304) Recent representative messages

Ludwik Kowalski; 7/19/2006
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, NJ, 07043

What follows are recent Internet messages posted on the CMNS discussion list. The debate started in 1989 is going on. On what basis are the authors of these messages accused of being pseudo-scientists? In my opinion their methods of validation are 100% scientific. They perform experiments, they discuss results and they develop theories, like in other areas of physical science. But our scientific establishment is practicing an unfair discrimination against the CMNS field. When will this end?

L.K. (7/14/06)
1) Yes, knowing the weight of every substance, before and after a COP test, would be highly desirable. But I would not do this without help from a competent, and well equipped, analytical chemist.

2) What did Fleischmann and Pons know about each chemical substance appearing and disappearing in their setup? Did they measure masses of these substances before and after excess heat experiments? Did those who validated their excess heat conclusions, for example, Longchamps et al., determine contributions of chemical reactions to excess heat? If so then I would very much appreciate a reference, or several references.

3) My impression, based on reading what others wrote about F&P, was that chemical contributions to excess heat was shown by them to be negligible, a very small fraction of one percent. But I was not able to find a paper describing this. Does it exists or everyone simply assumes that it exists?

Ed Storms (E.S.) (7/18/06):
Bockris published a paper addressing this concern. As any chemist can demonstrate, the components in a F-P cell cannot produce energy, they can only consume it because everything is in its lowest chemical state.

L.K. (not posted)
The reference given was a paper published by Kainthla et al. (in Hydrogen Energy,14, #11, 771; 1989). Bockris was listed as the last of eight authors. The title of the paper was "Eight chemical explanations of the Fleischmann-Pons effect." Here is how the issue was discussed by Ed Storms in review published in 2000. The title of the review was “A Critical Evaluation of the Pons-Fleischmann Effect;” it can be downloaded from the library at <www.lenr-canr.org>.

In the section entitled question 2.2, Ed wrote: “Can prosaic sources of chemical energy be ruled out? The hard-to-accept claim for a nuclear source is based, in part, on the belief that observed energy production exceeds any known chemical source. Therefore, the potential chemical sources must be examined. Before discussing this subject in detail, the reader should realize that a typical cell contains very few chemical components, all of which are stable with respect to each other. A chemical reaction can only be initiated by applying an electric current, a process which uses energy. Only after the water has been split into deuterium and oxygen can chemical reactions occur. This process causes several chemical reactions, including an uptake of deuterium by the palladium and slow deposition of lithium and platinum on the cathode surface. Each of these reactions involve very little energy. Strain energy accumulates in the palladium and small amounts of reaction products such as D2O2 can accumulate in the solution under proper conditions.

These processes have the potential to store energy within the cell. Only release of stored energy can be used to explain the anomalous energy, which appears after many hours of electrolysis. The magnitude of such processes was addressed in several papers. Kainthla et al.[37] discussed eight possible sources, including recombination, which has been already discussed above. The other sources are the energetics of PdD formation, the energetics of PdLi formation, and energy accumulation as stress. Each of these was found to be much too small to account for even the smallest reported excess energy. Handel[38] proposed that heat could be pumped into the cell by a temperature gradient operating between the anode and cathode lead wires, i.e. a Peltier Effect. Two problems exist with this explanation. A significant temperature difference seldom exists between the two lead wires and the necessary difference between the Peltier coefficients of the wires must be unreasonably large to produce an observable effect. Most people use platinum for both wires, which would have a zero difference in the Peltier coefficient.

Balej and Divisek[39] compiled all necessary thermochemical values and calculated the energy involved in electrolytic formation of b-PdD. Measured energy using inert palladium is consistent with these values,[18] as is true of all negative studies. Berlouis et al.[40] reported a direct measurement of the heat of dissociation of PdH0.9, formed by electrolysis, using thermal analytical techniques. The result is consistent with values obtained by using other techniques. Consequently, no anomalies have been found in the energetics of b-PdD. However, it is possible for an unknown compound to form which, when decomposed, could give off the observed energy. While such a compound has been sought, it has not been detected. In addition, such a material would have to be able to store hundreds of megajoules of energy in the few grams of palladium normally used. If this were the energy source, the material would have an energy density greater than the most powerful chemical explosive.

References:
11) Kainthla, R.C., et al., Eight chemical explanations of the Fleischmann-Pons effect. J. Hydrogen Energy, 1989. 14(11): p. 771.
12) McKubre, M.C.H., et al., Development of Advanced Concepts for Nuclear Processes in Deuterated Metals. 1994, EPRI.

Bockris is a highly respected electrochemist. I will accept his testimony (that the F&P excess heat could not be attributed to chemical reactions) on the basis of authority. Ed wrote that chemical composition of F&P cells is always the same. That is why other researchers took the initial findings for granted. Here is what I found about the above reference 12. According <www.tvwiki.tv/wiki/Cold_fusion> “ McKubre et al. [12] have conducted careful inventories of chemical fuel and potential storage mechanisms in cold fusion cells, and they have found neither fuel nor spent ash that could account for more than a tiny fraction of the excess heat.” That is also reassuring. Mike McKubre is one of those researchers whose excess heat data, in F&P type cells were highly reproducible at levels below 2 W.

Post Scriptum: Referring to the above quote from the wikipedia, Mike McKubre wrote: “ On several occasions we did find and reported (at ICCF8 and elsewhere) a nuclear "ash" quantitatively (and temporally) correlated to the excess heat - Helium-4.  With regard to chemical "ash" our statement is actually stronger than the one written above.  We never saw any evidence of any net chemical reaction accompanying excess heat production.  The statement of less than 1 part in 100 (or 1000) refers to any conceivable chemical reaction of the cell constituents - no matter how unlikely or unobserved.”

5) Generally speaking, one can identify two ways of dealing with the issue of what is going on in a F&P cell. Let me name them “negative” and “positive.” The “negative” approach, suggested by Peter and Michel, (see unit #303) is one of them. The best one can do with that approach is to produce convincing data that excess heat is not due to a well known chemical process. The”positive” approach would be to show that excess energy can be explained by a particular kind of a process, for example, fusion producing neutrons, protons, tritons and helium-3. What must be done, experimentally, to convince ourselves that excess heat is indeed due to emission of such particles? One must show that the total number of nuclear particles, and their energies, match the measured amounts of excess heat.

Many attempts in that direction have been made in the past but they were not successful. Excess heat was always found to be zillions of time larger than what could be made consistent with observed emission of neutrons, protons, tritons and ³He. Another particular process that was investigated was cold fusion in which dominant products are atoms of ⁴He. Such process is extremely rare in hot fusion (collisions of isolated deuterons) but that does not mean that it must also be rare in cold fusion (where deuterons are not isolated). I know that accumulation of 4He has been studied by many researchers and that the rate of accumulation of excess heat (about 24 MeV per atom of ⁴He) was found to be consistent with the expectation. It is well known that the mass-energy of two deuterons exceeds the mass-energy of one ⁴He by 23.8 MeV.

In my opinion the “positive” approach -- showing that excess energy measured matches amount of “ashes” (products of specific processes) is likely to convince mainstream scientists that something unexpected is going on, than the “negative” approach suggested by Peter and Michel. People who studied accumulation of ⁴He reported high reproducibility of results. Taking this for granted, I would recommend (if it were up to me) the following approach. Select five recognized experts in ⁴He detection and ask them to replicate already reported results. If at least one of them confirms the ~24 MeV of excess heat per one ⁴He atom then it would be reasonable to assume that the effect deserves further investigations. My expectation is that all five experts would report proportionality between accumulated excess heat and accumulated ⁴He ash. The energies per atom would probably be different, for example, ranging between 15 and 35 MeV.

Even 5 MeV per atom of an ash would be six orders of magnitude higher than what is possible with a chemical reaction. But what would one have to say if reproducible results were 1 to 5 MeV per atom? That would tell us that ⁴He is not produced via direct fusion of two deuterons. We would say that another nuclear process, or a sequence of processes, is involved. How else can atoms of a new chemical element be produced?

Post Scriptum
Accumulation of ⁴He was one of the three categories of topics identified for the 2004 DOE review. The panel of appointed experts was asked about “production of ⁴He as an ash associated with this excess heat, in amounts commensurate with a reaction mechanism consistent with D+D --> ⁴He + 23.8 MeV (heat).” Unfortunately, not a single reexamination request was made by the DOE. What they did was to collect comments from experts who were asked to read existing reports. I was very disappointed by this. Here is how comments made by the appointed experts were summarized in the DOE report:

“The hypothesis that excess energy production in electrolytic cells is due to low energy nuclear reactions was tested in some experiments by looking for D + D fusion reaction products, in particular ⁴He normally produced in about 1 in 10,000,000 in hot D + D fusion reactions. Results reported in the review document purported to show that ⁴He was detected in five out of sixteen cases where electrolytic cells were reported to be producing excess heat. The detected ⁴He was typically very close to, but reportedly above background levels. This evidence was taken as convincing or somewhat convincing by some reviewers; for others the lack of consistency was an indication that the overall hypothesis was not justified. Contamination of apparatus or samples by air containing ⁴He was cited as one possible cause for false positive results in some measurements.” Why was a reexamination of the effect not ordered by the DOE after some of the panel experts reported that the evidence was convincing?

Jacques Dufour (J.D.). . . the worst of our enemies is ourselves. We think our experiments perfect, we are sure that we have answered theoretically all the questions. This is very far to be true. Submitting the work you do to critics and having the lucidity to accept remarks when they are valuable is essential. It is a great error not to seak interaction with people on the ground that they are our enemies and that we don't have to take into account their advices. . . .

E.S.:
I agree with Jacques on a few of his points. Of course talking with people who do not yet accept cold fusion is important. It is essential to understand just what they lack to allow them to arrive at a rational conclusion. We are long past the situation where the reality of cold fusion is in doubt. Too many of the required questions have been answered and too many studies from which the main errors have been removed have been reported. I'm in the process of examining this literature in detail for a book, so I can say with confidence that the claims are true. I'm also aware that most people who do not believe are simply ignorant of this extensive literature, as are many people in the field.

Consequently, when dealing with skeptics, you have to realize you are dealing with someone who has a very limited and selective knowledge. Their attitude of rejecting what you say because you are a believer, hence can not be trusted, is totally illogical. All scientists have basic beliefs based on what they have been taught or have observed in nature. These beliefs do not make them untrustworthy when describing the evidence for these beliefs. . . . The challenge now is to evaluate what is real and what is not real in an effort to understand just how the effect works. We have a mixture of good and bad work, and a mixture of bits and pieces of the total puzzle. The challenge is to sort this collection into pieces that make sense and can advance our understanding about how the amazing process works.

Michel Jullian (M.J.):
Ed to reconcile your two statements above, there must be at least one experiment of which you are 100% sure, which one is that?

E.S.:
Well, aside from my own work :-), I pick the McKubre heat measurements, the Iwamura transmutation studies, the Miles helium studies, and the Claytor tritium studies. I pick these because the work is so well done and described to allow critical evaluation. Many other studies would be considered very good once the CF phenomenon is accepted. All of the radiation studies are important because it is impossible to miss radiation and none should be produced by the low energy CF cells. All of the neutron measurements are useless and irrelevant to the issue. In addition, 185 credible heat measurements, 58 reports of significant tritium, and 67 studies of transmutation are published. Any other field of study would be embarrassed to have rejected this much work by well known and competent scientists.

J.D.:
. . . I have tried to pass the message that the most important thing in the field was the heat measurement and that the interpretation would come later. But every body sticks to the nuclear interpretation.

E.S.:
All of the methods are difficult to make work every time. When the effect is made to occur and the experiment is well designed, any of the methods would be accepted by normal scientists. However, some methods are more complex than the others, the Mizuno method for example. Consequently, this method is more difficult to demonstrate, as you are discovering. The best method is to design a good calorimeter that you can demonstrate is accurate, use it to measure heat by the classic F-P approach, and measure another expected nuclear product at the same time - helium or radiation for example. If you can show a one-one correlation between heat and another nuclear product, the work gains in credibility, but also gains in difficulty. I suggest, no matter how well you do the Mizuno experiment, the apparatus will be too complex to convince the average person. The work needs to be understandable by an average 10 year old for many people in physics to believe the results.

L.K.: (7/18/06):
“ . . . I suppose that many of the 185 heat measurements, mentioned by Ed, were in electrolytic cells similar to those used by Fleischmann and Pons. As far as I know, excess heat, in highly reproducible experiments, was most often generated at rates below two watts. Is this correct? And the emphasis was to show that excess heat was not an illusion due to experimental errors.

What I would like to see are reports claiming that excess heat was extraordinary. That is the most interesting (and most controversial) part, as far as science is concerned. Like Jacques, I am willing to wait for convincing demonstration that the measured excess heat is nuclear. Showing that it cannot be explained by prosaic effects would already by a big step forward. I am taking it for granted that calorimetry was essentially error-free, and that electric energy supplied to cells was measured properly. But how did the authors of reports convince themselves, and others, that their highly reproducible results could not be attributed to a chemical reaction? Which reports are the most convincing in that respect?

M.J.
Ludwik, I disagree with your comment that calorimetry and input power measurement can be trusted and only chemical heat should be distrusted, we must check carefully every single possible artefact, or the house of cards falls down. . . .

L.K.:
1) Nothing should be trusted in a single report. But tens of highly qualified scientists reported positive excess heat results. That is why I am confident that excess heat, generated at the rates below 2 W, is not an illusion due to experimental error. Experimental errors would produce as many positive as negative results. My impression was that results above 2 W are not yet reproducible in F&P cells. Please correct me if I am wrong.

E.S.
1) That is correct. [many of the 185 heat measurements, were in electrolytic cells similar to those used by Fleischmann and Pons]. However, several other methods have been used including low energy plasma and exposure of the NAE [nuclear active environment] to ambient gas pressure.

2) [Ludwik wrote]: “As far as I know, excess heat, in highly reproducible experiments, was most often generated at rates below two watts. Is this correct? And the emphasis was to show that excess heat was not an illusion due to experimental errors.” A wide range of maximum heating power has been reported. However, the results can only be properly evaluated when the expected error is included. For example, excess power of 5 mW is reported, but this was obtained using a calorimeter accurate to a microwatt. The issue is not the amount of power, because this is determined by the amount of NAE present. The interesting result is how the NAE can be produced.

3) If you study the Miles work about the He-heat relationship and add the 6 other studies that agree with his results, you will see that a nuclear reaction has to be the explanation.

4) Not every study can prove the results are not chemical or are even caused by a nuclear reaction. However, if someone does an experiment and gets the same anomalous result as someone who has shown their anomalous results to have a nuclear source, it is reasonable to conclude that you both are seeing the same phenomenon. After all, when chemists study a chemical reaction, they are not required to prove each time the existence of atoms or the laws of thermodynamics. At some point, people acknowledge the reality of the underlying process.

L.K.:
1) I suppose that demonstrating the non-chemical origin of excess heat generated at the rate of 5 mW would be much more difficult than at 1000 mW.

2) In an earlier message you wrote: "Two issues exist that are frequently confused. The first is whether an anomalous effect has actually been observed. . . . The second issue is the process causing the anomalous behaviors." That is true. I am familiar with many reports describing anomalous effects; emission of charged particles and Iwamura's transmutations are good examples. My question was about something very different. I asked for chemical data supporting the anomalous nature of excess heat generated in highly reproducible experiments, such as those reported by McKubre. As I wrote before, I believe that reality of excess heat was demonstrated in these experiments. But what was done to show that excess heat measured could not be attributed to prosaic effects?

3) You also mentioned anomalous helium demonstrated by Miles, and by other researchers. Generation of 4He at the rate of about one atom per 24 MeV of excess heat is indeed a very convincing argument that a nuclear process was taking place. You are correct that this automatically rules out chemical explanations. Even ten times lower rate would exceed the expected chemical rate by six orders of magnitude (MeV versus eV). I wish we were sufficiently equipped to demonstrate the unusually high rate of accumulation of reaction products in Colorado2. But we were not. The only method available to us, if we want to demonstrate the anomalous nature of excess heat, is chemical analysis of reaction products, as argued by Peter Gluck. Our manuscript would have no chance of being published without an appendix with arguments against trivial origin of excess heat. Do you agree?

E.S.:
1) . . . all of the F-P cells use the same material, the same chemical arguments apply to all of them, as above.
2) [Concerning “our manuscript would have no chance of being published . . “] The Mizuno cell is more complex chemically than the F-P cell. Consequently, it requires more discussion. As I suggested before, the best defense is to prevent anything from leaving or entering the cell. This way, chemical effects can be easily ruled out.

Mitchell Swartz (M.S.):
Referring to F&P cells Ed wrote that “everything is in its lowest chemical state.” Actually this is not correct. There is energy given off by the loading of palladium by the deuterons which we have been measuring for years with our sensitive calorimeters. That heat given off with loading ranges from circa 50 to several hundred joules or so, but in any case the heat given off is DWARFED by both the excess energy during the experiment and the "heat after death" (when the systems are correctly operated at their optimal operating points), and is recovered when deloading occurs. However, this demonstrates that they are not in their "lowest chemical state" at t=0+.

Also, since the Gibbs free energy involves BOTH enthalpy and entropy, I do not believe all other materials are in their lowest chemical state during the run. For example, I reported that both gold, palladium, and platinum anodes decompose very slightly producing an overlay on the cathode which is capable of, in some cases of palladium with heavy water (and certain other cases) of producing slight excess heat (as I discussed at LENR-2 Texas, which you attended, and thereafter termed "crud"). FWIW that slight excess heat is DWARFED by the excess heat achieved when the reactions are correctly carried out.

In addition, there appear contamination issues arising from the containers (etc.) which are an entropic effect also demonstrating that the systems are not in their "lowest chemical state". However, again, although the contamination markedly lowers the excess heat, as we demonstrated at ICCF-10 (2), and although the energy involved is DWARFED by the excess heat achieved when the reactions are correctly carried out, it is not strictly accurate to make the claim that all materials are in their "lowest chemical state" at t=0+.

The bottom line is that careful calorimetry with full controls, waveform reconstruction, and time integration, and with monitoring of loading energy, etc. is required to prove excess heat. Handwaving alone is probably not sufficient.

Dr. Mitchell Swartz
JET Energy

(1) Swartz, M., "Possible Deuterium Production From Light
Water Excess Enthalpy Experiments using Nickel Cathodes",
Journal of New Energy, 3, 68-80 (1996)

(2) Swartz. M., G. Verner, "Excess Heat from Low Electrical
Conductivity Heavy Water Spiral-Wound in D2O/Pt and
Pd/D2O-PdCl2/Pt Devices", ICCF-10 (Camb. MA),
Proceedings of ICCF-10, (2003).

=====================================================

Cold Fusion Times http://world.std.com/~mica/cft.html
The journal of the scientific aspects of loading isotopic fuels
into materials ISSN# 1072-2874

JET Energy http://world.std.com/~mica/jet.html
Working for Safe and More Efficient Heat Products to Serve You

Let me show another exchange of messages that appeared on the CMNS yesterday. They show that list members are aware of people who might be tempted to exploit the existing controversy and promote nonscientific agendas. Most CMNS researchers do not want to be associated with such agendas.

L.K.:
Am I the only person to receive this message? It came this morning.

Dear Sir,

Glad to see your article. Now we have some news and I hope you'll be interested. Our web site is <http://www.faraday.ru>

Moller and Naudin are wrong way. Best regards, Alexander V. Frolov Faraday Lab Ltd.

Who is Frolov? I do not remember communicating with him before. But I clicked on the above link and read about two commercially available products. Very impressive, if true. Comments and information will be appreciated.

M.J.
I heard of Frolov in the field of "Lifters" (there was talk of a "Frolov hat" device supposedly exhibiting "reactionless" forces or something of the kind), as far as I can tell he is at least as much "wrong way" as the competitors he denigrates. I suggest to wait until he actually delivers what he promises before buying any "fuel less" electricity generator from him :) You could also try a Google search . . .

William Beaty (W.B.):
A. Frolov is a longtime member of the fringe science community. In Russia in ?1996? he organized a conference on CF, antigravity, "torsion" and other fringe physics. My overall impression: he is not a scientist, he lacks the brutal self-honesty required.

Re. the products. The one on the left looks suspiciously like the "Potapov device," a water heater based upon a pump driven by an electric motor. It was claimed to put out more thermal watts than the motor watts input. Potapov brought one to the USA for informal testing, and it only gave normal results with no anomalous excess output. Yet his company was selling them in Russia without being able to support their claims that it was better than a simple electric water heater. We never decided if Potapov was running a scam, or if he'd fallen into "pathological science" and was honestly fooling himself. And that Frolov is selling a perhaps-fradulent device doesn't surprise me. . . .