyst should be in direct contact with the nickel. I believe that the catalyst is a simple metal oxide nanopowder that is finely dispersed across the “petals” of the nickel micro-powder “buds” and subsequently thermo-chemically treated. I will go out on a limb and say that I believe the starting point for selecting a metal oxide nanopowder is to begin with Fe2O3 (for example Alfa Aesar 44895 http://www.alfa.com/en/GP100W.pgm?DSSTK=044895rnd=516031653 ). It is inexpensive, and a known catalyst when properly prepared (satisfies the Rossi criteria of being inexpensive). Further, in the Kullander report on a Rossi ash, 11% iron (a lot of iron) is reported from elemental surface analysis. Rossi explains the copper, but provides no explanation for the large amount of iron, perhaps because he knew it was an ingredient and did not want to call attention to that point. The nickel micro-powder is very heavy while the metal oxide nanopowder is very light and fluffy. I mixed an equal volume of nickel micro-powder and nanopowder, placing the nickel
Re: [Vo]:Rossi catalyst-fuel speculation
Bob, Thanks for sharing. As you know, but other vortexers might not know, I am following roughly the same path. See also fusioncatalyst.org, if you like to join this crowd science approach. In addition to oxidation/reduction/melting cycles I believe carbon may play a role as it is active in oxidation and reduction reactions and reported to work in other LENR experiments (Lesley Case). K2CO3 is also repeatedly reported to be of influence in LENR reports. Elements that are known catalyst in chemistry and hydrogenation reactions are Pt, Pd, Rh, Ru and Ni. Note that catalyzation in chemistry is poorly understood at the microscopic level, possibly similar process play a role in catalyzation as in LENR. Interesting in this regard is hydrogen embrittlement, the effect that some stainless steels, especially Ni rich ones, sometimes fail to contain high pressure hydrogen. An unsolved mystery in 'normal' science. Cheers, Bastiaan. www.FusionCatalyst.org On 7/17/12, Jojo Jaro jth...@hotmail.com wrote: Thanks for sharing your process. Interesting. What is your proposed mechanism for the actual fusion? Do you have a hypothesis? I have done a similar process, but different, with no positive news to report. The process I have tried involved the Mircrowave Sintering of Nickel and Copper nanopowders in open air to result in oxidation which was then heated in an H2 atmosphere to reduce the oxides. But frankly, I have not been able to develop this process further as I had to postpone my experiments due to other considerations. When I get back, I will dedicate more time and effort into Carbon nanostructures than this path. It seems Carbon nanostructures are more promising NAEs. But, you might be on to something here. Jojo - Original Message - From: Bob Higgins To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 1:22 AM Subject: [Vo]:Rossi catalyst-fuel speculation Since Rossi’s public display of his reactor and subsequent discussions of his technology, I have been anxious to reproduce his results – primarily just to know that it is a real phenomenon. I listen to the excellent exchanges on Vortex and have learned much from the posts here. As I continue down the path of trying to understand what Rossi, and potentially DGT have done, several people have asked me what I believe to be the catalyst-fuel that is used in Rossi’s and DGT reactors. To further stimulate open thought and development of a Rossi/DGT reproduction, I would like to share my thoughts on the catalyst fuel with Vortex and ask for your constructive feedback. Further, if you should try this and find excess heat, in the same spirit, please share your results with the rest of us. Some of this is re-hash of what has been previously posted on Vortex and some is my speculation of what Rossi has done. Just to be clear – I am speculating about Mr. Rossi’s invention and I salute his ingenuity and engineering. Clearly the bulk of the material is a NICKEL powder. I hear some speculations that the catalyst-fuel may be nickel nanopower – I believe this is clearly not Rossi’s catalyst-fuel. Rossi has said that the nickel powder has micro-dimensions, not nano-dimensions. Rossi says that Raney nickel (high surface area sponge nickel) will not work. I observe that the most likely powder for this application is a nickel powder produced by the reduction of nickel carbonyl (a common process for producing high activity nickel powder). This produces flower-like buds of roughly spherical diameter in the 3-10 micron range with “petals” in the 100 nanometer thickness range. This nickel powder has very high EXTERNAL surface area (as opposed to Raney nickel which has much of its area inside its sponge-like interior). Why the external surface area is important will become clear in a moment. Examples of this type of carbonyl nickel powder are Hunter Chemical’s AH50 (http://www.hunterchem.com/nickel-powder-carbonyl-process-hydrogen-reduced.html ) or Vale T255 (http://www.vale.com/en-us/o-que-fazemos/mineracao/niquel/produtos/Documents/Nickel%20powders/T255-nickel-powder.pdf ). I believe this type of nickel powder is the starting point. Rossi also talks of catalyst additives to the nickel powder. These are widely believed to be a nanopowder additive, but what nanopowder? Rossi states that the catalyst he used is inexpensive. One of the things found by examination of available nanopowders is that metal oxide nanopowders are far less expensive than pure elemental nanopowders. They are also far easier and safer to handle and to mix. Another clue is that partially oxidized (partly reduced) metal oxide nanopowders are good catalysts and will break the H2 molecules into monatomic hydrogen. However, the mean free path of an H1 atom, before recombining to form an H2, is very short. This means that the catalyst should be in direct contact with the nickel. I
Re: [Vo]:Rossi catalyst-fuel speculation
http://www.e-catworld.com/2012/04/english-translation-of-build-instructions-for-pirelli-athanor-cell/ I would forget about Rossi because there are too many unknowns. I would start with the Pirelli High school reactor because it is open source, completely documented and produces a COP of 4. But I would modify it to put in the things I love most: high voltage, liquid metal, fountain reactors and of course, tungsten. If you can’t have some fun then what is the use of trying. Mix tungsten powder in with the lithium to make a paste, form two liquid cylindrical flowing liquid columns about 3 cm in diameter and 10 cm apart using a pump. Connect the liquid columns to a 50,000 volt DC source. Covered all by a high pressure hydrogen envelop and make one the anode and the other column, the cathode. Now pass a 50,000 dc voltage pulse of 1 microsecond duration between the two columns at a duty cycle of 1 %. In principle, this is what Robert Godes founder of Brillouin Energy is doing except he uses solid wires. Godes is concerned about burning up his thin wires with high electrical pulse power but when we use liquid wires, they won’t burn out no matter how much pulse power we hit those liquid wires with. In addition at no extra cost and effort, we add some LeClair cavitation in for good measure. The spark will cause cavitation on the surface of the liquid wires. Check for excess heat. Then in the next experiment: add fine carbon powder. Next experiment: Replace carbon powder with fine Calcium oxide powder. Next: try K2CO3 and so on. Cheers: Axil On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Bob Higgins rj.bob.higg...@gmail.comwrote: Since Rossi’s public display of his reactor and subsequent discussions of his technology, I have been anxious to reproduce his results – primarily just to know that it is a real phenomenon. I listen to the excellent exchanges on Vortex and have learned much from the posts here. As I continue down the path of trying to understand what Rossi, and potentially DGT have done, several people have asked me what I believe to be the catalyst-fuel that is used in Rossi’s and DGT reactors. To further stimulate open thought and development of a Rossi/DGT reproduction, I would like to share my thoughts on the catalyst fuel with Vortex and ask for your constructive feedback. Further, if you should try this and find excess heat, in the same spirit, please share your results with the rest of us. Some of this is re-hash of what has been previously posted on Vortex and some is my speculation of what Rossi has done. Just to be clear – I am speculating about Mr. Rossi’s invention and I salute his ingenuity and engineering. Clearly the bulk of the material is a NICKEL powder. I hear some speculations that the catalyst-fuel may be nickel nanopower – I believe this is clearly not Rossi’s catalyst-fuel. Rossi has said that the nickel powder has micro-dimensions, not nano-dimensions. Rossi says that Raney nickel (high surface area sponge nickel) will not work. I observe that the most likely powder for this application is a nickel powder produced by the reduction of nickel carbonyl (a common process for producing high activity nickel powder). This produces flower-like buds of roughly spherical diameter in the 3-10 micron range with “petals” in the 100 nanometer thickness range. This nickel powder has very high EXTERNAL surface area (as opposed to Raney nickel which has much of its area inside its sponge-like interior). Why the external surface area is important will become clear in a moment. Examples of this type of carbonyl nickel powder are Hunter Chemical’s AH50 ( http://www.hunterchem.com/nickel-powder-carbonyl-process-hydrogen-reduced.html) or Vale T255 ( http://www.vale.com/en-us/o-que-fazemos/mineracao/niquel/produtos/Documents/Nickel%20powders/T255-nickel-powder.pdf). I believe this type of nickel powder is the starting point. Rossi also talks of catalyst additives to the nickel powder. These are widely believed to be a nanopowder additive, but what nanopowder? Rossi states that the catalyst he used is inexpensive. One of the things found by examination of available nanopowders is that metal oxide nanopowders are far less expensive than pure elemental nanopowders. They are also far easier and safer to handle and to mix. Another clue is that partially oxidized (partly reduced) metal oxide nanopowders are good catalysts and will break the H2 molecules into monatomic hydrogen. However, the mean free path of an H1 atom, before recombining to form an H2, is very short. This means that the catalyst should be in direct contact with the nickel. I believe that the catalyst is a simple metal oxide nanopowder that is finely dispersed across the “petals” of the nickel micro-powder “buds” and subsequently thermo-chemically treated. I will go out on a limb and say that I believe the starting point for selecting a metal oxide
Re: [Vo]:Rossi catalyst-fuel speculation
This is a Russian Rossi replication using LaNi5 that is generating bursts of X-rays and neutrons. They (Bazhutov and Izmiran http://fireball.izmiran.ru/ ) are looking at the Erzion model of cold nuclear transmutation... Investigation of Thermodynamic and Radiation Effects at Loading Intermetallic LaNi5 by hydrogenhttp://www.iscmns.org/work10/ParkhomovAregistrati.ppt -- http://www.iscmns.org/work10/ParkhomovAregistrati.ppt Anyone have more news on these guys? They did a workshop at the Kurchatov Institute last month, but I didn't see a writeup. - Brad
Re: [Vo]:Rossi catalyst-fuel speculation
Lanthanum has a low work function which can be lowered even further if oxygen is added. Lanthanum oxide is now used in welding rods to replace thorium because of its low work function(2.5 eV). The powder used in this experiment may be contaminated with oxygen. This might indicate that low work function is a factor in nickel based LENR. Cheers: Axil On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 2:59 PM, ecat builder ecatbuil...@gmail.com wrote: This is a Russian Rossi replication using LaNi5 that is generating bursts of X-rays and neutrons. They (Bazhutov and Izmiran http://fireball.izmiran.ru/ ) are looking at the Erzion model of cold nuclear transmutation... Investigation of Thermodynamic and Radiation Effects at Loading Intermetallic LaNi5 by hydrogenhttp://www.iscmns.org/work10/ParkhomovAregistrati.ppt -- http://www.iscmns.org/work10/ParkhomovAregistrati.ppt Anyone have more news on these guys? They did a workshop at the Kurchatov Institute last month, but I didn't see a writeup. - Brad
RE: [Vo]:Rossi catalyst-fuel speculation
This paper is deceiving . especially if one is interested in nano Ni-H. and it is not in any relevant way comparable to Rossi. There is NO indication of excess heat, even though they use very heavy deuterium enrichment, which probably supplies all of the radiation seen, and even then it is not much in absolute terms. One can see higher radiation count rates from a natural gas fired furnace. I would classify this as almost a joke. There are much better results from Pd-D papers 20 years ago. From: ecat builder This is a Russian Rossi replication using LaNi5 that is generating bursts of X-rays and neutrons. They (Bazhutov and Izmiran http://fireball.izmiran.ru/ ) are looking at the Erzion model of cold nuclear transmutation... Investigation http://www.iscmns.org/work10/ParkhomovAregistrati.ppt of Thermodynamic and Radiation Effects at Loading Intermetallic LaNi5 by hydrogen -- http://www.iscmns.org/work10/ParkhomovAregistrati.ppt Anyone have more news on these guys? They did a workshop at the Kurchatov Institute last month, but I didn't see a writeup. - Brad
Re: [Vo]:Rossi catalyst-fuel speculation
On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 11:03 AM, Bastiaan Bergman bastiaan.berg...@gmail.com wrote: In addition to oxidation/reduction/melting cycles I believe carbon may play a role as it is active in oxidation and reduction reactions and reported to work in other LENR experiments (Lesley Case). K2CO3 is also repeatedly reported to be of influence in LENR reports. It's exciting to see the number of knowledgeable experimenters here. It seems like the parameter space is large for LENR. If I had the aptitude, time and resources, I would want to proceed very systematically. Otherwise it's easy to imagine ending up wandering through the woods for a long time without getting anywhere. I would probably try to begin with a replication -- any replication -- and use that to assure myself that my lab setup works and that I can clearly and reliably distinguish a blank from a positive result. One simple experiment that has been replicated with success by Michael McKubre at SRI is of Les Case's design (mentioned above). See: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CaseLCcatalyticf.pdf If I ever got to the point where I could distinguish a positive result from a negative one, and determine that the positive result was above error, I would come up with a protocol -- a set of numbers to carefully keep track of and a set of steps to follow, and so on. I would repeat the protocol enough times to start hating LENR and keep all of the details for both the good and bad runs in a notebook or a spreadsheet. I would not try to do anything fancy -- just find some result above error, and then proceed from there. Once I had a good set of data for that particular protocol, I would make a small change. Perhaps replace the palladium with nickel, or change the quantity of the palladium or the temperature of the setup. I would only modify one dimension per set of runs, in order to keep careful track of what it is that is influencing the experiment. For the Les Case experiment, I think a good calorimeter, a Geiger-Muller counter, a way to detect x-rays and a way to measure the volume of helium would be good to have. A way to analyze the substrate for transmutations afterwards would be nice as well. I'm sure there are many other things you would want, but these seem like valuable observables for many possible experiments. It would be helpful to try to get measurements of heat and x-rays and any other quantities as the experiment proceeds, so that correlations can be sought out afterwards. A large set of quality data along these lines, made available to the public in raw, undigested form, following well-defined protocols and including information about the statistical error would be invaluable. Eric
