The following post has been submitted by Hank Mills
Replicators still do not fully understand how the high temperature E-Cat produces excess heat. Although some individuals such as Alexander Parkhomov and Songsheng Jiang have produced working reactors, many other people have failed in their replication attempts. This is because we have yet to figure out the critical parameters in building a working device. In my opinion, the evidence is pointing towards the ignition of hydrogen-lithium plasma as being important.
A plasma could be defined as a gas that has been ionized. This means electrons have been added or removed from the atoms that compose the plasma. I think the evidence is pointing towards a plasma being created in the high temperature E-Cat. If a plasma is needed for the proton-lithium reactions to take place, then our goal needs to be to figure out the conditions to create such a plasma.
One company, Unified Gravity LLC, has conducted hundreds of experiments that resulted in proton-lithium fusion. Details of their work have been revealed in this patent application: http://unifiedgravity.com/resources/WO2014189799-PAMPH-330-2.pdf. In one of their most successful setups, a disc of solid lithium covered in lithium hydride is placed in a large spherical reactor. Electrodes are connected to the lithium disc or its support. In one test, three hundred volts and a few tens of milliamps (totaling approximately four watts) was applied to the lithium disc.
The power was applied via an alternating DC square wave with a ten percent duty cycle. According to their patent application (that is filled with data from hundreds of experiments), the negative pulses create plasma by causing arcing between the lithium hydride particles. This both releases lithium vapor and ignites the plasma. The positive pulses induce nuclear fusion between the ionized hydrogen and lithium.
Unified Gravity has proven that fusion takes place, because an alpha particle detector behind a tiny hole of a couple millimeters in diameter registered hundreds of thousands of impacts per second. These alpha particles had an energy of several million electron volts matching what would be the result of proton-lithium fusion. If the power to run the vacuum pump (the atmospheric pressure in the reactor is usually far less than one bar) is not included, the COP of the system can be in the thousands.
Unified Gravity has discovered that protons do not need huge amounts of energy to undergo fusion reactions with lithium atoms. Mainstream physics requires proton energies of at least three hundred thousand electron volts for any nuclear reactions to take place. For a large number of reactions, millions of electron volts are required. Unified Gravity has discovered there is a window between two hundred electron volts and a few thousand electron volts in which fusion can be induced. These low levels of proton energy can be easily induced via the voltage applied to the lithium disc. Interestingly, if they go above or below this range, the number of nuclear reactions falls dramatically. According to their theory of gravity, at this energy range the gravity of the proton can interact with the lithium to overcome the coulomb barrier.
So what does this have to do with the E-Cat?
First, we know that the high temperature E-Cat is capable of vaporizing lithium. This can start, if the pressure is low enough, at around 750C. This seems to be the temperature range in which excess heat starts to be produced in some experiments by replicators.
Secondly, there is strong evidence that Andrea Rossi utilizes square waves with lots of harmonics. The evidence comes from the Lugano report, and the diagram of the wave form that was in Rossi’s lab See here: http://www.ecat-thenewfire.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Wave.jpg). Square waves are important when it comes to ionizing gas because the electric field of a coil is dependent on the rate of change of the magnetic field. In a square wave, the current rise is instant, and this creates a strong electric field that may ionize the hydrogen and lithium gas. It may do so directly or via arcing between nickel particles.
Thirdly, gas ionizes more easily at low pressure. In the most successful replication experiments (Parkhomov and Songsheng) the pressure was lower than in some other less successful experiments. If a plasma is needed to produce excess heat, a lower pressure of less than one bar would allow the plasma to be formed at a lower temperature and with less powerful stimulation.
Of course a huge difference between Unified Gravity’s technology and the E-Cat is that the E-Cat utilizes nickel. Most likely, in the E-Cat both hydrogen-nickel and hydrogen-lithium reactions take place. However, the hydrogen-lithium reactions may be very similar to the ones in the Unified Gravity reactor. The difference would be that instead of one lithium disc in the Unified Gravity reactor, the E-Cat utilizes millions of lithium covered nickel particles. Also, current is not directly applied to the fuel of the E-Cat. However, the electric field from the solenoid resistor probably produces eddy currents in the nickel.
I think that it is of critical importance that we determine if the hot cat utilizes plasma. If so, we can start optimizing setups to make sure plasma is formed.
I would ask that every successful replicator – Parkhomov, the Lugano team, Songsheng, and the Moscow team – give their thoughts about this topic.
Hank Mills
