Where Next for Replicators? (Nigel Appleton)

The status of attempted replications of the e-cat is disappointing. Using all the information available we are apparently little or no nearer to making an e-cat lookalike, despite there being many very capable scientists and engineers involved.

The Lugano team, using a reactor and fuel supplied by Rossi appeared to have achieved sustained excess heat – but questions have been raised over the emissivity value used to determine the reactor temperature. As far as I know, this question has not been resolved in favour of there having been excess heat; and at last report, that team has not managed to repeat the feat.

In Russia, Parkhomov claims to have demonstrated excess heat in a stainless steel cell loaded with nickel and LiAlH4. He used calorimetry to measure the energy produced. So far as we know, he has neither consistently repeated nor refined his work. He has admitted to slagging many reactors, as might be expected from an active researcher.
In China excess heat was claimed in a nickel cell. The set-up burnt out quite quickly.

Despite admirable persistence by MFMP, nothing other than perhaps a hint of excess heat, and many burnt-out reactors, has been achieved.

(Please note: I do not discount the valuable additions made to the totality of knowledge on the subject by all the workers in the field. Furthermore, there is likely to be intensive work going on that is not being reported).
With respect to isotope analyses on ash samples:

The Lugano ash showed major shifts in both lithium and nickel isotope ratios. However, the sample tested was very small and sampling error or partitioning effects cannot be entirely ruled out. If there was no excess heat – if the emissivity value used was indeed wrong – then this is hard to explain!

The Chinese ash showed minor shifts, said to be statistically significant; but the test did not run for long.
I do not recall seeing isotope ratio reports from Parkhomov’s ash.

None of the above has got to the really important stage of demonstrating self –sustaining excess heat generation.
Now, according to Rossi, he can routinely achieve excess heat; long periods of self-sustaining operation; and, in later iterations of his technology, he seems to be working at temperatures that are difficult for would-be replicators to achieve, let alone sustain.

All of this makes it obvious that Rossi has revealed nothing like enough information for quick replication. In particular, assumptions have been made about the Lugano fuel content analysis, which, whilst being entirely reasonable, may nevertheless be erroneous. We have no information on possible pre-treatments of the fuel. His latest patent suggests more lithium than was initially allowed for by e-cat watchers, but we should note that it is not a patent about the fuel, but about a particular design of reactor/heat exchanger. Finding that the fuel composition was in fact different to that mentioned in the patent would not invalidate the patent.

Reproducing Rossi’s work on the basis of what is known and what is thought to be known is not easy, then. There is very little solid information to work with, and no real theoretical framework.

I can only urge those interested to think again, more deeply and widely, about the fuel; since straightforward nickel/hydrogen/lithium mixtures have not so far been productive. How important, for instance, are the other elements reported in the Lugano fuel analysis? Are they contaminants? Are they components of a nickel stabilisation system? Are they purposeful additives? How likely is it, indeed, that Rossi allowed such an analysis of his “best“ fuel? Was there anything already inside the “dogbone” when it was loaded at Lugano by Rossi?

Where next?

Nigel Appleton