The Hypothesis of Micro Acceleration Mechanism for Nuclear Fusion E-Cat Reactor — 2nd Ed. (Fedir Mykhaylov)

The following paper has been submitted by Fedir Mykhaylov, an energy systems engineer from Lviv, Ukraine. We published a first edition of the paper here on November 23, 2014, and now Fedir has updated it.

He writes, “The previous article had some interesting discussions in the comment section. Most of the commenters understood that the given information was a complete hypothesis, but as I told them that it consists of existing and proven physical phenomena. Here I give a more detailed explanation with all links to the literature.”

Fedir Mykhaylov

Lviv, Ukraine

email: [email protected]

tel. mob. +380675814352

The Hypothesis of micro acceleration mechanism for nuclear fusion E-Cat reactor.

Abstract.

Infiltration of hydrogen into nickel, its absorption, diffusion, dissociation. Magnetostrictive influence on the metal to reach the Curie point, the formation of vacancies during deformation, the formation of micro-cracks during molization of hydrogen in the vacancies, hydrogen brittleness, electron and proton emission, radioactive defects, blistering, the plasmic oscillations of inner lattice gas, phonon spectrum, distortion of orbitals around the deuteron in the octahedral emptiness of the crystal lattice, screening of the Coulomb barrier during interaction between the deuteron in Rydberg state and the accelerated  deuteron.

Introduction.

Prolonged studies of the phenomenon of excess energy in metals saturated by hydrogen give encouraging results. Greatest success was achieved by Italian engineer Andrea Rossi with the last version of his reactor HT E-cat with working core temperature of 1000-1200С and specific energy level more than 2 kWat/g of fuel.  Also the results of independent tests of reactor thru 32 days are  published. During the experiment 1.5 MWat×h of excess heat  was produced. Conducted analysis of used fuel  show significant changes in isotope consist  during the work of the reactor, which give us a possibility to talk about energy production  as a result of  nuclear reactions. Constructively the reactor consists of a tube from nonmagnetic stainless steel  2 cm in diameter and 20 cm long muffled on both ends. The fuel contains 1g of nickel powder 5-10 um grain size with the natural isotope ratio and minor carbon additives, iron powder, and LiAlH4 as a source of hydrogen. The tube is pressed into an outer housing from aluminum oxide. Heating of the reactor is carried out by electric heaters powered by three-phase power supply with regulation using thyristor keys. Periodic external influence on the fuel load with electromagnetic pulse by discharge passing through the coil of the heater, and impact of high-frequency radio wave electromagnetic radiation are provided (1) .  Despite the visible simplicity of the reactor, description of the principles of its work involves a variety of physical phenomena.

Main body.

The heating of the reactor core by electric heaters causes release of hydrogen from LiAlH4. In the process of nickel hydrogen saturation the physical adsorption of the hydrogen-gas phase occurs, dissociation of hydrogen molecules on the metal surface, the transition of the hydrogen atoms to the protonated form with the partial transfer of the electronic charge to the conduction band of the metal (2. — page.17). Hydrogen in the metal is not in the form of a bare proton, it has about 0.1-0.6 electron per atom. Protons are located in the octahedral interstices of the crystal lattice of nickel and have a greater diffusive mobility(3. — c.13). At room temperature the proton makes 2×1012 hops per second, due to the small diffusion activation energy of hydrogen – 0,05 ev. As a result of nickel hydrogen saturation highly mobile inter-lattice proton gas is formed, with small amount of energy to heat nickel.

When the reactor reaches 356С, the Curie point for nickel, passing current pulses from a capacitor bank through the coil of the heater, magnetostrictive effect is produced on the fuel grains (4 — page 3-6). Under the influence of magnetostrictive compression-tension of nickel lattice nonequilibrium waves of diffusion movement of inter-lattice proton gas begin.

.In the crystal lattice of the metal there are point defects-vacancys. In the process of the diffusion, when the protons get from the octahedral voids into the vacancys, the protons first pass into atomic and then molecular form. The size of the hydrogen atom of 0.1 nm (1A) is to five orders of magnitude than the size of a proton 10-6 nm (10-5A), the size of the molecule of hydrogen – 0.212 nm. Molization of hydrogen atoms leads to a large increase in pressure and temperature in the vacancy, the deformation of the crystal lattice occurs increasing the hardness and brittleness of the metal. Exceeding the tensile stress above the tensile strength causes microcracks in nickel. On the fresh microcrack mosaic-charged surface are formed. Electrons and protons are emitted from the surface into the field ofuncompensated charges, and then accelerated to high energies (103 ev or higher).

The influence of accelerated electrons and protons leads to a mass generation of point radiation-induced defects-vacancies in the crystal lattice, a phenomenon of blistering occurs (5 — page.1), (6). In complex with outer magnetostrictive influence, with temperatures higher than Curie point, the radiowave radiation in the fuel induce density waves of proton gas. Cracking of the metal lattice in the vacancys region, caused by the outer exposure, combined with irradiation with accelerated electrons intensifies the acceleration mechanism during the breakaway of blister wall from main metal structure. The blisters grow from nano meter to a fraction of micrometer size. The plasma mechanism of energy transfer to the proton inter-lattice gas starts to work (6. — page.4, 7). In the metal-hydrogen system, stimulated by the accelerated electrons, the local frequencys of H-containing bonds lie outside the phonon spectrum of the crystals. Before the relaxation of  the stimulation, H-containing bonds are able to make 105-106 oscillations. There is intensification of migration of the protons with increased accelerating effect in blisters growth.

In connection with the use of hydrogen with natural ratio of protium and deuterium isotopes in the e-cat reactor, accumulation of deuterium is needed. The first reaction that will occur is the threshold reaction under the influence of accelerated protons, with generation of epithermal neutrons:

Li7+p = Be7+n

Under the influence of neutrons the accumulation of tritium is possible:

Li6+n = He4+T

The reactions influenced by accelerated protons are also possible:

Li6+p = (Be7) = He4+He3

Li7+p =(Be8) = 2He4

The reactions in Li6 influenced by accelerated deuterons are also possible:

Li6+D = (Be8) = 2He4

Then, after neutron moderation in the hydrogenated nickel, the reaction of deuterium accumulation occurs:

H1+n=D+hν

Under the influence of thermal neutrons in nickel, isotope shift to isotope Ni62 develops. To ensure stable operation of the reactor, preliminary fuel enrichment with deuterium is advisable, for instance, by electrolysis of grains of nickel in the solution of a mixture of lithium salts, water and heavy water.

Electrolytic treatment creates nanorelief on the nickel surface for plasma stimulation of diffusion of protons and deuterons in nickel.

Deuterium, accumulated In the process of diffusion, as a less mobile and more massive isotope of hydrogen, will gather themselves in the form of deuterons in the nearest octahedral voids around the vacancies. Deuterons, accelerated by the mechanism described above, start to react with screened deuterons, located in the octopores of the lattice. The resulting Rydberg state of the deuteron helps significantly screen the Coulomb repulsion during interactiong with accelerated deuterons (8. -page.2,3,4). The reaction may take place in two ways:

D+D=T+p                        and                         D+D=He3+n

At low energies the deuteron reaction goes on neutron-free channel, as the experiments on the accelerators show . The fastest reaction to happen will be the one with the largest cross section:

T+D=He4+n

            But the lack of registration of neutrons with 17  Mev  energy outside the reactor assumes its blocking by an unknown mechanism.Lack of registration of protons and alpha particles around the reactor is due to the short range of particle path in the frame of the reactor.  The lack of detection of neutrons is due to the dominance of the neutron-free fusion channel reaction at low energies. Different ratio of lithium isotopes in two analyzes of used fuel can be explained by the enrichment of the surface layers of the fuel by isotope Li6, as a result of thermal diffusion in the cycles of sorption-desorption of hydrogen (9. — page.2).

Conclusion.

For more in-depth study of the processes occurring at working e-cat reactor it is necessary to use a reactor with increased gas volume which allows the detection of radiation inside the reactor, and selection of gas spectroscopy during its operation. Registration of accelerated protons, deuterons, epithermal and thermal neutrons in the inner volume of the reactor and the discovery of blistering on the surface of grains of spent fuel are the confirmation of micro-accelerating mechanism of e-cat reactor.

Literature:

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  6. T. Astrenin, A.V. Burdakov, S.V. Polosatkin, V.V. Postupaev. “Magnetostriction of ferromagnetics The phenomenon of blistering on the surface of materials under irradiation by ion beams “. Seminar of fusion laboratories INP. October 25, 2005.
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