Rossi Defines High Temperature E-Cat Recipe (Hank Mills)

The following post was submitted by Hank Mills

Ever since Andrea Rossi announced the existence of the E-Cat, there has been ongoing speculation as to the ingredients contained that allow for the paradigm shattering invention to operate. Kilowatts of excess heat from soda can sized reactors, no nuclear waste, no radiation, no pollution, ordinary nickel and light hydrogen as fuel: the benefits of the Energy Catalyzer were beyond the dreams of many cold fusion theorists and experimenters.

As Rossi’s technology evolved, a high temperature version of developed that could produce stable temperatures of 1000C or beyond. In the paper ‘On the Nuclear Mechanisms Underlying the Heat Production by the “E-Cat”’ co-authored by Rossi, some specifics about this version of the technology have been provided. No more guessing – now we have facts.

The most important part of any recipe is the ingredient list. From the Lugano report, we had strong evidence from analysis of fuel and ash that the main ingredients of the high temperature version of the E-Cat consisted of nickel, lithium aluminum hydride (LiAlH4), and iron. Alexander Parkhomov then performed several successful replications using only nickel and LiAlH4. These tests produced not only a COP far beyond the margin of error, but also one experiment produced self sustaining heat after death. But from this new paper we have a concise definition of the high temperature E-Cat from Andrea Rossi himself.

In the paper, the authors specify that the system contains the chemical compound lithium aluminum hydride. A very defining statement is made in one part of the paper, “The Nickel-LiAlH4 system known as the E-Cat is one of several dozen LENR configurations for which excess heat has been experimentally demonstrated.”

So now we finally learn – officially from the inventor of the E-Cat – that the source of lithium, aluminum, and hydrogen detected in the fuel of the device is LiAlH4. There are other chemicals that provide lithium, but now we know exactly what was used in the Hot Cat tested in the Lugano report. From other statements made by Rossi confirming that Parkhomov had replicated the “Rossi Effect” we already knew this was a virtual certainty. Now there can be no debate.

Iron is not mentioned once in the paper, interestingly. According to the Lugano report, however, large amounts of this element was found in the fuel. It must serve some purpose. On various forums the guesses range from lowering the temperature at which LiAlH4 releases hydrogen, preventing the nickel from sintering as severely, breaking apart the molecular hydrogen into atomic hydrogen, acting as a magnetic stirrer, and other functions. The only way we can learn the function(s) of iron will be to include it in tests after the basic Parkhomov device has been successfully replicated.

Another important aspect of any recipe is temperature. When baking a cake, you want the temperature high enough to make the cake rise but not so high that it turns into a block of carbon. This report states that the lithium in the LiAlH4 vaporized and was evenly distributed throughout the reactor. The boiling temperature of lithium is around 1330C. This may give us a temperature range in which the high temperature E-Cat may produce the most excess heat. Of course some excess heat may be produced at lower temperatures — maybe this is the function of iron — but the evidence indicates the COP goes up as the boiling point of lithium is reached and exceeded. In Parkhomov’s first reported test in which a COP of 2.84 was produced, the external temperature of the reactor was 1290C. Due to the temperature differential between the inside of the reactor and the surface, this means the lithium in the reactor was most certainly boiling at around 1400C or higher. Replicators need to target this temperature in their attempts.

In addition to the ingredients and temperature range provided in this document, a large amount of theory is provided about how the Li-7 isotope can interact with a proton to produce Be which then transforms into two alpha particles. These alpha particles have a huge kinetic energy, but produce no gamma radiation. I’m not a physicist, so I will read and re-read the paper before I say much more about the physics. In a nutshell, however, it describes how the proton can interact with the lithium (another section deals with the interaction of a proton and Ni-61), but not how the proton is created or how it is capable of breaking into the nucleus. Basically, it seems like half of a theory. I can’t help but wonder if Ikegami’s theory of Chemonuclear Reactions can provide what this paper does not.

In conclusion, the four most significant things I gathered from this paper are as follows:

1 – Lithium 7 is the isotope that matters in the E-Cat. Lithium-6 is probably not involved.

2 – The basic ingredients of a hot cat (if you exclude iron or tiny amounts of other elements) are nickel and LiAlH4. We don’t need to try to substitute other chemicals until we have successfully used this one to replicate the Lugano device and Parkhomov’s devices.

3 – To produce significant excess heat, we need to reach the boiling point of lithium. I’m guessing that maybe vaporized lithium can go into all the cracks that molten lithium cannot. Recently, I did a lot of painting. I learned that if you paint a wall with a bunch of cracks you will cover them. However, the paint will not always fill in the cracks completely due to the surface tension of the liquid. Maybe vaporized lithium covers a higher percentage of reaction sites that might be ejecting protons than molten lithium. Also, I wonder if according to Ikegami’s theory if vaporized lithium might be more likely to experience nuclear reactions than molten lithium.

4 – The hot cat may continue to produce power even if the nickel has melted.

In conclusion, this paper confirms that the “hot cat” is in fact a super simple device, provides part of a theory, and gives an official recipe. For a tiny amount of money – perhaps a couple hundred dollars – professional and well qualified scientists can build a device that makes gigantic billion dollar “hot fusion” reactors look like something from the stone age. Large amounts of excess heat (perhaps a kilowatt from a gram of fuel) from a reactor that can sit on a desk top: no possible nuclear device can be better than this.

A new age of safe, clean, and cheap “cold fusion” nuclear power is upon us. Now, we have to decide what we are going to do. Remain silent and wait for the world to catch up to the fact the E-Cat is a reality, or encourage expert scientists in laboratories to perform replications?

I say we usher in this revolution as quickly as possible.

Hank Mills