-----Original Message----- From: Terry Blanton Well. The one problem is that the paper is not accessible except by fee. Copyrights and all that. You can read the abstract
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/la981339q Romanowski is a nickel alloy expert. This finding is not new but was generally ignored - up to now. If I am not reading too much into it - it contains the exact information of how and why the Rossi reactor works as it does, and I doubt that Rossi himself is cognizant of this mechanism. It was found that the highest catalytic power with respect to the hydrogen dissociation process is exhibited by Ni-Cu alloys which are far better than palladium - a factor of 4 for instance! Fig 9 on page 8 of this paper is a measure of the catalytic power of these various alloys. This relates directly to spillover, IMHO, and it shows an alloy of about 2/3 copper and 1/3 nickel is by far the best spillover catalyst ever discovered - IF - it is not easily fouled. This alloy is similar (but not exact) to an alloy discovered in 1887 when one Edward Weston found that a few alloys can have a negative temperature coefficient of resistance. It was produced in Germany where it was named "constantan". It also has excellent salt water resistance and maritime uses. One version is used in Seebeck calorimetry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantan In principle, a catalyst composed of a simple alloy which can in principle supply 3 eV equivalent to a hydrogen recycling process is almost unheard of. The problem is now to understand how this large energy deficit is replenished on a continuing basis. IN SHORT - the migratory copper itself appears to be the "secret" catalyst, but only after it alloys with the nickel to form this super catalytic alloy - which almost splits the hydrogen molecule on contact. Unbelievable ! If Rossi knows this, he is pulling a clever deception. If not, if means that what everyone already suspects is true: the guy just got extremely lucky, essentially by using copper plumbing in a situation where almost no one would think of using copper because of known problem of easy contamination... talk about turning a big problem into a 'feature' .... Jones
