In the past, following the many statements compiled by Gary Wright of Rossi saying that they were seeing significant amounts of copper, I have argued in favor of a proton capture reaction in the NiH system. I argued this not out of a strong conviction that this was the case, but out of a desire to explore the idea. In the same spirit I'll now argue that Rossi and Focardi were not seeing copper as the main ash, and that it was either a byproduct not in proportion to the heat they were seeing at the time or, possibly, even a contaminant. This position isn't taken out of conviction but rather out of a desire to explore the consequences.
With that in mind, some thoughts follow. > Why are the ash products all different between systems? What could explain > these differences? > My current working hypothesis is that there are two sources of transmutations. First, there is whatever is the main driver of the reaction and the source of heat. In the case of an NiH(D) system, I'm currently going with Ni(d,p)Ni reactions. For this to be the case, there would need to be stripping reactions in proportion to the heat that is produced. A second source of transmutations I'm taking to be due to impurities that are found in or that migrate to the site of the reaction. So in Iwamura's experiments that start with barium impurities, you see samarium in assays. If there are forces sufficient to press deuterium close enough to nickel lattice sites to cause a stripping reaction, they should be sufficient to act upon impurities in various ways as well. > DGT has no copper but lots of boron, beryllium, and lithium. > Do you have any additional details of the DGT assays? What did the nickel isotope ratios look like? > Rossi has iron and copper, Piantelli has a mix. > I suspect these were transmutations of the second kind, and that theoretical considerations led Rossi and Piantelli to prematurely conclude that such transmutations were the source of heat. > Mizuno has helium and copper. > I don't recall seeing references to helium or copper in connection with Mizuno (I do recall m=3 species, but that was in a set of slides). > It is safe to say that no two LENR systems have the same ash assay. Why? > This is a good question. Obviously no one, or few people, can say for sure. I'm guessing that transmutations of the second variety will be all over the map, depending on what the starting mix of impurities is. Eric
