by Dott. Giuliano Bettini
Retired. Earlier: Selenia SpA, Rome and IDS SpA, Pisa
Also Adjunct Professor at the University of Pisa
Adjunct Professor at Naval Academy, Leghorn (Italian Navy)
Abstract
In the present article I would like to answer a question posed by L. Kowalsky in a recent paper: how can 30% of nickel in Rossi’s reactor be transmuted into copper? “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”, says a guy. I apologizes if I am too simplistic here.
Introduction
The interest on Andrea Rossi’s Nickel-Hydrogen Cold Fusion technology is accelerating [1]. However, Rossi says that about 30% of nickel was turned into copper, after 6 months of uninterrupted operation. Kowalski [2]. says that “this seems to be impossible because the produced copper isotopes rapidly decay into Ni”. But how it works?
How it works
Following Focardi Rossi [3]. a Ni58 nucleus produces a Copper nucleus according to the reaction
Ni58 + p → Cu59
Copper nucleus Cu59 decays with positron (e+) and neutrino (ν) emission in Ni59 nucleus according to
Cu59 → Ni59 + ν + e+
Then (e+) annichilates with (e-) in two gamma-rays
e- + e+ → γ + γ
Starting [3] from Ni58 which is the more abundant isotope, we can obtain as described in the two above processes Copper formation and its successive decay in Nickel, producing Ni59, Ni60, Ni61 and Ni62. Because Cu63, which can be formed starting by Ni62, is stable and does not decay in Ni63, the chain stops at Ni62 (i.e. Cu63). Each process means some MeV.
Of course how can a proton p gets captured by the Ni58 nucleus? (and subsequent Ni59, Ni60, Ni61 and Ni62). Following Stremmenos [4]. a neutron-like particle, an electron proton pair, a mini-atom, a proton masked as a neutron, gets captured by the Ni58.
If the masked proton becomes a neutron the result is Ni59.
In order to have Cu59 (increase of atomic number from 28 to 29) the electron (of the masked proton) gets ejected from the nucleus. The masked proton becomes a proton.
The same process holds for all the subsequent transformations, until Cu63.
It remains to be understood the issue of the gamma radiation in the MeV range.
Numbers
I am an electronic engineer, so I need easy numbers in order to understand.
However “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”, says a guy. Maybe I am too simple here.
Let’s calculate.
MeV for each Ni transformation
I read that starting from Ni58 we can obtain Copper formation and its successive decay in Nickel, producing Ni59, Ni60, and Ni62. The chain stops at Cu63 stable.
For simplicity I assume all the Nickel in the reactor in the form Ni58.
For simplicity I suppose for each Ni58 the whole sequence of events from Ni58 to Cu63 and as a rough estimate I calculate the mass defect between (Ni58 plus 5 nucleons) and the final state Cu63.
Ni58 mass is calculated to be 57.95380± 15 amu
The actual mass of a copper-Cu63 nucleus is 62.91367 amu
Mass of Ni58 plus 5 nucleons is 57.95380+5=62.95380 amu
Mass defect is 62.95380-62.91367=0.04013 amu
1 amu = 931 MeV is used as a standard conversion
0.04013×931 MeV=37.36 MeV
So each transformation of Ni58 into Cu63 releases 37.36MeV of nuclear energy.
Nickel consumption
According to many blogs in the Internet “One hundred grams of nickel powder can power a 10 kW unit for a minimum of six months”.
How much of Ni58 should be transformed, in six months of continuous operation, in order to generate 10 kW?
I follow a procedure outlined in [2].
10 kW is thermal or electrical (?) power. The nuclear power must be larger. Assume a nuclear power twice:
20 kW = 20,000 J/s = 1.25 x 10**17 MeV/s.
Each transformation of Ni58 into Cu63 releases 37.36MeV of nuclear energy.
The number of Ni58 transformations should thus be equal to (1.25 x 10**17)/37.36 = 3.346 x 10**15 per second.
Multiplying by the number of seconds in six months (1.55 x 10**7) the total number of transformed Ni58 nuclei is 5.186 x 10**22.
This means 5 grams.
The order of magnitude is not exactly the same but seems to be plausible. This means also 5 grams of Nickel in Rossi’s reactor transmuted into (stable) Copper after six months of continuous operation at the rate of 10 kW.
Conclusions
Rossi says that about 30% of nickel was turned into copper, after 6 months of uninterrupted operation. At first glance this seems to agree with calculations based on simple assumptions.
References
Jean Pierre:
Thank you for your kind suggestion.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Andrea.
If you have ever watched the live Royal Institution Christmas lectures you will be convinced that they are very professional in their visual presentation and have a gift for making difficult concepts simple to understand and to show fascinating and stimulating demonstrations with their apparatus.
It occurs to me that you may find it very useful to approach them for ideas for your October 2017 Qx demonstration. It is possible that you and your team may overlook some wonderful aspect of presentation that will really enhance your show.
They have had so much experience with this type of thing that their participation/advice would, I’m sure, be very valuable to you. Naturally ,there are very good people in the USA too and extra input will help you to provide a first class presentation that everyone will understand easily throughout the English-speaking world. A lot is riding on this event.
I hope this thought has been helpful. Best wishes for the future. Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
Thank you for your insight,
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Andrea.
Perhaps I am not thinking clearly or strategically enough but there is something that is bothering me.
With regard to the Qx that has an output of 20W. You have stated that one control unit (shall we call it a mother board?) can control 100 Qx. The combined output of this amount is 2000W or 2kW. To produce a 1000kW (1MW) plant you will need 500 mother boards ,presumably stacked in some way so as to make it easy to remove one if a failure of a board occurs.
This seems to me to be a waste of valuable space when so many boards are to be used. Would it not, therefore, be sensible to also offer to a customer a small range of Qx output,for example 100W, 500W, 1kW, 10 kW so that a much smaller amount of mother boards can be associated with any given total output?
This idea will only be sensible if one universal mother board could be arranged electrically to accommodate all 4 types of Qx previously mentioned with slight adjustment of a component on the board.
I accept that for mass production this might require relevant flexibility in the line construction in order to make this range, but there could be advantages to industrial buyers.
For example, one difficult- to- find fault in one board in a stack of a huge number would be annoying and time consuming to identify and remove/replace. In fact, the repair engineer might be thinking that the fault was in a mother board when it was really in one of the Qx. Less boards; better for the engineer. Just a thought.
Best wishes. Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
Thank you for your kind support.
Warm Regards
A.R.
Dear Andrea.
I am pleased to read the results of the trial. This will allow you to move forward unimpeded, which is a wonderful thing.
Someone raised in the past the notion that you should make sure that the whole of the Doral set up should be protected and remain as a physical testament and example for future generations to gaze upon; like the horizontal Saturn 5 rocket
is today on show for all to visit and see for themselves the enormity of the achievement Of course, this will involve the consideration of the 1MW plant’s permanent housing. Please give this some thought fairly soon as undesired actions can be disastrous and rued if the matter is delayed.
It has also been expressed in the past that, in the future, a full length movie should be made of your life and of your long struggle against the resistance to your hard work and aspirations. Should this idea be realised, then you or an actor could be filmed in the actual freight containers used. There is nothing like reality in a film. Again, keeping the plant would seem invaluable in an historical sense.
Thank you for your very long efforts in attempting to bring a new baby into the world.
Very best wishes. Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
Thank you for your kindness.
Answer:
not necessarily. The important is that the power source is indepentent.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Andrea.
I am so glad to hear that your health is back to normal. I prize good health above all else. Money is a very poor item when compared with this.
For a very long time you have consistently said that the grid was an essential part in safety considerations. Aside from utilising the grid as a chosen power source , is it also vital as a backup to supply the required energy considerations/characteristics in order to quench a runaway Quarkx?
Thank you if you can clarify this point.
Keep well. Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
I am not able to answer now to this question.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Andrea. I am very happy to hear that you have recovered from your spell in hospital. I myself have had more than enough experiences with hospitals lately.
With regards to the Quarkx; I am aware that a proportion of the output can be electrical if desired. Leaving aside the possible instability and safety issues for a moment, Is there sufficient electrical energy from the output to totally drive the input if this could be arranged?
I wish you the very best of health for all your future days. Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
I do not think it will be possible, because the test will be made by means of calorimetry measuring the temperature difference of a fluid inside the heat exchanger and the QuarkX is inside the heat exchanger that must be externally well insulated and shielded.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Andrea.
Thank you for your reply. For the demonstration of the Qx in both dummy and active modes, might I suggest that both systems have tanks, pipes ,heat exchangers, etc made from transparent materials?
The heat exchangers will certainly require good insulation.
Perhaps they could be enclosed in a box-like structure that can be quickly and easily removed at the end of the experiment so that the tv observers can see through the heat exchanger itself to the Qx. The box could have a hinged flap that could be easily opened. I am thinking of the sort of thing that the Searle’s Bar experiment utilises—–the experiment done by students of pre-university. Perhaps this notion has already occurred to you; if so, I apologise to you for this unnecessary email.
Best wishes. Jean Pierre.
Jean Pierre:
Not yet.
Warm Regards
A.R.
Dear Andrea:
has the Quarkx been awarded the same type of industrial safety certification that is possessed by the Tigers and other industrial reactors? Thank you for any reply.
Best wishes. Jean Pierre
Jane:
The real presentation will be when the QuarkX will be put in commerce, now this will be just a demo of the tests we make every day, extended to experts that will share with us the measurements, probably transmitted in streaming.
Nothing exotic.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Dr Andrea Rossi:
Why do you expose yourself making a demo with the QuarkX in such a delicate moment?
Cheers,
Jane
Jear Pierre:
Thank you very much for your sustain and my best wishes for a Great Christmas and a Fantastic 2017 to you,
Andrea Rossi
Dear Andrea, since I will not have access to email or the internet for a short while, I would like very much to wish you and your team a hugely enjoyable Christmas period and also a very successful and profitable 2017–and beyond. Thank you for all the time that you take to converse with those people who have an interest in your work and life. We all enjoy hearing from you.
Warmest regards. Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
I prefer not to open the valve of the flow of information related to the progress on course for the construction of a massive production factory.
When it will be ready, everybody will know.
It will not take long, I hope and think.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Andrea,
Quite some time ago I enquired whether or not you had placed orders for robots to assist with mass production of the E-Cat.
Your reply was in the negative except for an engineering model.
Since there are only about 5 months remaining until the end of 2016, I would like to reopen this enquiry if I may.
1) Have you placed orders for robotic devices that will assist with the mass production of any of the E-Cat variants?
2) If ‘Yes’ to the above, are there orders for:
a) several or
b) many
of such devices ?
3) If orders have been placed, have you actually taken
possession of them?
Thanks for the time to answer these questions.
Best wishes for the trial outcome and also any mass production that will take place.
Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
Thank you for your interesting proposal.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Andrea,
It occurs to me that when the name LENR is given to someone who has never heard of this phenomenon it is more likely than not that he/she will, in the first moments, assume that the letter L means low energy OUTPUT. Obviously this gives the wrong impression and tends to fix in the mind. To correct this ,one would have to quote LEINR where I=INPUT; not desirable.
Perhaps it is time now to introduce a different name for LENR?
I would humbly suggest that we all start using HENR and perhaps select the following options:
1) High Energy Neo-classical Reactions (covers all LENR facets)or
2) High Energy Nickel, Nickelised, or Nufire Reactions (E-Cat)
To me 1) would seem more appropriate, with the ‘H=High’ making the best first impression when breaking the news to the world at large and to any single individual. (F9)
‘High’ is so much more impressive than ‘Low’ in my opinion.
I am aware that LENR is well-established in the field at this time but perhaps it is not too late to make a fresh start with a more appropriate name HENR.
The extra advantage is that N no longer has negative associations that come with Nuclear– and Neo-classical in particular has a nice ring to it. I hope that I will not upset anyone by these suggestions as it is normal for some people to get used to a particular name and then not want to change to something else.I am not normally a person to embrace change myself, so I know how they will probably feel when contemplating any change from LENR.
Keep trucking and keep well. Jean Pierre
Alessio Bardi:
Yes, could be.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
At industrial scale the energy storage is carried out commonly by electrochemical reactions bymeans of batteries (anode, cathode, eletrcotlite).
The industrial/residential applications are growing up very fast, but the specific energy storage (Wh/kg) and specific power available (W/kg) are ones of the heavy limitations to overcome.
Among batteries, the most common ones involve electrodes made by Ni, Li metal hydrides etc, strangely enough, the same elements at the base of LENR. Moreover nanostructures are now becoming fundamental to improve the performance of batteries, but always exploiting the electrochemical way only. Electricity and reversible chemical reactions are sides of same coin. But the coin has another surface, very thin, that we usually do not take into account when we think about it. Research in this field is estraordinary expansive because of large business opportunities (electrical car, residential storage etc. etc.). My feeling is that LENR mechanisms could be associated not only to release energy bymeans heat, but, in a sort of reversible process, to storage energy as well.
Since you have proven that LENR can be managed in such applications, do you think that a sort of reversible LENR focused on storing energy could be related somehow to your eCat device?
Wladimir Ivanov:
I never comment on our competitors and I do not approve the term ” The gang of”.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Andrea:
The gang of Lattice LLC ( Krivit, Larsen, Widom, “Mary Yugo”= George Lawrence Hody, Gary Wright= Gary Watkins) are complaining in the blogosphere that you did not allow them to come to visit your tests: they comply that you did not allow them to spy ! ( Ha,ha,ha)
How do you comment this?
Wlad
Alessio Bardi:
Interesting question: can you explain more in detail, to allow me to think better about it ? I have not experience in the field of energy storage, therefore I’d like to understand better.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Dr. Rossi,
I am a chemical engineer involved in the reasearch field of an energy company. I have been following your updates on e-cat with exciting interest for about 2 years and I recently have got interested in LENR phenomena.
Since the interest of energy companies in energy storage is tremendously increasing, I would like to address to you a question: do you think is it possible to think about a “reverse E-cat” device to be applied in energy storage?
Best regards
A.B.
Jean Pierre:
He,he,he…thanks for your attention. As a prize, here is the update as of 8 a.m. of Saturday July 18th: 1MW E-Cat stable; Hot Cat: I shut it down, because new inventions have to be applied to the apparatus, after the meditations made observing it in the last months; within a week a new version will be restarted.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Thanks so much for the clarification, Andrea !
I am a happy bunny (rabbit) now.
Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
1- the 1 MW E-Cat IS made entirely with LT (= low temperature) modules
3- the 250 kW E-Cats ARE low temperature modules too
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Hi Andrea again.
Sorry to query your reply to me.
You said ‘yes’ to both items 1 and 3.
It is not possible for the current 1MW plant in the customer’s factory to be made up from
1) entirely (100%) LT e-cats and also
3) a mixture of LT cats and 250kW cats
It is one or the other. Please clarify for me .
Thanks and apologies for disturbing you.
Best wishes. Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
1- yes
2- no
3- yes
Thank you for your kind words,
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear Andrea.
Please forgive me if the following question seems somewhat naif.
With regards to the 1MW plant being tested this very day in the factory of your customer, would you please tell me the current configuration of the plant? Is it made up;
1) entirely from LT cats?
2) entirely from 250kW cats?
3) from a mix of the two types of cat?
Thank you for taking your valuable time to answer.
Keep well and keep going, my friend. I can see that you are giving 100% to this very important project in order to make a breakthrough for the world. I don’t think that you can work harder.
Warmest regards. Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
1- yes
2- not yet utilized, still unerd study
3- deal!
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Hi Andrea,
1) Are there any encouraging signs in the development of
G-Cat (G=Gas) by the other half of your team ?
2) Is the jet engine, that you bought, being utilised or
has it been mothballed for the time being?
3) I am trying to lose weight, and you need to gain some.
How about a trade?
Keep well and continue to enjoy your very valuable work.
Jean Pierre
Jean Pierre:
Thank you for the wishes and for your insight,
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Hi Andrea,
A belated Happy Birthday! I have been away; sorry for my omission.
The idea of augmenting a fossil- fuelled power station with a successful 1 MW LENR plant overcomes the need for a separate electrical storage device as a ‘direct- feed- back’ buffer to run the ecat, since a small part of the station’s electrical output can be fed back to the 1MW input in a direct and controlled amount; see next paragraph for further explanation. One feedback line could supply the necessary heating while a second would be dedicated to the electronic control system.
Now for the explanation mentioned above. There should then be no concern for thermal runaway and safety because the ecat will not be feeding itself directly but borrowing from the station’s total output, the vast majority of which comes via the fossil fuel. One could imagine this station’s fossil fuel output portion to be a sort of storage device in itself—but one like a non- static electricity reservoir; an in-built, DYNAMIC storage device in fact.
In the past, you seemed to be against feeding back part of the ecat’s output energy to its own input directly without some kind of storage buffer. Are you still thinking the same way now or will your control system be effective enough for all undesirable and unexpected conditions when you manage to generate ecat electrical energy and use part of it to run the system?
I visualise that in the future the LENR contribution to the station’s input could be increased in steps, thus gradually reducing the huge amounts of fossil fuel currently needed.
In the power station example above, if the 1MW had a mind of its own and was unaware of all the other machinery it would conclude that it was entirely self-sufficient, including its own start up.
Happy birthday again. Jean Pierre.
Keriusene:
Today we had a problem, due to series of gaskets that turned out to be defectous; we had to resolve the problem without turning out the plant. Got some trouble. Now is fixed.
Great Team!
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dr Rossi:
Can you give an update ? How id going the 1MW E-Cat today?
Keriusene:
Are you a ghostbuster?
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dr Andrea Rossi:
Voices are around about the fact that other very, very important replications have been made of the Lugano Report in Europe, after the replicas of Dr Parkhomov. Voices say that anomalous excess of heat has been measured independently from a group of scientists, well known, who have built a reactor copied from the Lugano report, as well as the charge, and they got an excess beyond any doubt! Do you have comments?
Keriusene:
Sorry, I cannot give this information.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dear A.R.:
How did you resolve the problem of dendrites in your Li based charges?
Keriusene:
I will finish to write it within a couple of weeks ( I am using the nights inside the E-Cat, so I hope not to have troubles), then it will be peer reviewed: I hope to have it published in a month or two.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dr Rossi:
You said you are writing a paper with calculations regarding the reverse Mossbauer Effect to explain the Rossi Effect as it has been observed in the measurements after the Lugano test of the ITP: when will it be published?
Keriusene:
Here is the link related to the 3D printing of a jet engine:
http://monash.edu/news/.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Keriusene:
Yes, I read about it on “NASA Tech Briefs” of April 2015. Very interesting, that is a 3D tech hat can really interest us for the manufacturing of the E-Cat, but it is a prototype made by the Monash University: in this case 3D printing builds up layer after layer of metal powder, and this is a big step forward after the manufacturing of things made by caedboard or plastic.
We are interested to these developments.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Dr Rossi:
Have you seen the 3D jet engine made in Australia by Prof Xinhua Wu?
Melanie Lisk:
The safety certification for the domestic units is on course.
Warm Regards,
A.R.