10KW LENR Demonstrator?

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

chrismb wrote: I regret to say that I believe this is all a highly naive argument. Perhaps, even, the one that the researchers have gone along with, without thinking it through.
...
The binding energy of 62Ni and 63Cu are both around 8.7MeV/nucleon. If you throw in a proton into the mix (a single nucleon) and the total extra 'mass-energy' you are adding is 6.15MeV, then why do you think you'd suddenly be able to make a new atom where each of the nucleons has 8.7MeV worth of binding energy? It's a bit like a group of people going to an event paying $8.70 per ticket. An extra comes along and says to the cashier 'I've got an extra $6.15 to get in with this group'. Is the cashier likely to a) let you in, b) turn you away? That group is bound by their contribution of $8.70 each to the party fund. An upstart proton that blags its way in with $6.15 isn't going to be welcome.
Isn't this backward? A proton has lost NO binding energy so has 8.7+ to give to the group. Indeed, not only does it give the 8.7, but a smidge of it gets redistributed to the rest so they only wind up having given only 8.7-a smidge/63. That 8.7-(a smidge) is the total mass change, no? By your analogy, it gives $6.15 to the ticket taker and spreads $2.55 among the 63 nucleons in the new group, one of which is itself. I just can't help but think you got this one wrong, sorry.

erblo
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Post by erblo »

I'm not entirely sure what you are saying... isn't the 'total binding energy' of Cu-63 6.122MeV higher than that of Ni-62 ?
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=bi ... 2+times+62
And that of a proton 0MeV? Meaning that a total of 6.122MeV is released in the reaction Ni-62 + p => Cu-63? Binding energy being the energy released by the nucleons when they bind into a nucleus (where they usually have a lower mass=energy than they do as free particles)?

Edit: Directed at chrismb, essentially what you said KitemanSA :roll:

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

Exactly. The balance of energy goes into binding energy and, because 62Ni is the bottom of the pile, there must be some endothermic energy input to add to its mass+binding energy total, if that's what happens, else it'd not happen.

@Kite; 'Binding energy' is 'with respect to' a proton, which sits on this scale at '0' binding energy. That is what the binding energy is in respect of. H has no binding energy 'to give', so to speak. There is nothing there to start with. For excess energy, the mass decrease must be greater than the binding energy increase (or the binding energy release must be bigger than the mass increase). But 62Ni is already the bottom of the pile, so I know that can never be the case with 62Ni.

Torulf2
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Post by Torulf2 »

If so there would not be a proton–proton chain reaction in the sun.
The first step is: P+P--> D+positron+neutrino. Then the positron is annihilated and gives gamma.

erblo
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Post by erblo »

@crismb
Shouldn't the binding energy be negative the way your using it? As I see it, a free proton has about 8.7MeV 'to give' (i.e. more) relative to sitting in a Cu-63 nucleus. As you would say, it's at the top of the pile. Some of this energy is absorbed by loosening the bonds of the rest of the nucleons (the Ni-62) slightly, resulting in about 6MeV out of the reaction (to be used by Italians to heat things, if they can achieve the reaction in the first place).

Also - isn't the binding energy directly calculated from the mass difference?

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

Chrismb: You may be too locked into plasma fusion to speculate properly. Which is my lead in to "all this is PURE SPECULATION" on my part! :wink:
chrismb wrote: 2) Let us say, just for the sake of argument, that the proton does manage to muscle its way into the 62Ni, endothermically
Why "endothermically? By your values, 6.15MeV EXOthermically.
chrismb wrote: or by physical processes not yet known [that run against thermodynamics!].
Quantum tunneling? Neat phrase, does it mean anything?
chrismb wrote:Then we'd have an excited 63Cu. Let us say it has an excess energy of 6.15MeV. ..... What does it do next

Q1: Is this 63Cu 'hot'?
A: No. It was a reaction that occurred in the inertial frame of the collision,
Collision? What makes you think there was a collision? Thinking plasma here.
chrismb wrote: so it isn't going anywhere. It is a 'cold' excited atom that is undetectable by ''thermal' measurements, unless the energy is released from the atom, somehow. So... no heat.
Yet.
chrismb wrote:{Q1a: Why does PLASMA {comment added, ed.} fusion generate heat?
A: Because there are fusion products that take that excess energy away as kinetic energy [which manifests itself as 'heat', in ensembles of such fast, kinetic, products].}

Q2: What would a 63Cu do with this extra 6.15MeV?...
A: Well, I am guessing that the thermodynamic thing to do would be to chuck the proton out again.
Might happen this way a billion, a trillion or a vigintillion times for each time it doesn't. Who knows right now?
chrismb wrote:I do not know for sure, but I think you will find that the energy necessary for an excited 63Cu to shed a proton is 6.15MeV! [I say that, mainly because of the principle of (1) above, but don't have those exact figures to confirm that.] But let us just still hold on there with a glimmer of hope that this 63Cu does something else;
If it does chuck a proton, you are probably right. But what is the energy balance for deuterium? If it used dueterium, it could chuck either a proton or a neutron and produce heat the "old fashioned" way. Maybe this is a reaction wherein a 62Ni steals a nucleon from ²H. This may be the mechanism. Also, what happens if the excited 63Cu absorbs another H and spits it back out with the excess energy of the first? This may be the mechanism.
chrismb wrote: a) it can undergo a strong-force mediated outcome; this means that it will chuck out nucleons. As 62Ni is the bottom of the pile, we know immediately that if it chucks out anything other than that extra proton, then it is going to be an endothermic release of nucleons,
If it absorbs a proton and chucks a neutron, will it be endo or exo?.
chrismb wrote: b) it can undergo a weak-force mediated reaction; this means that either a proton gives out a positron and turns into a neutron, becoming 63Ni, or a neutron gives up an electron giving 63Zn. Without even resorting to calculating those energy equations, I am sure those all work out endothermic [again... because 62Ni is already the bottom of the energy barrel].
So some of the 6.15Mev is lost to heat transfer mechanisms. This may be the mechanism. I may look up the numbers on these species and see what happens. Or not!
chrismb wrote: c) it can undergo an electromagnetic-force mediated reaction; OK, so now we have something that ....er.... could be argued. A 6.15 MeV photon emission would [I presume, not really thought about it too hard] naively gives an energy balance. If so, then it will be very easy to detect 6.15MeV gammas....so...show me the Geiger tube readings while this thing is running...... oh, and also, if this is the reaction, then there will be no heat..... heat will merely demonstrate it is not an EM mediated reaction!

First, might the gamma in a tightly bound lattice of Ni and H deposit its energy before leaving the containment? Aleternatively, might the solid state nature permit of multiple, lower energy photon emission that is more readily absorbed?
And what happens if it just sits there and vibrates like hell. Before TOO long, the inner electrons might react and pass the reaction energy outward to other electrons thru to other atoms and then you have heat. One of these may be the mechanism.
THIS AIN'T PLASMA PHYSICS.
chrismb wrote:So, in summary; I see no thermodynamic reason for the proton to enter the 62Ni, and that even if it were there, there is no known nuclear mechanism by which heat would be released.
PLENTY of thermodynamic reasons (6.15MeV of them to use your number) and YOU identified a good mechanism to release at leat PART of it.

This whole thing MAY be a crock. But I have their statement that they have a mechanism that produces large excess heat and no physics reason to gainsay them, at least none that have been presented in a convincing manner.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

erblo wrote:Also - isn't the binding energy directly calculated from the mass difference?
The binding energy is the total sum equivalent of free protons and neutrons, minus the actual mass. The binding energy is the total energy that must have been given out in some previous nuclear reaction in the past.

I can see a debate looming in which you say 'well, if the total binding energy of the 63CU has nudged up, then you're saying that there must've been a net release of nuclear energy'. Well, I cannot disprove that right now because I don't have the exact figures, and we will probably be into the 4th or 5th decimal place of accuracy here, if we're floating around the turning-point on the curve of binding energy [as we are].

I guess it is not inconceivable that there is an excess of energy at the point of a Ni+p fusion, but it would really rub against anything I thought I knew if we find out that nuclear energy could then be usefully liberated from the excited resultant nucleus, rather than simply dropping back to 62Ni.

I guess I'm saying that I am happy for you to continue to question what actually happens vis-a-vis the mass and binding energy, as that isn't my strongest argument. I'd accept that there may be intermediate p+Ni outcomes with total nuclear energy more massive than >62Ni, for example where another p comes along and goes off with the first p, for example. Such a scenario would appear to add up, thermodynamically.

I guess my stronger argument is to ask what a 6.15MeV excited 63Cu would do next? It's not 'thermal' nor has any 'use' as an energy source, until it gives that energy up.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

KitemanSA wrote:Chrismb: You may be too locked into plasma fusion to speculate properly. Which is my lead in to "all this is PURE SPECULATION" on my part! :wink:
I agree I may be a bit stuck in convention right now to speculate, not sure that what I am thinking necessarily applies to just plasma stuff. Even their own papers on this stuff discuss 'approach energy', 'barrier tunneling' and the rest of the usual stuff.

As for the other stuff - that there may be an intermediate step that Ni catalyses, as per my post above I concede that such a thing is conceivable. Sure. But please bear in mind I am responding to the actual claims of this group, that there is an exothermic Ni+p product.

I did actually get a reply on the comments thread, so in further reply I wrote;

Dear Mr Rossi,

Thank you for your consideration of my question.

Yes, I think I might have references that are worth you while to look in to, that may help your work. It may take me a few weeks to find them again. I presume you can get my email reference from the posting details, please drop me an email (or send me a message, hit ‘PM’ at the bottom of the post I referenced).

There have been a number of different ‘energy claims’ involving anomalous production of energy from Nickel and hydrogen. Most notable/notorious, perhaps, is the ‘Blacklight Power’ concept that a lower state hydrogen is produced (hydrinos) under certain reactions with Raney Nickel {http://www.blacklightpower.com/pdf/NY Times 102108.pdf}.

I have been monitoring some of these various attempts over the years (hence interested in yours) and other related experiments. My references might help form a broader picture of the possibilities of what is going on for you.

In summary, there would surely appear to be anomalies with Nickel and I have no reason to doubt your measurements of excess heat. This is something to explore, indeed, but I do not think the origin can be nuclear. There is more to Nickel and hydrogen chemistry, I think.

Therefore, anomalous energy reports from Ni+H are prolific, suggesting there is more to the current understanding that does need researching. But I feel compelled to conclude, on current evidence, it is more due to some poorly-understood phase-change entropy in the structure of the material, or very unusual chemistry, than nuclear processes.

Good luck working out what is going on, and feel free to contact me if you like.
I think that sums up pretty much all I have to think about this, for now!

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

chrismb wrote: I can see a debate looming in which you say 'well, if the total binding energy of the 63CU has nudged up, then you're saying that there must've been a net release of nuclear energy'. Well, I cannot disprove that right now because I don't have the exact figures,
I GAVE you the exact figures just up the topic here.

These are the nuclear weights:

Code: Select all

63Cu  62.9295975 
62Ni  61.9283451 
      ---------- 
delta  1.0012524 

H  1.0078250 
This suggests that 0.0065726 units of mass have converted to energy.
Or try it like this

Code: Select all

1H  	   1.0078250 +
62Ni  	61.9283451
         ----------
         62.9361701 -
63Cu  	62.9295975
         ----------
          0.0065726

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

But I don't know, exactly, what the stability of an excited 63Cu is. If an excited 63Cu always ejects a proton, for example at 6.1MeV, then it will always jump back to 62Ni. If it ejects a proton at 6.3MeV then there may be a population of 63Cu's that remain after some reaction, able to then go on and further react with another p, as we both hit on as above. I don't know what the physics and excitation levels of 63Cu are.

Frankly, much as this has been interesting so far to explore, I'm unlikely to pull that data because the whole field of Ni+p is open to a host of interpretations which interest me only as far as the theories presented. I'm not really minded to throw in my own theories as to what is going on, because it seems like some material properties of Ni are a t work that are not understood. Resorting to one explanation - nuclear reactions - seems to me to be an exercise in giving up on other, simpler, explanations.

Could 62Ni act as some form of super-special nuclear catalyst, perhaps by the very virtue that it sits right on the turning-point of highest binding energy? If that's someone's cuppa-tea to research then I say 'good for them'. But if that is the claim, you can squarely put me in the 'skeptic' category for sure - for now!

ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

Giorgio wrote:I am looking at the videos of the test of yesterday.

Dott. Celani (the guy measuring the Gamma radiation and is quite skeptical about the test) stated that he requested to measure the spectra of the gamma to understand the energy of the gamma itself and was prevented to do so from Ing. Rossi, under the logic that if he actually measured the energy of the emitted Gamma he would have clearly understood the working principle of the reactor.
Just a couple of minutes before he stated that they are not still understanding the working principle of the machine, and just have some hypothesis that will need a lot of further work.

Quite a contradiction IMHO.

Dott. Celani also stated that the instable increase of the gamma radiation could indicate that no hidden energy source should be present.



More details should be online monday

Andrea Rossi
January 15th, 2011 at 5:21 AM

Dear Mr Giorgio:
I remember that the flow propelled by the dosimeter was about 25 liters per hour ( prof. Levi regulated the instruments, I was a spectator, do not remember the numbers exactly). By next Monday the exact report with all the precise numerical data will be published on the Journal Of Nuclear Physics and on this blog. Prof. Levi is at the moment working on the analysis of the data and the day after tomorrow should be able to give us the report.
Warm regards,
A.R.
Link to videos in italian, fot the one willing to give a look at the machine or want to refresh their Italian ;)

http://www.youtube.com/user/efagroup201 ... -Ru1eAymvE
Giorgio,
I really liked the bit about keeping it simple because the press won't understand...
Really interesting exchange at about the gammas and betas. It was interesting how he was somewhat avoiding direct exchange of ideas. He accepted they have good questions and thoughts but did not address them. I think my favorite bit in the exchange was at the start where he told Celani he was too prepared and too smart.
It seemed he kept focused on the basic point that they put about 650W in and got about 12Kw out in water heat.
I would be interested to know the start and finish weights of the reactants/apparatus elements, as well getting Celani's spectrum survey done.

It seems fair to say the Rossi kept saying that they don't why it is doing what it does. What bothered me was in his manner, it seemed almost like he could say that, but also knew some of what it wasn't doing (in a sense).

Giorgio
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Post by Giorgio »

ladajo wrote:I think my favorite bit in the exchange was at the start where he told Celani he was too prepared and too smart.
Indeed, it looked like there was some friction between the two, probably from past discussions...

ladajo wrote:It seemed he kept focused on the basic point that they put about 650W in and got about 12Kw out in water heat.
I would be interested to know the start and finish weights of the reactants/apparatus elements, as well getting Celani's spectrum survey done.
Assuming an out/inp of 20 there is anyhow a big difference with the previous experiments reported in the Rossi-Focard paper where out/inp COP was more than 200. This is an order of magnitude difference and makes me wonder a lot.....
I will send them now a request of clarification on this point and seeif they will reply.
ladajo wrote:It seems fair to say the Rossi kept saying that they don't why it is doing what it does. What bothered me was in his manner, it seemed almost like he could say that, but also knew some of what it wasn't doing (in a sense).
yes, my feeling was that he was behaving more like an used car salesman than a scientist.

tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

What matters about this demo is not whether out/in is 10X or 2X but how long it can last for and whether the reactor is genuinely closed. many chemical reactions can give high output power for short period.

All they need is to show unambiguously high output energy per reactor mass, and no inputs except H2O and air. that should not be difficult, if they have what they claim...

10kW would need to be sustained for a several weeks from 1kg, given possible reaction enthalpy in order of 10s of MW/kg and 2kg (guess from picture) reactor.

tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

What matters about this demo is not whether out/in is 10X or 2X but how long it can last for and whether the reactor is genuinely closed. many chemical reactions can give high output power for short period.

All they need is to show unambiguously high output energy per reactor mass, and no inputs except H2O and air. that should not be difficult, if they have what they claim...

10kW would need to be sustained for several hours at least, given possible reaction enthalpy in order of 10s of MW/kg and 2kg (guess from picture) reactor.

Betruger
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Post by Betruger »

Ivy Matt wrote:Which physics journal? The Journal of Nuclear Physics? It's been around since February 2010, not much time to gain high regard.
..
http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/01/ ... y-or-scam/

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