The following post was submitted by Hank Mills
Andrea Rossi, the inventor of the Energy Catalyzer or E-Cat, has been granted a patent that covers many details of his technology – including a list of a fuel components and ratios. Titled, “Fluid Heater,” and assigned to Leonardo Corporation, this patent (US 0,115,913 B1) contains details of an apparatus capable of heating water or other liquids. Although worded to sound slightly mundane – with no mention of LENR or cold fusion – the document provides critical information that replicators can utilize to prove the reality and existence of this technology to the world.
The specific device overviewed in the patent is an earlier version of the E-Cat from 2011-2012. Readers of the patent should keep in mind that many enhancements to the high temperature E-Cat have been made over the past few years. Back in the time when the first version of the Hot Cat was being tested, maximum temperatures did not reach the extremely high levels of the Lugano device. However, the fact that Andrea Rossi has made improvements to the technology in no way whatsoever reduces the significance of the information contained in this patent. Although fairly short and vague in some areas, specific details about the reactor construction and fuel composition are disclosed.
In the patent, the composition of Rossi’s fuel and a starting ratio is revealed. It is stated to be 50% nickel, 20% lithium, and 30% lithium aluminum hydride. All of these fuels are in the powdered form, and the exact ratios are said not to be critical. However, different ratios govern the reaction rate. For the first time ever, we have been provided with a listing of ingredients and percentages. Combined with what we already know, this means that a combination of carbonyl nickel of a few micrometers in diameter (although other forms and particle sizes of nickel may also work), lithium aluminum hydride, and lithium can come together to produce a massive amount of energy if properly stimulated with heat and a varying electromagnetic field.
Another important detail revealed in the patent is that the nickel powder must be pre-heated to convert trapped water into supercritical steam, explode, and increase the porosity of the nickel. The concept of enhancing the porosity of the nickel is mentioned multiple times. Perhaps the enhanced surface area and tubercules of carbonyl nickel provide a good starting powder that is improved by pre-heating. It should also be noted that the most successful replicator of this technology, Alexander Parkhomov, who has successfully produced excess heat in at least a dozen different tests, recently revealed to the Martin Fleischman Memorial Project that he pre-heats his nickel to 200C to remove any water content. From my knowledge, very few replicators have been “cooking” their nickel in this fashion – or at all. Maybe this could be a step that will ensure more successful replications.
The fuel ingredients and ratio in the patent fascinates me. My personal hypothesis (which could be wrong) is that by adding lithium (pure) aluminum is removed from the reactor. I think that this may enhance the reaction rate, because the aluminum participates in few nuclear reactions. Lithium has multiple mechanisms by which the rate it reacts with protons to undergo fusion can be increased. One of these mechanisms is how Unified Gravity LLC has discovered that there is a low energy window of between 200ev and 5000ev in which protons can impact and undergo fusion reactions with lithium. This very low level of energy is up to a thousand times lower than what is required according to mainstream physics. The second of these mechanisms is Hidetsugu Ikegami’s discovery that protons ejected at liquid lithium near the point of phase change undergo a dramatic rate enhancement. As far as I know, there is no such rate enhancement for aluminum.
My guess is that aluminum acts to limit the rate of nuclear reactions and increase the temperature at which nuclear reactions begin. By being in the fuel mix, the aluminum may take up valuable space that could be filled with lithium atoms. I imagine the lithium atoms being like small balloons in a pile and aluminum atoms being like large balloons in that same pile. When protons are “fired” into the pile of balloons, more of the protons hit aluminum than lithium. And since energy is only released when lithium atoms are hit, the total output is reduced. If you remove some or all of the aluminum, then more of the protons will hit lithium atoms. This increases the energy output.
The follow is my hypothetical conjecture.
– The earliest low temperature E-Cats probably utilized nickel and pure lithium or perhaps an addition of potassium.
– The earliest hot cats that were injected with hydrogen gas may have only used a combination of nickel and lithium. It has been reported that even only using direct current heating they repeatedly “melted down.”
– To increase the operating temperature of hot cats, the model of hot cat covered in this patent may have utilized a mix of both lithium aluminum hydride (to provide hydrogen) and pure lithium. The presence of aluminum may have increased the operating temperature and stabilized the reactions.
– To allow for ultra high temperatures, the Lugano style E-Cat may have only used lithium aluminum hydride. This may have increased the temperature at which excess heat began being produced to around 700C.
– Ultra high temperatures are absolutely possible with pure lithium. However, I think the rate of runaway is probably much higher at high temperatures.
I hope the many individuals and teams around the world replicating use the information in this document to increase the likelihood of successful replications. One amazing possibility is that by using some pure lithium in addition to lithium aluminum hydride, reactors could start producing significant excess heat at temperatures far lower than 700C (or 1,300C for high levels of COP). If we can produce high COP at temperatures of lets say 400C, then components would last for extended periods of time, resistors would not break as often, etc. We do not need reactors operating at 1,300C to prove to the world that the “Rossi Effect” is real. A reactor at 400C self sustaining at that temperature for a significant period of time would be very strong evidence. Or, if we want, inducing “runaways” that melt down reactors also show strong evidence of anomalous reactions. By reducing the amount of lithium aluminum hydride, runaways may be easier to trigger.
This patent is also important, because it may be the first patent granted to a practical, real world cold fusion technology. I believe I have read about certain other cold fusion systems being patented. However, the high temperature E-Cat works and is real. It is not a pie in the sky fantasy like hypothetical “hot fusion” reactors.
Andrea Rossi also now has intellectual property protection. This is important as he starts working towards commercializing the one megawatt plant and the E-Cat X. We should all congratulate Andrea Rossi, Leonardo Corporation, and Industrial Heat on this monumentous accomplishment.
The world needs to wake up to the fact that the E-Cat technology is the solution to the energy crisis: it’s greater than solar, greater than wind, greater than fossil fuels, greater than conventional nuclear power, and greater than hypothetical “hot fusion” technologies that don’t even exist.
