The 2011 Cold Fusion/Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reactions Colloquium at MIT

The 2011 Cold Fusion/Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reactions Colloquium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Part 1

(Report prepared by staff of JET Energy, Inc.)

JULY/AUGUST 2011 • ISSUE 98 • INFINITE ENERGY 2

The 2011 Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reactions/Cold Fusion Colloquium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

was held on Saturday, June 11 and Sunday, June 12, 2011. The meeting
focused on the science and technology of cold fusion and
lattice assisted nuclear reactions (LANR). This year, there
were 23 presentations. LANR nanomaterials headlined the
talks, only to be surpassed by patent issues, Rossi’s contribution
and recent high technologic developments in LANR.

Two Days of Excess Energy
In the first lecture, Dr. Swartz (JET Energy, Inc.) summarized
some of the more important facts about cold fusion
and reasons that CF research is needed. He explained that
although, in 1989, the physics community did not believe
the initial LANR/CF experiments, many things have happened
since. Then, fusion was not known to occur at low
temperatures and was not known to occur in solids. Today,
the facts show otherwise. The initial failures of CF resulted
from bad experiments, bad paradigm, questionable materials,
poor loadings and a poor appreciation of the requisite
metallurgy and engineering. Today, those issues are resolved,
and particle emission, excess energy, excess power gain,
commensurate linked helium-4 production with excess heat,
are undeniable, along with increasing power gains and total
energies achieved since 1989. Together, these herald an
important new, clean form of energy production, also called
cold fusion, that is, fusion assisted by highly loaded metal
hydrides in lattice assisted nuclear reactions [LANR].

In particular, Dr. Swartz noted that CF enables a much
more efficient energy production, quite useful economically
in an increasing energy demand. The incredible environmental
importance is that LANR/CF reactions are “ultraclean.”
He illustrated this using an energy flow diagram of
the U.S. and then focused on a typical city, like Boston. He
demonstrated that of a multigigawatt metropolitan city,
each gigawatt per day today consumes 54,000 tons of coal
burning into the air a new 180,000 tons of CO2, 3600 tons
of SO2 and 480 tons of NO2 each and every day. He emphasized
that CF might be a potentially revolutionary, clean
energy source capable of dramatically reducing pollution as
well as the future expensive consumption of fossil fuel.

Dr. Swartz demonstrated that the utilization of successful
cold fusion would change the hundred of thousands of tons
of pollutants to a mere 24 garbage-size bags of an entirely
pollution-free product: ordinary helium gas. And the material
cost? Substituted for the 54,000 tons of coal is 6 pounds
(three quarters of a gallon) of heavy water.

Cold fusion offers incredibly efficient energy production,
clean and free of pollution, all toxic emissions, all carbon
footprints, all greenhouse gases and radioactivity, while
obviating fossil fuel. Dr. Swartz noted the medical and timely
environmental matters which show exactly why cold
fusion may just be the cleanest, and most efficient, energy
source of the future.

The fuel substrate is deuterium, plentiful from the oceans,
and the product is de novo, commensurate helium-4. The
evanescent problem is that, although Benjamin Franklin
first coined the term “cold fusion” for lightning-produced
sand fulgurites, that phrase next appeared in 1989 involving
metal hydrides (PdD and NiH) when the science was as widely,
but not deeply, investigated. Since then, two decades of
LANR R&D, sub rosa, have confirmed that excess heat production
(far above the input) accompanied by very low level,
but measurable, emissions can be driven by electric field and
gas loading techniques.

Today, there are several types of LANR: conventional, two
types of codeposition, as well as dual cathode, dual anode
and a variety of other loading systems. On one hand, high
electrical resistance LANR systems have yielded metamaterials
and control of deuteron flux. On the other hand, codeposition,
where fresh Pd and D plate out together on the
cathode, point the way to speedy onset for some of the reactions.

The excess heat has been monitored by up to five corroboratory
diagnostics, including heat flow measurements,
electricity production and LANR-coupled Stirling motors.

Success requires control of vacancies, adequate incubation
time, high loading, concomitant flux, the absence of quenching
conditions and critical control of input power. He also
emphasized that to create excess heat it is necessary to have
sufficiently high loading (the value of x in PdDx) and that
this has to occur before additional flux of deuterium through
the loaded material is introduced. In particular, he cited work
by SRI (Drs. McKubre and Tanzella) that shows that to
achieve excess heat, values of x must be greater than 0.85.

Newer diagnostics include near- and far-IR imaging which
reveal hot spots. Calibrated imaging has revealed non-thermal
near-IR emissions correlated with excess heat. Dr. Swartz
showed various electrodes loaded with hydrogen, which is
necessary for successful CF/LANR. He then demonstrated
CF/LANR near-IR emission appears in successful runs. These
images were made from calibrated electrodes in high Z and
codeposition LANR experiments. He said they have observed
near-IR radiation emissions when excess heat is present. This
near-IR emission is “non-thermal” in origin because it is correlated
with excess heat production and not with the physical
temperature. None of the control experiments (in which
heat is introduced in the electrodes resistively) produce a
comparable effect even at higher temperature. Dr. Swartz
pointed out that these emissions may confirm the hypothesis
that Bremsstrahlung emission, under increasingly lower
temperatures, shifts from penetrating ionizing radiation
toward skin-depth-locked infra-red radiation.

Given the prevalence of the fuel, and the incredible efficiency,
LANR could play a critical role in all future technologies
with potential revolutionary applications to transportation,
electricity production, medicine and space travel.

Dr. Swartz explained that besides creating heat, LANR/CF
processes can possibly be used to develop new materials, and
have been used in a range of LANR devices. America now has
these resources and LANR is an energy multiplier. But, the
question remains, do we (America and the world) have the
resourcefulness to get to the light at the end of the tunnel?
Following an overview of the field, and survey of the positive
results, Dr. Swartz explained why the term “low energy
nuclear reactions” (LENR) is a misnomer, since they are not
“low energy,” based on emissions of high-energy MeV states.

The field of cold fusion (LANR) is so extensive that readers
should see the peer-reviewed published survey of the
field [Swartz, M.R. 2009. “Survey of the Observed Excess
Energy and Emissions in Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions,”
Journal of Scientific Exploration, 23, 4, 419-436,
http://world.std.com/~mica/Swartz-SurveyJSE2009.pdf].

MIT Prof. Peter Hagelstein gave three presentations. His
first presentation analyzed in detail the Piantelli experiments
using nickel hydrides in the 1990s, and discussed the
relationships between the PdD experiments of the
Fleischmann-Pons type done at SRI with the NiH experiments
described by Piantelli’s group. In the SRI experiments,
high D/Pd loading has been found to be a requirement, and
deuterium flux inside the PdD has been found to be correlated
with excess power production. He has postulated a new
conjecture that we need molecular D2 to form inside the
PdD, which does not normally occur in bulk metal since the
electron density and the spatial density are too high.

Hagelstein’s calculations examined how the electron density
is lower near a vacancy and how it may enable D2 to form.

Vacancies can be present at a low concentration in bulk
Pd, and they appear after loading because they are stabilized
as more H or D go into the metal. In fact, once the concentration
reaches 0.95 in PdD near room temperature, the
vacancies become thermodynamically favored. The problem
is that thermodynamics does not indicate rate; and unfortunately
the vacancies diffuse very slowly (less than 1
Angstrom in a month). So one suggestion for successful
CF/LANR is to arrange for vacancies to appear in the bulk.

As a second suggestion, Dr. Swartz and Prof. Hagelstein
began investigating vacancies in Ni and Pd in the late 1990s
made de novo by electron beam irradiation and examined
their creation and disappearance with time. This demonstrated
that they can both form and “heal,” and thus disappear.

Hagelstein proposed that much of the old SRI experiments
can be understood if one thinks of the problem of
vacancy formation. Since vacancies don’t diffuse, the only
way to form them is through codeposition at a D/Pd loading
greater than 0.95, where the vacancies become thermodynamically
favored. The conjecture is that if one waits long
enough, some of the Pd will dissolve (during anodic cycling,
for example), and then subsequently be codeposited. If the
codeposition occurs at sufficiently high loading, then the
codeposited layer will have massive vacancies. Analysis of
the surface in some experiments indicates that the outer
1000-3000 Angstroms of the cathode contains elements that
could only have become part of the surface layer through
codeposition. As he noted, this conjecture is consistent with
the observation of He-4 in the gas phase associated with
excess heat. The helium would not be able to diffuse if made
further inside the cathode. If the NiH experiments “work
like” the PdD experiments, then we need to understand if
(and how) vacancies are made in the NiH experiments.

The first issue he noted was the question of how much
hydrogen can load into nickel. The pressure isotherms of
Ni/H are known, and the H/Ni loading ratio should be only
on the order of 0.02% in bulk even near the 1 atmosphere of
pressure used to load in the Piantelli experiment. Yet, the
amount of H in the Ni is observed to load much more. Prof.

Hagelstein’s first question is: “Why?” He said he suspects
that the higher loading could be caused by impurities and/or
defects. As he noted, in the Cammarota replication, the
impurity concentration seems too low to have produced the
observed Ni/H loading ratio of 0.2 which was measured. So
the question is whether this high loading might be due to
vacancies.

Prof. Hagelstein’s analysis demonstrated that vacancies
form much more easily in NiH than in PdD, and that in NiH
a loading of only 0.7 is needed near room temperature to stabilize
the vacancies. He presented p-T isotherms measured
by Baranowski at much higher H pressures than in the
Piantelli experiment. At about 6000 atm, NiH can form near
room temperature. He then discussed interesting electrochemical
experiments in NiH where X-ray diffraction measurements
were done, and revealed that in the miscibility gap
alloyed islands of 0.7 NiH loading appear, increasing with
the loading (a behavior very different than in PdD). In
essence, this means that even when NiH has a modest loading,
there can be great inhomogeneities with the local loading
able to reach NiH ~0.7.

Hagelstein’s hypothesis intuits that this results from local
vacancies which are generated. He suggests this because in
the early Piantelli group papers, a protocol is described in
which the temperature is lowered and then raised, following
which excess heat is observed. This protocol must necessarily
be accompanied by an influx and outflux of H, which
seems very similar to the stimulation of excess power in PdD
experiments associated with influx or outflux of D in aqueous
systems that also appear to produce such vacancies.

Prof. Xing Zhong Li gave the third talk and discussed
“Nuclear Physics and Green Nuclear Energy,” including
background to his extensive work in both hot and cold
fusion (see Part 2, which will appear in the next issue).

Dr. Mitchell Swartz gave the fourth plenary talk on
“Excess Heat in LANR/CF Systems” and summarized updates
to two decades of LANR R&D. He began by demonstrating
excess power in LANR through paired runs (one with an
ohmic joule control) of both simple thermometry and calibrated
thermal power spectroscopy.

Dr. Swartz demonstrated that present CF/LANR systems
get megajoules of excess energy over days. As he (and later
Prof. Hagelstein) noted, even if the entire cathode was
replaced with TNT, an explosion would release on ignition
only 1.2 Kilojoules. This clearly, absolutely demonstrates
that chemistry is not the source of LANR’s energy. He
showed several types of JET Energy high electrical impedance
and codepositional LANR devices. Several of these were
shown with data as they were used for electricity production,
JULY/AUGUST 2011 • ISSUE 98 • INFINITE ENERGY 4
and paired with LANR-coupled Stirling motors. He showed
data demonstrating excess powers between 0.5 W to 19 W in
carefully calibrated systems and higher in less well calibrated
systems. These correspond to excess power gains from
200% to 800%. One dual anode PHUSOR® (DAP) had a peak
of 8,000% power gain for a short time using the DAP
[Pd/D2O,Pd(OD)2/Pt,Au] arrangement.

He showed data from several runs of LANR devices using
paired LANR-powered Stirling motors, with electrical inputs
in the 1-19+ watt level. One run clearly demonstrated that
removal of the energy to the Stirling motor leads to underunity
performance at the core, which is consistent with the
Second Law of Thermodynamics and further indicates that
this is not an error.

Swartz uses different materials, coatings and a different
approach than most of the other experimenters in the LANR
field. Dr. Swartz explained some “tips” for understanding
and controlling LANR in these PHUSOR®-type and high
impedance systems. Swartz has maximized the excess heat
effect by using ultra-pure D2O, low-paramagnetic D2O,
which has high purity, and anodes that have 99.99% purity,
along with cathodes that are constructed systematically
using low-contamination materials. He pointed out that
other experimenters in the field rely on lower purity materials
and electrolytes; while by adopting an approach, in
which purer materials are used, they have made discoveries
that have had significant consequences. In particular, by
using a pure electrolysis solution, empirically, they have
found that an extremely high electrical impedance of the
solution in LANR is good for producing excess heat. An
explanation for this is that solutions that have higher conductivity
induce significantly higher rates of gas evolution,
and this results in low (usually zero) excess power.

At JET Energy, Inc., he said they have emphasized the
need for in situ calibration controls, during experimental
runs, and have found conclusive evidence for substantial
excess power. Impedance matching and high electrolyte
impedance are needed to avoid deuterium loss from bubble
formation. Bubble formation severely reduces excess power.

There is an optimal operating point (OOP) in applied power
that maximizes excess power that can be identified from
plots of output power as a function of input power. He also
pointed out the importance of coatings of Au or B, which
can change the hydrogen/deuterium admittance, leading to
enhancements (increases) in loading and excess heat production
and reproducibility. The activation energy of the
LANR Pd Phusor® system is ~60.7 kilojoules/mole.

Importantly, Dr. Swartz pointed out that during ICCF10, he
demonstrated to an audience that it is possible to produce
reproducible excess heat if the open circuit voltage exceeds
0.7 volts at the end of a particular run.

He also reported results from some of his extensive “light”
water nickel experiments. Swartz has investigated the effect
of adding small amounts of D2O to ordinary H2O in Ni
LANR experiments. He has found that these additions
increase the excess power. He reported this fact during
ICCF9. He also demonstrated that when excess deuterium is
added to light water experiments involving Ni, when sufficiently
high current densities are applied or excessively high
D2O concentrations are used, changes in the metal’s color
and in its electrical properties take place, and the associated
changes “flatten” the OOP manifold, irreversibly destroying
the excess heat process. These destructive effects do not
occur in Pd, where LANR involve more reversible processes.

Drs. Fleischmann and Pons observed a strange phenomenon
in the early 1990s, which they referred to as “Heat After
Death” (HAD). This occurs when excess energy is observed
after the CF/LANR cell is turned off—or in the case of
Fleischmann and Pons when the cell had run out of electrolyte
solution. Dr. Swartz has analyzed experiments that
produce this effect closely. He refers to the excess power that
is generated in this kind of situation as Tardive Thermal
Power (TTP). TTP is a more precise term than HAD and the
integral of the TTP with respect to time, over an interval of
time, is the HAD associated with that time interval. He has
reported that this quantity decays initially with a shorter
time constant, then, it decays with a longer time constant.

Swartz suggests that this may be the result of the presence of
shallow traps in the electrodes (where he speculates that
excess heat is produced) which gradually turn into deeper
traps.

TTP occurs when the open circuit voltage at the end of a
run is above a threshold value. Dr. Swartz has also reported
that the TTP is proportional to the square of the voltage that
initiates the effect, followed by a decay in its value until the
open circuit voltage drops to 0.7 volts. This produced in the
early LANR systems power gains of 170-220% (with energy
gains of 152%). He said that JET Energy, Inc. has used TTP to
run Stirling engines and that they have also run Stirling
engines using excess power from high-Z PHUSOR®-type
LANR systems. [PHUSOR® is a registered trademark of JET
Energy, Inc.; protected by US Patents, including D596,724;
D413,659. All rights reserved.]
Part 2, which will continue with more science and
engineering from the 2011 LANR/CF Colloquium, will
appear in Issue 99 but will be posted on Infinite
Energy’s website sooner (www.infinite-energy.com).

If cold fusion is the "real deal" why hasn't it been observed in nature? There are billions and billions of examples of "hot" fusion visible all around us, requiring almost unimaginable pressures and temperatures. We even have created weapons that mimic the process that fire the stars. But cold fusion remains as elusive as the philosophers stone. I remain unconvinced that it is even theoretically possible. There is no such thing as a free lunch in life or modern physics.

Regards,
GtG

If teflon is the "real deal" why hasn't it been observed in nature?

Teflon is made using fluorine gas which is highly reactive (has a very high electron affinity) and is not normally present in a free state because it forms stable compounds, fluorides, with all other elements except for helium and neon. That being said, fluorine gas will form a stable compound with carbon (Ie: tetrafluoroethylene gas). Polymerized perfluoroethylene (Teflon) is formed when tetrafluoroethylene gas comes in contact with an iron catalyst under low temperature and high pressure conditions. It does not appear naturally for the same reason that nylon, dacron, polyethylene, or polystyrene do not appear naturally. All of these materials are man made through the process of polymerization, which is the formation of long chain molecules from smaller (monomer) molecules. This process relies on temperature, pressure and the presence of a catalyst.

Producing "man made" materials through chemical synthesis is not the same thing as releasing energy through a fusion reaction. After decades of trying we have yet to demonstrate controlled high temperature fusion, which clearly occurs freely in nature. Why then cannot a "cold" fusion process be demonstrated? I'll settle for a lab demonstration or a natural occurrence. The only stipulation is that the process must output more energy then is input (it would be nice to witness some helium being produced as well).

Regards,
GtG

Maybe it does exist in nature, only it is a geologic process occurring deep in the earth and we never see the ‘process’ of fusion, only its end result.

Well the pressures and temperature under the Earth's mantle are certainly much higher then in the "shirt sleeve" environment alluded to by the proponents of "cold fusion". They, however, and not nearly high enough to generate the "hot fusion" as found in the sun. The other problem that comes to mind is where does the hydrogen come from as fuel for this hypothetical reaction?

Regards,
GtG

Why not?

The process of making polymers from monomers requires some input of energy (heat & pressure) and in the case of teflon produces a slippery solid that is practically inert. You can apply heat and it doesn't ignite. Apply enough heat and it sublimates (turns from a solid into a gas with passing thru a liquid phase. You do not have a net energy gain (which is what you are looking for with any form of fusion).

Looking at what you are doing with polymerization, you are actually working on a molecular level, taking simple constructs of atoms and without messing with the atomic structure, linking them together to build a longer (usually) or bigger (3D) structure from the small components, rather like tinker toys. All of the atoms making up the molecule are unchanged.

When you attempt fusion you are working on a subatomic level. You are trying to force two hydrogen nuclei together to form a helium atom and release a great deal of energy. The sun does it by crushing hydrogen atoms with a huge gravity field. A thermonuclear bomb uses a fusion bomb to provide a radiation shock-wave to substitute for the gravity field to do the same thing. The forces that hold atoms together are immense but operate over very short distances. The forces that hold molecules together are so much smaller that a bit of heat (fire) will break down a molecular structure.

While fusion may look something like polymerization there are many orders of magnitude difference in the forces involved.

I think I have beaten this subject to death...

Regards,
GtG

If cold fusion is the “real deal” why hasn’t it been observed in nature?
***Here’s a start.

Science: Rocks reveal the signature of fusion at the centre of the Earth

06 May 1989
Magazine issue 1663. Subscribe and save

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12216633.500—science-rocks-reveal-the-signature-of-fusion-at-the-centre-of-the-earth—.html
NUCLEAR fusion could be responsible for at least some of the Earth’s heat, according to one of the researchers involved in the current controversy over producing cold fusion in a test tube.

Steven Jones and his team at Brigham Young University, Utah, who last week published the results of their experiments on cold fusion in Nature (vol 338, p 737), suggest that the fusion of deuterium and hydrogen could produce the isotope helium-3 deep inside the Earth. This mechanism would also explain the high levels of helium-3 found in rocks, liquids and gases from volcanoes and regions in the Earth’s crust where tectonic plates are active.

It was this implication that provided the impetus for Jones’s efforts to achieve fusion between deuterium nuclei in an electrolytic cell with titanium and palladium electrodes. Jones detected a few neutrons with a specific energy that indicated nuclear fusion.

Three years ago, Paul Palmer, ...
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