Tom Conover today on the Journal of Nuclear Physics, in a comment to Andrea Rossi, made an interesting report on some testing in efforts to replicate the E-Cat effect. His full comment can be found here; below is the section that pertains specifically to his tests.
“During the last 16 months I have built about 200 test reactors and used the Arduino computer as the control system to run tests on many of the test reactors that I constructed. I use 26 ga nichrome with alumina tubing from Coorstek Alumina AD-998 tubing to hold the reactors, I spool the coil using a lathe and carefully screw the tubing gently into the coil to build the heater for the system. Next I mix a small amount of alumina paste using powdered alumina, and coat the coil with the paste. Finally I insert the alumina heating tube into another alumina (or sometimes Mullite) tube to shield the nichrome wire from atmospheric corrosion and burn out, making certain the the heating coil fits snug into the sheath to insure long life of the system.
“I load the fuel mixture into a titanium or stainless steel tube, and my engineer friend (who does lots of work for the infamous medical company Medtronics) laser welds plugs to seal the tube. I have had about six sessions that my buddy witnessed results from my projects, and the very first one resulted in a temperature that my friend stated was likely to have been 3000 to 4000 F in temperature at the end, and melted down. (Many, many, many of my reactors have self destructed, but always safely and always in a thermal control box that I do the test in that is lined with firebrick for safety. ) I use a mask, gloves, and safety glasses when I mix the fuel, and always read an follow instructions on the material safety data sheet (msds).
“I have tested about 50 mixtures of fuel, many of which achieved temperatures that destroyed the very high quality Alumina that I use, specifications for max temperature shown below, with computer controlled temperatures that never exceeded 1250° C, but the 1750° C alumina still melted. Hmmm … Several of the reactor tubes during autopsy also displayed a thin layer of copper near the burn out area, which my engineer buddy opined were possibly atomic changes due to the type of experiment we performed.”
There are some interesting things reported here; burnouts like Tom reports here have been reported by other people attempting to replicate E-Cat-type reactors. Later Tom asks Rossi whether he should experiment with enriching the fuel with CAS Number: 17409-87-9 Lithium-7Li fluoride. Rossi did not respond with a yes or no answer, but simply said, “Thank you and congratulations.”
I hope Tom will continue to report on his testing results, as replication efforts are probably the most important activities going on to confirm the validity of the Rossi Effect.
Tom Conover Reports on E-Cat Replication Efforts
Tom Conover today on the Journal of Nuclear Physics, in a comment to Andrea Rossi, made an interesting report on some testing in efforts to replicate the E-Cat effect. His full comment can be found here; below is the section that pertains specifically to his tests.
There are some interesting things reported here; burnouts like Tom reports here have been reported by other people attempting to replicate E-Cat-type reactors. Later Tom asks Rossi whether he should experiment with enriching the fuel with CAS Number: 17409-87-9 Lithium-7Li fluoride. Rossi did not respond with a yes or no answer, but simply said, “Thank you and congratulations.”
I hope Tom will continue to report on his testing results, as replication efforts are probably the most important activities going on to confirm the validity of the Rossi Effect.