I spoke with George Miley of the University of Illinois about his most
recent tests with palladium zirconium alloys with gas loading. Here are
some notes from the conversation and some related information about some of
Mizuno's experiments.
A set of PowerPoint slides here shows his results up until recently:
http://ecatsite.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/dr-george-miley-replicates-patterson-names-rossi/
Download the slides here:
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mragheb/www/NPRE%20498ES%20Energy%20Storage%20Systems/Nuclear%20Battery%20using%20Clusters%20in%20Nanomaterials.pptx
See the slides starting at # 46.
This does not show the most recent results, which are more dramatic.
Slide 48 shows the overall pattern of the reaction. Note that for ordinary
chemical reactions, loading is exothermic and deloading is endothermic.
That is not what you see here. In some cases the initial chemical
exothermic reaction is followed by a second reaction raising the
temperature still higher. This is the anomalous cold fusion reaction. These
slides do not show it lasting for long. This is similar to Kitamura's
results.
The slides show early runs. Recently they made a batch of material that
works dramatically better. However, they only made one batch so far and
they have run samples from it four times. They will need to make more
batches to confirm that they can reproduce this improved performance. Miley
is "optimistic but cautious" that the next batch will work as well as this
one did.
In the four runs they have achieved fairly stable output ranging from ~75
to ~200 W. The runs last around six hours. As shown in slide 48, the sample
first self-heats from the chemical reaction. Because the sample is well
insulated this heat is enough to trigger the anomalous reaction -- when the
anomalous reaction occurs. You do not usually need external heating
although the cell is equipped with a heater (slide 47).
The samples are ZrO2 with 35% Pd loaded with deuterium at 60 psi. They
range from 15 to 30 g. The starting material is of high purity and comes
from Ames National Laboratory. Additional processing is done at the
University of Illinois. Miley thinks that recent success is due to their
increased attention to material purity and improved manufacturing methods,
and a better vacuum pump. Quote slide 49: "Most effort has been to develop
improved nanoparticles by comparing and down selecting a series of triple
alloys."
They are also making ZrO2Ni, to be loaded with hydrogen. I do not think
they have done this yet. We did not talk about that much.
Although deloading is chemically endothermic, in some cases they have seen
the heat increased during the loading. This is presumably anomalous heat.
Rossi showed a similar effect during the October 6 demonstration. Miles
says this is probably caused by flux, that is, deuterons moving through the
lattice. It does not matter which direction they are moving. McKubre listed
flux as one of the key factors in his “ad hoc” equation.
Calorimetry
A schematic of the calorimeter is shown in slide number 47. This is a gas
calorimeter, similar to the one Mizuno used in his studies with proton
conductors. I have a lot of data from that and I am pretty familiar with
the characteristics so I will discuss it below.
The temperature is measured at the sample I believe, or anyway, in the
sample chamber. When there is heat (chemical or anomalous) you see a
temperature difference between the sample chamber and the outer chamber. In
Miley's case, the temperature difference ranges from 100°C to 200°C. Miley
described this calorimeter as very complicated and nonlinear. It is
difficult to model. The problem is that the ratio of output power to the
temperature at the core of the sample chamber will vary depending upon the
type of gas you fill the sample chamber with, and the gas pressure.
Based on Mizuno's data, I agree this is very complicated but on the other
hand it is also probably reliable, stable and repeatable. Mizuno tested
hydrogen, deuterium, helium, air, and a vacuum. He tested the gases over a
range of pressures. He found that when you use the same kind of gas at the
same pressure, a given power level always produces the same temperature
difference between the inside and the outside. So, when anomalous power
produces a certain temperature you can find that point on the output curve
and you can say with confidence that it is producing that much power.
Because of this complexity, Miley et al. do not know with accuracy how much
power the sample is producing. On the other hand they can be sure it is
producing heat because the sample chamber is much hotter than the outer
chamber. We know the energy is anomalous, because it produces a much larger
temperature difference than the chemical effect, and it lasts much longer:
21600 s compared to 150 s. The anomalous power continues when the heating
coil is turned off, so there is no possibility that they are mistaking
conventional electric heating with anomalous heat
