On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 5:41 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:
Do you have any idea what function is performed by his catalyst? > I can only guess. My guess at this point is that a beta emitter is involved here. Perhaps it is stimulating rydberg states in the hydrogen, or perhaps it is altering the electron charge density in the nickel lattice, or perhaps both things are going on. Whatever it is, I assume it increases the rate of p+d tunneling by many orders of magnitude. The resulting highly unstable [pd]* intermediate state decays by dumping its energy directly into the electronic structure of the metal rather than yielding a gamma. This heats up the electronic structure by about 5 MeV in this case, which might or might not back into the reaction. The 3He that is born would be nearly motionless. A few weeks ago I wrote up a short discussion that goes into greater detail here: http://rolling-balance.blogspot.com/2013/08/lenr-and-thermionic-emission.html > My first thoughts are that it facilitates the breaking up of the hydrogen > molecules into individual atoms somewhat like what happens when a spark > passes though the low energy gas. This is just a guess since DGT appears > to achieve the same goal with their system. > I wouldn't be surprised if whatever is going on facilitates dissociation. Note that hydrogen dissociation occurs in connection with an increase in the surrounding charge density, as the molecular hydrogen migrates into the metal. About DGT's sparks -- my working assumption is that these are to stimulate the catalyst, perhaps directly or perhaps through heat (I suspect they are using a catalyst similar in nature to Rossi's). Eric