I am reading through Piantelli, Bergomi and Tiziano's 2013 EP2368252B1 patent [1], trying to understand the basic mechanism that is thought to be the source of the heat they're generating. Here I will attempt to reproduce their description in my own words -- I do not know anything about its plausibility and am just trying to understand what they're saying. I have attempted this elsewhere [2], but now that I read through the new patent it occurs to me that I probably misunderstood Piantelli in my previous attempt.
As an initial comment, Piantelli et al. refer to "nuclear reactions" several times in the 2013 patent, but I gather that these are not intended to be fusion reactions for the most part, but rather a reorganization of the nucleons in the substrate nuclei (primarily nickel) to a lower energy level. They accomplish this through the catalytic action of hydrogen. There are two important activation energies; the first (1) involves raising the temperature of the substrate above a critical level and the second (2) involves introducing a shock of some kind to the system that raises the energy in specific regions to an even higher level. If I have understood the authors, the system and mechanism can be described like this: You need clusters of transition metal atoms of certain sizes involving magic numbers above a minimum count and and below a maximum one, where the metal atoms are arranged in a regular crystalline pattern (fcc, bcc, hexagonal). The number and atom count of the clusters determines the potential power output. These clusters of transition metal atoms are then exposed to hydrogen, which adsorbs onto the surface layers. If the substrate is heated sufficiently, through nonlinear and aharmonic interactions there will be phonons whose energy exceeds the first critical threshold (1) mentioned above. When this happens, molecular hydrogen will dissociate and, through some unspecified means, H- ions will be created, where the H presumably take on valence electrons in the transition metal cluster. At this point things won't go any further unless a second energy threshold (2) is exceeded through one of a large number of means (mechanical shock, electric current, x-rays, etc.). If one of these triggers is supplied, the H- ion formed in the previous steps will, through unspecified means, replace an electron in the metal atom. At this point Piantelli et al. claim that the Pauli exclusion principle and the Heisenberg uncertain principle will work together to force the negative H- ion, which is thousands of times heavier than an electron, into an inner shell of the transition metal atom, forming a "complex" atom that combines the transition metal atom with an orbiting H- ion, in a manner similar to f/H catalysis. When this happens there will be x-rays and Augur electrons. At this range the H- ion will be very close to the transition metal nucleus, and the size of the H- ion and its proximity to the metal nucleus will force a reorganization of the metal nucleus and a consequent mass deficit, resulting in the expelling of the H- ion as a proton and a release of energy into the system. This appears to be the central mechanism responsible for heat in their account. The proton can presumably go on to do other things, maybe causing an occasional fusion, but the authors do not appear to rely upon this as the primary channel. Has anyone studied Piantelli's work enough to comment on whether I've gotten this right or missed something important? Can anyone (Robin?) comment on which parts are controversial and which are accepted physics? I understand that you can see the emission of a gamma ray from large, metastable nuclei, when the nucleons rearrange to a lower energy level, but is this possible with as light an atom as nickel? Two interesting points to note -- first, there is evidence for 1-3 MeV protons in some of the CR-39 LENR experiments. Second, Piantelli et al. are vague on the question of the deuterium content. They say that the hydrogen can have the natural level of deuterium (0.015 percent), or it can have a deuterium content distinct from this, but they do not specifically say that you can use H2 that contains no deuterium. Eric [1] http://www.22passi.it/downloads/EP2368252B1[1].pdf [2] http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg72906.html
