My belief is that He4 is produced when high concentrations of deuterium
are used, a reaction that is poisoned by H. On the other hand, normal
hydrogen produces transmutation reactions, not He4, and these reactions
have much smaller energy production for each nuclear event. Therefore,
it is harder to get much heat out of a cell containing normal hydrogen
because the event rate must be much higher than when He4 is made. The
event rate can only be increased by increasing the amount of NAE
present, which is presently difficult to do.
Regards,
Ed
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
The recent mentions of the Patterson cells got me wondering about this.
As I understand it, the current theories of CF, such as they are, are
largely in agreement that CF happens between deuterium atoms, and just
deuterium atoms. In one form or another the overall path is
2H + 2H -> 4He
I've also read ... someplace ... that the presence of "light water" may
even _poison_ the reaction in some way.
BUT ... the Patterson cell used light water. A quick search on
Lenr-Canr also turns up a replication of some Patterson results by
Longchampt et al back in 1998, which provides a bit of evidence that it
wasn't just craziness on Patterson's part that made him see those results.
Mitch Swartz also worked with light water and a nickel electrode for
quite a while. A search of lenr-canr (that site which "censors" him --
ho, hum) turns up bunches of references to his work showing excess heat
in those cells. Even if one doesn't entirely trust Swartz, there's also
a reference to a collaboration between Swartz and Hagelstein showing the
same thing (why is this reference only showing up in French? whatever,
at least it's not in Japanese, then I'd really be lost...). I didn't
see the paper itself, just a brief mention in the report on ICCF9 from
Jean Paul Biberian:
• Swartz et Hagelstein ont montré que l’électrolyse du nickel en eau
légère produisait un excès de chaleur de 50%, mais un rajout de 15%
d’eau lourde améliorait encore les rendements.
In other words, Swartz & Hagelstein showed that electrolysis using a
nickel electrode and light water produced 50% excess heat, _but_ an
addition of 15% heavy water increased the output.
So, what's the reaction path? What's happening in an electrolytic cell
showing excess heat with just 1H, no 2H, and what's the end product? Do
any current CF theories cover this?
Anybody got any guesses?
