Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR)... focused on thermal events.

What is referred to as Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) or loosely termed Cold Fusion has been focused on thermal events.

The idea is to heat a device up and harvest more heat out than input. The of the issues with this for electricity production is losses of at least 60% to convert heat into electricity. To date many researchers can clearly demonstrate an anomalous event, but no one has been able to engineer it into a practical application.

LENR ElectricThis is where the research from two Europeans become interesting. Fabrice DAVID & John GILES from Deuo Dynamics have been performing several experiments that are looking at the possibility of creating electricity directly from an LENR reaction. Their work I am sure will inspire many others to follow. I am impressed with their methodology, and they also do not make any claims and instead put up some interesting theories. Another surprising part of this puzzle is the funding being supplied the Municipality of the town of Franconville (Val d’Oise, France) and the Honorary Deputy and Mayor, Mr F. Delattre,

Like all good research, more questions are generated than answered. My questions for now are simplistic given some of the research I have been involved in. Those more qualified I am sure will ask others.

2. Is it a half cell reactions with Deuterium or Hydrogen gas being the consumable?

Recently Fabrice and David published a paper which can be found at ; http://coldfusionnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/DavidFselfpolari.pdf david fabrice

Before proceeding with their finding, a little background on these two researchers. Deuo Dynamics is a company focused on the development of new energy to replace fossil fuels. Their combined work experience covers practical aspects such as instrumentation and data logging, pressure vessels and gas management, as well as more scientific areas such as measuring small quantities of radioactive products, particularly the tritium. They are developing techniques to enhance reading of DNA.Deuo Dynamics is not limited to cold fusion, but also other New Energies as well as GEOENGINEERING.

Fabrice DAVID is a nuclear geneticist. He was the student of the academician Jacques RUFFIE, in his laboratory of the College of France located in the building of the CNRS in Paris. Fabrice is a well established member of the Condensed Matter Nuclear Science group, and has been working in the field for over 5 years. Fabrice has a number of patents and experiments with previous projects.

John GILES has a background in design engineering in particular with sub sea construction projects, including remotely operated subsea equipment. Applicable here as developer of electrical sensor packages and gas systems, as well as thermo dynamic systems. Being close to the energy business and living in Northern UK brings home the issues of energy shortage.

Other projects include a new type of solar cell from which the active material derives from a common biological compound. This compound is not poisonous or hazardous. The compound is inexpensive, and once transformed, is resistant to light and the ultraviolet rays. The also have tested a plasma cold fusion cell is based on the idea that the thermodynamic energy transfer is the driving limitation of an excess heat fuel cell. The energy created in a nuclear reaction is several tens of thousands of more intense than an equivalent thermodynamic process, consequently the rate of removal of the heat energy will limit the amount of energy the system can supply.

A solar cell is a diode with a large surface. When photons fall on the junction zone, some of the atoms are excited, and electrons pass from a low level energy to a higher energy level. The photons are absorbed, which is why this matter is dark, and the excitation energy is transformed into heat. In a solar cell, part of this energy is transformed into electric current.

It appears as a voltage between the two poles of the cell. If one connects a load between the positive pole and the negative pole, an electrical current will flow. With our fusion diode, the concept that we developed works as with a photovoltaic diode by forming a junction between palladium charged with deuterium and a semiconductor.

Conventionally, the reactions of cold fusion produce heat. Our concept considers that before transforming itself into heat, the energy released by fusions of the deuterium, initially will produce an excitation of the atoms and molecules in the junction region. As in a solar cell, this excitation may cause the appearance of an electric voltage.

A diode is an electrical contact between N and P materials. The electrons of the conduction band are not in the same potential in the two materials. In the junction region, the electric field is enormous: 0,5 volt over 0,5micrometer. this field will confine the deuterium core against the semiconductor. The deuterium cores cannot enter the semiconductor, and they accumulate. Therefore the probability of the reactions of fusion will increase.

Our theory is compatible with those presented by the majority of the eminent theorists who have worked on the subject for all these years: for example, Condensate of Bose-Einstein, Resonant Tunnelling, Erzions, Polyneutrons, Monopoles, etc.

lenr electric 1Our first fusion diodes were constructed with tubes of glass. At the base of these tubes (0.7cm of diameter) is welded a platinum wire. Around this wire, is packed the palladium powder. Following this is packed the semiconductor powder. The powders are then packed using a glass push rod. Finally a glass fibre stopper to retain the powder but allow flow of gas. Through this stopper passes a copper connection.

The tube out of glass is then placed in a tubular pressure container. Here the diodes are vacuumed, then filled with deuterium. This is the system used to vacuum the fusion diode and to fill it with various gases:

Once the D2 is introduced to our device, a voltage is quickly generated, rising from zero to typically 0.5 V. To exclude the possibility of any electrical signal coming from the environment, we first use Argon as the cell gas and log the cell for potential voltage for a week, following the Argon the cell is vacuumed and filled with H2, and left for a second week. Finally the H2 is vacuumed and the cell is filled with D2, and run for a week. See the results below

In our diode, D2 and HD dissociate in palladium, and we think that the deuterium nuclei start to fuse. At the end of several weeks, the deuterium stock would begin to disappear and the voltage should decrease.

1) Measure gamma rays: We tested our device with several types of Geiger counters and semiconductor radiation meters with semiconductors . We didn’t measured any significant radioactivity.

2) Quick looking for neutrons: We introduced our diode into an assembly containing cadmium, and placed against this assembly a Geiger counter: we did not observe gamma rays coming from the reaction of capture neutrons by cadmium.

3) Experiments in project: We are not sure that what we are seeing is Cold Fusion . We have some indications, but in our double blind check, the H2 indicated similar voltage to the D2 and so could be an indication of a chemical reaction. There is some contamination of all H2 with D2 (0.03%), however our next step shall be to look for possible chemical reactions. Even if we find evidence of chemical reactions however this is not necessarily the end of the road, merely an indication of something to avoid or change to prevent future cells giving false indications. CONCLUSION

The authors have sought a different approach to using cold fusion to produce energy in the form of excess heat. Our device is a totally passive device, relying on the energy produced from within the device. The diodes are fabricated as powder diodes, with a large surface junction made up of a semiconductor in contact with palladium charged with deuterium.

The suspected fusion reactions take place in the junction between the semi conductor and the Palladium powder, which produces an excitation which is transmitted to the electrons. This excitation increases their energy and allows them to cross the bandgap of the semiconductor and pass into the conduction band, as in a photovoltaic cell. This energy very quickly appears as a spontaneous potential difference which can reach over 0.5 volt over the cell.

The potential drop concentrates on the junction region, and at a nano scale the electric field reaches considerable values, higher than the megavolt per meter, which constrains the deuterium nuclei and increases the probability of deuterium fusion. The released power remains very low for the moment, but it should be noted that it is presented in the form of directly usable electrical energy, and not of thermal energy.

The authors compare the density of energy obtained in their device, with the density of energy released by the first atomic pile produced by Fermi in Chicago:

Our Fusion Diode has 1g of palladium, and had an electrical power in the range of the microwatt. giving a mass/power of 1.0×10-6 W/g. The CP 1 Fermi pile of the Chicago university, the first atomic reactor ever built weighed 864 000 pound (nearly 431 tons) for 100 watts of thermal energy. (it was probably a peak power, because the reactor was not shielded, and most of the scientists of the Fermi team managed to live to a ripe old age).

The mass to power ratio of our cold fusion device and of the fission device are in the same order. Source: http://www.deuodynamics.com/

As a side note: Palladium is poisonous, pyrophoric (in fine dust) and relatively expensive (about $750/oz. as of right now) rare metal. 44% of world production of Pd is in Russia. The USA only mines 5%.

The cost shouldn't be a big concern initially, but if every diode requires 1g of Pd then pretty soon we are talking real money here. Pd is used in electronic parts, but in micrograms. A catalytic converter from a car may cost about $1000, in part because it contains rare metals.

The article admits that chemical reactions are likely in the test device because H₂ and D₂ are producing the same voltage. Let's see what happens after they do more research.

Like all good research, more questions are generated than answered.

Uh, no. Who comes up with such silly platitudes?

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