Yes. Let's see proof.

Again, the claim of fusion of hydrogen nuclei under low-temperature conditions is extraordinary. The claim that NICKEL is fusing is beyond extraordinary and into the realm of Buck Rodgers or Star Trek sorts of claims.

If this thing is real it's trivially proved true by gamma emissions and, if nickel is being fused into a metastable form of copper or nickel and then decaying, THAT's measurable too.

Nuclear reactions are quite easy to prove due to the fact that beyond thermal output (heat) you also get high-energy emissions that ONLY come from nuclear processes, and those are readily detectable and differentiated from anything else that can be causing them.

If it produces more than it consumes why does it need an input at all? Why not feed the input from the output?

Sounds like another scam to me. There is always some excuse why these divices need an external power input.

They have apparently done no research on nickel catalysts either. A quick google search found me this book: Modern organonickel chemistry http://books.google.com/books?id=jjriFIc....

Inside is described how to make a nickel catalyst. The final step involves heating the nickel powder in a stream of hydrogen.

Meanwhile these inventors claim the following:

Quote:

In applicant exothermal reaction the hydrogen nuclei, due to a high absorbing capability of nickel therefor, are compressed about the metal atom nuclei, while said high temperature generates internuclear percussions which are made stronger by the catalytic action of optional elements, thereby triggering a capture of a proton by the nickel powder, with a conseguent transformation of nickel to copper and a beta+ decay of the latter to a nickel nucleus having a mass which is by an unit larger than that of the starting nickel.

They seem to imply that Hydrogen atoms to nickel are like soccer (football) fans compressing each other into a fence.

Yes, that's what they claim. Now let's see the proof that there's a nuclear reaction going on.

Genesis wrote..

Ok, so show me nickel going in and copper coming out, minus the hydrogen (and no chemical reaction product for the hydrogen either.)

There should be gamma emissions coming from this thing too if there's a nuclear process going on.

There's a further problem if nickel is involved, which is that the electrostatic repulsive force rises as the nuclei mass rises - it is MUCH harder to get heavier atoms to fuse for this reason. That's why virtually all of the Sun's fusion is Hydrogen -> Helium, and only when a star is in the process of dying do heavier atoms get involved. You can get a neutron to go in to a heavy nucleus (e.g. thermal nuclear reactions, which is what's exploited in a breeder reactor) but that (usually) results in a metastable atom that then undergoes nuclear decay, which is not what's being talked about here.

I ain't buying that they've managed to fuse nickel.

How the hell do you know so much about so much?

Adding a proton to nickel would normally require obscene amounts of input energy in order to overcome the electromagnetic forces that are going to repel the proton away from the big mess of protons in the nickel nucleus. So for this to work there has be a "trick" that somehow negates the electromagnetic forces in order to get the proton close enough to the nickel nucleus for the nuclear force to take over. You can't rule out that such a "trick" exists...it's just a highly extraordinary claim.

Gen wrote..

Until it is, I'm a skeptic. Catalytic fusion is theoretically impossible. If it turns out not to be, then a lot of alleged physical facts suddenly aren't.

In free space, yes. But we're not talking free space here. The idea is that a proton is captured inside a nickel lattice. You can't use "normal" free-space physics because particles start to behave differently when enclosed in a very tiny space. In fact they start to behave more like waves. The Uncertainty Principle comes into play: if a proton is captured in a lattice, you are very certain about it's position hence very uncertain about its momentum. Thus it is possible said proton could be traveling at extreme velocities - you just don't know. That extreme velocity might become large enough to cause fusion.

The original "cold-fusion" discovery used palladium and platinum electrodes. Both of those are very good "hydrogen sponges", which is why they are used in automotive catalytic converters. There the idea was to fuse two deuterium nuclei to form helium. From what I read, there were some experiments that produced excess helium but just barely and nobody came up with a device that could sustain a reaction for anything more than a few hours.

Nickel atoms are much smaller than palladium atoms, so it is possible that when a proton gets trapped in the lattice the probability becomes much higher it eventually bumps into neighboring nickel nuclei and fuses with it. At least that's the hypothesis. You gotta use solid-state physics in addition to relativity and quantum mechanics to prove it.

Actually what I need to see to prove it it's a never used device that shows zero gamma and proton emissions and then develops them when turned on with proof nobody had tampered with it.

If it's fusing atoms it is producing gamma radiation.

It does seem far-fetched because according to theory, once you get past iron the reaction to create heavier atoms from smaller nuclei become endothermic.

Obseedian,

Sorry, no. Doesn't work that way.

Look at the sizes and volumes of the particles involved- atoms are mostly empty space, so 'squeezing a proton' into a Ni lattice in no way confines it to a very tiny space, at least not on a length scale for which the Uncertainty Principle would predict anything interesting.

Even if you 'trap a proton in a nickel atom lattice' (whatever that signifies- it's very imprecise language that no chemical physicist would use,) it still needs to find its way past the entire electron cloud surrounding a nickel nucleus, then fuse with the nucleus. It needs to do that without interacting with any electrons to form hydrogen, which is a much, much, much, (much) lower energy process.

Take a look at the energetics of Nickel ionization (i.e, electron loss.) Any particle that possesses even a tiny fraction of the energy needed for nuclear interaction (>10^4 eV) can (and will) easily ionize an atom instead (< 10 eV), particularly if it's energy is (purportedly) generated within the lattice itself.

I'll beta test for a whole year free of charge.

Tommyw

You're probably right, what I wrote is what basically the cold fusion people have hypothesized. And as I've said, Ni + p is endothermic so it couldn't be the source of excess heat.

Quote:

Ni + p is endothermic

That much is not true; I've checked the atomic mass sums. They're less for the products than the reactants for all listed isotopes of nickel. (Ie, mass seems to be getting destroyed.)


I propose another sort of test.

For my part, I could care less whether there are gamma rays or not. For that matter, I'd just as soon not have them; I hear they can be a pain in the ass to deal with. What I care about is amount - and quality - of energy delivered versus amount and cost of fuel consumed - and that I don't end up getting boned, of course.

So here's what I suggest:

The inventor must furnish a complete bill of materials, and a list of all tools required to fabricate and fuel one of his reactors. The examiners then acquire and stock a workshop with everything on the list - and nothing else. The inventor and his team then go in, after being searched as required, and build their device.

Then we turn it on, measure the heat and|or power output, and see how much of its fuel and any other of its components get consumed. Run it long enough to make sure that nothing in the bill of materials could have supplied the required energy conventionally.

The idea is to make sure the inventors have no conventional power source to hide inside the machine.

Quote:

That much is not true; I've checked the atomic mass sums. They're less for the products than the reactants for all listed isotopes of nickel.

Are you sure?

For example:
M(62Ni) = 61.928346
M(1H) = 1.007825
M(62Ni) + M(1H) = 62.936171 < M(63Cu) = 62.939598

That is, the reactants weigh less than the product.

Weights from here: http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/Hand....

Quote:

You control it "just as you turn on and off your television set."

Now I see.

You plug it in, and then turn it on just like a TV.

Oops, they left off the part about plugging it in.

Obseedian,

Yep. Always entertaining to think (for about 10 seconds- that's about what it's worth...) about the 'theorizing' behind stuff like this.

PT Barnum had it right...

Obseedian wrote..

M(63Cu) = 62.939598

There seems to be some disagreement on this. WolframAlpha and a number of other sources show it 62.929597474, which would mean the reactants have 0.006573526 units more mass than the product, which would produce 6.1232 MeV if converted to energy.

But let's look at it in terms of Mass Excess in MeV, where potential discrepancies aren't in the 4th significant digit. (Values also from Wolfram Alpha):

62Ni = -66.746096 MeV
1H = 7.2889705 MeV
Sum: -59.4571255 MeV

63CU = -65.579531 MeV

Difference: 6.1224055 MeV

Since the two agree very closely, I do believe we get ~6.12 MeV out if we can add a proton to 62Ni.

-Uwe-

Burya_rubenstein wrote..

That much is not true; I've checked the atomic mass sums. They're less for the products than the reactants for all listed isotopes of nickel. (Ie, mass seems to be getting destroyed.)

Agreed, see above. It should be around 6 MeV, but will vary depending on which isotope of nickel each reaction occurs in. This energy could (should?) come out as photons in the gamma part of the spectrum. However, if the bulk of it came out as gamma photons, you wouldn't get much heat, and at those energies, you'd need a LOT more shielding than what they could possibly have in the device sitting on that table. So either this reaction isn't what's going on here, or someone needs to provide a cogent explanation how the energy this reaction produces gets turned into something more thermal than gamma rays.

Burya_rubenstein wrote..

So here's what I suggest:

The inventor must furnish a complete bill of materials, and a list of all tools required to fabricate and fuel one of his reactors. The examiners then acquire and stock a workshop with everything on the list - and nothing else. The inventor and his team then go in, after being searched as required, and build their device.

Then we turn it on, measure the heat and|or power output, and see how much of its fuel and any other of its components get consumed. Run it long enough to make sure that nothing in the bill of materials could have supplied the required energy conventionally.

The idea is to make sure the inventors have no conventional power source to hide inside the machine.

There's a simpler way, which wouldn't make him divulge a BoM. He claims it will run for 6 months without "refueling". All he has to do is demonstrate it (in public) running for a period of time sufficient to preclude a conventional source of energy hidden inside. The 20-minute demonstration he's done so far is not enough to do that.

-Uwe-

You know, after actually reading it... Well, I still need some proof to convince me, but it's pretty damn interesting regardless - unless they're lying about everything.

Quote:

Some other technical attributes of the process include:
Regular Ni is used even though other isotopes may provide better efficiency. They think all the isotopes work to produce the effect.

For some unknown reason, not all of the Ni in the cell reacts with the hydrogen to produce energy. The percentage of the Ni that reacts is very low.

Even though the percentage of the Ni that reacts with hydrogen is very low one kilogram of nickel powder should deliver 10 kW of energy for 10,000 hours. The consumption rate of hydrogen and nickel are 0.1 g of Ni and 0.01 g of H to produce 10 kWh/h. Note that for every picogram of nickel that is actually fused or reacts to the hydrogen, much more must be added. Not all the nickel added will react. So if you add 0.1g of Ni to produce 10kWh/h only a small fraction of that Ni will actually be utilized. When the device shuts off due to running out of fuel most of the .1g could be remaining.

Tungsten is in no way used. However, "other elements" are used.

Radiation is produced. However in the device demonstrated which is made for commercial use no radiation escapes due to lead shielding. The fact that radiation is produced is proof of a nuclear reaction.

In the demonstration device for every unit of input there was approximately 37 units of output.

A small percentage of the nickel is transmuted into copper. The amount of copper found in the cell is far greater than the impurities in the nickel powder. None of this copper is "unstable."

There is no radioactivity in the cell after it is turned off. No nuclear "waste."

All of the information needed to successfully replicate a self sustaining system is in the patent application (which is being held proprietary presently).

The power density for thermal energy only is 5 liters per kilowatt.

The hydrogen has to be all hydrogen with no deuterium or heavy hydrogen. Apparently, any heavy hydrogen stops the reaction.

This current system never goes below 6 times more energy out than in. During the test it produced 20 times more energy out than in. In the lab they have done similar tests and obtained 400 times more out than in, but it produced explosions.

Heavy hydrogen STOPS the reaction?!? No radiation after it's turned off?

There's something seriously strange going on if ANY of this **** is true.

read the patent app. it gives you a bom and fairly detailed description of the apparatus. nothing extraordinary there, nickel powder and hydrogen gas.

note that while the patent app states use of a specific nickel isotope, a google search came up with other discussion that stated the use of "regular" nickel powder due to the expense of using a specific isotope.

they claim to have an existing device running for over a year. you could probably rig one up out of your garage.

Probably will be just aother flash-in-the-pan.

We already have safe clean virtually unlimited power in the form of Thorium reactors but no entity sophistcated enough to construct one, with the exception of the Indian government, is interested in building a nuke reactor that can't produce material for weapons.

Quote:

We already have safe clean virtually unlimited power in the form of Thorium reactors but no entity sophistcated enough to construct one, with the exception of the Indian government, is interested in building a nuke reactor that can't produce material for weapons.

Thorium reactors (especially LFTR designs which reprocess their fuel in situ) have enormous potential, but they don't scale down very well. In other words, you can't put one in your basement, or even supply a village in the 3rd world using one. (Yes, there are fission reactor designs which are suitable for providing power for a single village, but they don't use thorium, nor can they be produced using low-tech manufacturing methods).

If Rossi's reactor works (and that's a big if), it's a total game changer because it's very simple, appears to use nothing but commonly available materials, and requires essentially no high-tech manufacturing processes to make. If it works, it will be almost impossible for any centralized authority to prevent it from being deployed everywhere and anywhere.

-Uwe-

"...electromagnetic forces..."

Electrostatic forces..

You guys need to get out and do something productive like get a job and pay into SS.