Let’s connect the dots in the Rossi patent as it fits into the big picture (while looking for even larger implications):
1) The Claim set is very narrow, and that is risky but expedient. 2) The only protection found in this disclosure is for lithium hydride in combination with aluminum or LAH. Nothing else is protected. 3) Such lack of breadth usually indicates the inventor knows that one ingredient, and only one ingredient is active 4) This streamlining is also part of a strategy for fast approval by USPTO, as is dropping any mention of LENR (as mentioned by A.Ashfield). 5) Apparently, Rossi believes that only LAH works well or is willing to roll the dice - with a streamlined disclosure. 6) Randell Mills has been on record for well over one year as saying that “LiAlH4 + Ni as a hydrogen dissociator run at elevated temperature is disclosed in my patents.” [filed in Russia and the USA.] It is likely that Rossi’s disclosure would otherwise fit into the category of a Mills’ reaction, despite the fact that aluminum is one of the few metals BLP does not claim as catalytic. Rossi’s attorneys were negligent not to mention Mills as prior art, and that may come back to haunt them. Aluminum itself has never been widely used in LENR nor fractional hydrogen work before Rossi (Iwamura converted Na to Al, but that went nowhere). It has no Rydberg ionization potential orbitals. It has very strong affinity for oxygen. In short, there is a good argument that aluminum represents a near pinnacle of available chemical energy in a common metal reactant … but one thing which can push a chemical reaction further is a Mills’ type reaction. Clearly the key to success appears to be the combination of aluminum with lithium. Lithium does have one Rydberg energy (state when it loses two electrons). It is likely that the aluminum hydride anion with 4 protons becomes activated on the loss of protons and then becomes a molecule which acts like a catalytic metal. LAH crystallizes as a unit cell where Li+ centers are surrounded by AlH4 tetrahedra. The compound begins to lose hydrogen with added heat. I suspect it becomes active for “shrinking hydrogen” about 350 C when one proton has escaped, and another is nearing the thermal oscillation region where it will soon escape. If – instead of escape, the nascent hydrogen instead drops to the third redundant ground state (3 X 27.2 = 81.6 eV) then it has acted exactly as would potassium, but with the advantage that potassium needs to lose 3 electrons instead of two, so arguably LAH is more efficient. Mills can see that now but ….did he see it before Rossi?? I doubt it. Mills has a history of amending patent applications long after they were filed, since few of his have been granted. They are two complex and over-reaching. For instance, there is almost no doubt (as I reported several years ago) that Mills amended a plasma-phase patent - and added “gas phase” to that older application AFTER Rossi’s initial demo with gas phase, and it is possible that Mills added LAH to an older application, as well – following Rossi’s disclosure of the HotCat ingredients. All of that may be sorted out in Court one of these days, but do not give Mills any credit for being more honest that Rossi, simply because he is better educated and has raised more capital. Neither of them have a reputation for truthfulness.
