Thanks to Cold Fusion Now and AlainCo at LENR Forum for picking up what seems to be a very important development — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has been granted a patent by the European Patent Office for a “Nuclide transmutation device and nuclide transmutation method” which the introduction to the patent states could allow for the transforming of long-lived radioactive waste into short-lived radioactive nuclides or stable nuclides, and the transmutation of abundant elements into rare earth elements.
The patent application was filed in 2001 and was granted on December 3 2013, and the inventors are listed as Yasuhiro Iwamura, Takehiko Itoh and Mitsuru Sakano with the applicant being Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
I don’t find a reference to LENR itself in the patent application, but the description of the device clearly shows that an LENR process is involved. The invention is described as a ‘small scale device’ which comprises of a multilayer structure body made of palladium or other hydrogen absorbing metal or alloy, absorption and desorption parts that surround the body, and high and low pressurization devices that produce deuterium.
The granting of this patent provides an important stamp of credibility for the field of LENR, and opens a door to a world of possibilities in materials science where elements can be engineered in useful ways. Mitsubishi is one of the world’s giants of engineering and having them involved in LENR development, and now granted this patent, will surely garner the attention of the engineering, scientific and business worlds.
