There has been an e-mail circulating in the blogosphere recent days, that indicates that there has been a successful attempt to replicate an excess heat-production in a LENR system.
It was first posted here , Mon, 30 May
"From: Brian Ahern, Boxborough MA
Re: Zr-Ni-Cu alloy performance
Ames National Laboratory processed metal alloy foils via arc melting
followed by melt spinning. This is the Yamaura process employed by Arata
and others. The foils were baked in ordinary air at 445C for 28 hours.
The brittle, oxidized foils were placed in a tumble mill for 24 hours.
This resulted in 30 grams of black powder with a median grain size of about
40 microns.Presumably, each grain has about one million nanoscale islands of
NiCu inside.
The 30 grams occupies about 7 ml inside the 50 ml dewar. The system was
vacuum baked at 220C for 24 hours and cooled to room temperature.
H2 gas was added at 200psi. The pressure dropped only to about 185 psi over
twenty minutes. In these replication experiments the exothermic reactions
have had peak temperatures above 220C with substantial loading above 3.0 H/M
ratios. This time the temperature only rose by 2 degrees C.
The system was heated with a band heater to high temperature. There was no
controller. A rheostat was set at an arbitrary position and the system comes
to a an arbitrary temperature.The average power input was 90 watts.
After several hours the hydrated system was evacuated overnight at a
constant high temperature at 530C. The next day H2 gas was again added at
100psi and the temperature rose by 40C to 570C and came back down to 530C
after two hours. At the end of the day the dewar was again evacuated while
still at 530C overnight.
The third day repeated the same procedure. H2 gas was added at 100psi and
the temperature rose by 44C to 574C. However, this time it did not come back
to the initial temperature. It remained at the elevated temperature
overnight.
On the fourth day H2 gas was again added at 100psi and the system rose by
50C to 580C and again stayed at the elevated temperature indefinitely.
A rough calibration suggests that the 30 grams of hydrated nanopowder is
putting out 5 watts of excess power.
Yesterday Peter Gluck suggested that the relationship between loading and
excess power may be a myth. This seemed to be true for electrolysis with Pd
and heavy water where loading levels exceeding 0.9 D/M were a prerequisite
for observing excess power.
My loading level with this nanopowder sample as less than 0.1 H/M.
This 5 watt excess is very much less than Rossi, but it is a real and
repeatable experiment There was no radiation above the background level.
Other alloys from Ames NL are expected within ten days"
The author of the e-mail is Brian Ahern
He has been involved in LENR-experiments with the company Vibronic Energy technologies Corp.
Andrea Rossi comments the e-mail as follows on his blog
June 2nd, 2011 at 8:11 AM
Dear Mr Paul Esteban,
I never comment the work of my competitors.
When they will produce kWh?h we will compete on the market. Before or later it will happen.
Warm Regards,
A.R."
