The element Lithium appears in LENR from the start. P&F and many others used lithium hydroxide as electrolyte. Now this element is poised to take center stage.
But 25 years after its first appearance, there is no certainty whether the role of lithium is as a necessary ingredient or is merely optional; and there is no certainty whether it is a reactant, catalyst, electrochemical facilitator, or simply providing hydrogen transport. Not to mention the "hole" which inspired the title of this post. This would be the Rydberg IP hole, which exists when two of the three electrons of a lithium atom are displaced (which can be temporary). The mass-energy of the displacement hole for lithium++ is measured at ~81 eV, which is a decent fit for the 3 x 27.2 = 81.6 eV (which is the exact Rydberg multiple). In short, lithium is better than a 99% fit as a Mills catalyst. But BLP has not been able to pull off this kind of simple robust experiment with lithium - despite the two decade head start. Best of all, when we have an alloy of LiAlH4, the 81+ eV catalytic-hole can arguably appear simply as a result of resonant spatial displacement of electrons, due to heat. This temporary resonance hole can happen with LiOH which appears to be a nice contribution from Jack Cole (assuming his result is replicated). LiOH would eliminate much of the risk of running this experiment. This should be top priority for replicators: does LiOH work almost as well? Rossi wants us (or perhaps only the Patent office) to believe that lithium and nickel isotopic shifts provide nuclear power to the cell; but there are ample reasons to believe otherwise, and to suspect that the evidence provided is deficient. Fortunately, we may not have to wait long to find out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth . assuming MFMP (or someone else in the US) will have similar success to Parkhomov. This reason for optimism - that the whole/hole truth is near - is that last fall, Earthtech International offered to donate isotopic analysis via XRF to the MFMP. They have an Amptek X-123SDD and have been interested in LENR since the start. The specs are here: http://www.amptek.com/products/x-123sdd-complete-x-ray-spectrometer-with-sil icon-drift-detector-sdd/ This kind of XRF study was used by Mitsubishi and Technova. It will be able to determine if there are really isotopic shifts in lithium, and if natural nickel can shift to 100%Ni-62. Almost no physicist believes Rossi on the isotopic shifts, even if they are neutral on the excess heat. The problem is this. There could be slight isotopic shifts, which are consistent with QM but are grossly insufficient to provide the excess heat. The appeal of lithium - for a nuclear reaction is that its nucleus verges on instability, having nearly the lowest binding energies per nucleon of all elements. The transmutation of lithium atoms to helium in a Lab happened in 1932 and was the man-made nuclear reaction. But still, 1300C of heat is millions of times too low to provide the energy required to transmutation, even on the far tail of the distribution. But it is adequate for providing an energy hole, if resonance can shift electrons around. However - If hydrogen is being converted into a dense and dark state, it could become easier to react with lithium, in particular. Thus if slight transmutation shows up, the underlying mechanism will require deeper analysis. My prediction is that very slight isotopic shifts will show up in lithium and none in nickel, and that most of the excess heat will be attributable to dark matter formation (DDL). The reason that I'm fairly certain of this reulst is that the Amptek X-123SDD should also be able to detect the signature of DDL and this signature will be there even with a cold cell. Jones
