Hello group,
In a recent interview in italian by Radio24, Francesco Celani mentioned
that it is Yoshiaki Arata who first introduced in 2008 a few very
important innovations in LENR research in order to increase Pd-D
reactivity in a dry reactor cell (not using electrolysis).
(for the record, a transcription in italian is available on 22passi
blog:
http://22passi.blogspot.com/2011/04/nuova-intervista-di-mr-kilowatt.html )
The first mentioned one is that he used for the first time micro- and
nano-sized palladium powder. The smaller the powder gets, the higher is
the reproducibility and the excess heat recorded. We already know that
the nickel used in Rossi's E-Cat is possibly nanometer-sized.
The second one is that palladium is deposited on a lattice of an inert
compound, in order to prevent the aggregation of nano-particles, or in
other words, to prevent globs of palladium which would reduce its total
exposed surface area.
Last week, Christos Stremmenos (old friend of Focardi who worked on Ni-H
LENRs, and, most importantly, vice-president of Defkalion Green
Technologies) was interviewed by another italian radio station (Radio
Citta` del Capo). Again, an italian transcription of it is available on
22passi blog (a human translation in English will be soon posted there too).
He mentioned that in his personal experiments on Ni-H reactions he used
to remove oxides as much as possible from the nickel powder he used, by
heating it in a vacuum during initial preparations. This supposedly
boosts the hydrogen absorption. He also mentions that the more
irregularly shaped nickel got, the more it reacted with hydrogen.
So what do we know so far?
- Focardi says that the secret compound MIGHT (probably does) promote
atomic hydrogen adsorption by the nickel powder
- Stremmenos says that oxides have to be eliminated as much as possible,
to improve hydrogen absorption
- Arata used nano-sized palladium powder bound with an inert element to
prevent palladium aggregation. Recently he also used nickel very
successfully in his experiments (found this on a presentation from
ICCF15 on lenr-canr.org)
Leaving theoretical explanations aside, in my opinion it is slowly
turning out that powder preparation is essential for the huge excess
heat shown by Rossi.
Nickel nanoparticles have to be processed to maximize surface area
relatively to their volume. They must not aggregate together, and oxides
must not form on them. It's possible that during preparation, which
might also involve heat and vacuum, nanoparticles are also magnetically
charged to make them tend to repel each other. This property would limit
the maximum temperature reached inside the reactor to a maximum of about
350 degrees, the nickel Curie temperature. Thinking about it, it would
be diabolically clever by Rossi to suggest that temperatures of 450-500
degrees are used instead. Focardi in the past months (can't find a
reference for this unfortunately), stated that Ni-H reactions inside
their reactor start at about 60 degrees Celsius, suggesting lower
operating temperatures.
My conclusion is that following Arata's example (from whom Rossi might
have got many ideas), there might be a ZrNi nanopowder. In Rossi's case
it would be quite processed (yet this doesn't apparently increase costs
much. Probably mass-production techniques and procedures help), oxygen
free, magnetically charged, packed together with some other currently
unknown compound promoting the formation of atomic hydrogen, maybe with
heat (which would get minimally consumed, if at all, over 6 months of time).
These are only my observations based on available information, though.
I'm not an expert at all.
Cheers,
S.A.
