UNLIMITED ENERGY SOURCES
Making NAC (Nuclear Active Catalyst)
For Use With Hydrogen
28 Nov 2011
note: modify site article index for dedicated area documenting making NAC (nuclear
active catalyst), and activating procedures.
PRELIMINARY ARTICLE
The company Defkalion has released some information about their fuel. It is nickel
particles of 3-7 microns size, 1,8-2.7 grams per cubic centimeter density, with a
surface area of 0.4 square meter per gram.The purity is technical not analytical. They
are cleaned in methyl chloride, and vacuum is used to remove the solvent. Most likely
the surface is conditioned with repeated heating cycles with hydrogen under pressure,
that reduces any nickel oxides on the surface to nickel metal, with the water formed
removed by vacuum evacuation. Thus far the entire procedure described is identical to
that of preparing typical nickel catalysts used in chemical industry organic
hydrogenation reactions.
The impurity list does not include aluminum. That means the nickel is NOT Raney nickel
catalyst, since Raney nickels made from aluminum and nickel alloys retain some aluminum
in their structure.
The catalyst is also not made in a planetary mill, although it probably could be.
Planetary mills can effectively make inter metallic compounds, and any particle size
from micro to nano size, but for a relatively pure nickel catalyst it is more cost
effective to use a chemical precipitation method. The particle size indicates bulk
material properties predominate on the outer surface, and from the given particle
density and surface area the particles are roughly spherical or rod shaped. If they
were flake or filamentous the density would be lower and the surface area higher. Nano-
particles are a thousand times smaller before the d-orbital configuration of the
nanosize surface presents altered catalytic activity that enable enhanced NAC (nuclear
active catalyst) properties. We also know from the historical records that thin films,
solid rods, tubes, of nickel under the right conditions all generate heat with
hydrogen. From experiments with thin films and surfaces loaded with atomic hydrogen
using electrolysis, we also know that the bulk nickel will generate more heat the
higher the atomic hydrogen concentration on the surface.
This leads to the conclusion that although Defkalion says their method of making the
nickel is proprietary, it is not novel, and the description is consistent with methods
used to make many of the nickel catalysts used in the chemical industry.
However, and this is important. Rossi has mentioned a tubular geometry of the catalyst
configuration. Taken with the other information given this indicates the more active
nanosize d- orbital electronic configuration that historical records reveal can
increase NAC properties of nickel, are on the inside surface of the tubular geometry,
and the tubes are nanosize, penetrating into the interior of the nickel particles, that
protect the tubular geometry. This also explains how the enhanced NAC properties from
the nanosize geometry can be maintained without a surrounding zirconium oxide ceramic
matrix, used in other catalyst formulation with NAC properties, because nanosize
particles always convert to the bulk material by agglomeration unless their surfaces
are prevented from contacting each other.. The tubular geometry would provide the
structure needed to keep the nano activity stable without a ceramic matrix, as
documented in some historical records of other experiments.
So far this is all clear. The historical records of experiments on these kind of
materials revealed that NAC output typically was in the 1 watt thermal power per gram
range, in self sustaining mode, when gas loaded. When atomic hydrogen was forced into
thin films using electrolysis, in experiments done in early 1990s, the power density
could be forced to 3000 watts per cubic centimeter of palladium, and a bit less for
nickel. Given nickel density that would still be hundreds of watts per gram of nickel.
Thus the Rossi claims and Defkalion claims for gas loaded nickel thermal output never
were inconceivable, and indeed had been a long sought goal of cold fusion researchers
for many years. The problem was simply how to load the surface of the nickel with
atomic hydrogen, without using electrolysis, when loading from gas. Or more specifically,
how to load the nickel tubular structure with atomic hydrogen.
As it turn out there are a number of ways to solve this problem today, and I suspect
that both Rossi and Defkalion are using inferior methods, although consistent with the
knowledge base of typical catalyst chemistry.
Rossi has mentioned an "activator", and Defkalion also talks about a "proprietary
activator". This would not be a standard promoter used in chemical hydrogenation
catalysts. Although they do concentrate and organize adsorbed atomic hydrogen
on the surface of catalytic surfaces, they also serve to concentrate and organize the
reacting molecule so the activation energy of it reacting with the hydrogen is reduced.
This is not the NAC property, that has more to do with atomic hydrogen being contained
interstially within the metal lattice structure, and interacting with the d-orbital
electronic configuration of the transition metal. From there the existing hypothesis
remain a bit vague mathematically about how exactly the nuclear reactions occur, but
transmutation of elements means there are nuclear reactions.
Chemical processes do exist that can make a higher concentration of atomic hydrogen on
the surface of the metal. The trick is to provide recycling of the reactants so the
process continues after the initial reaction. One hypothesis to use antimony hydride,
that can decompose at the reactor temperatures into antimony and atomic hydrogen, on
the surface of the nickel particles. Although antimony metal has a positive energy of
formation with hydrogen, meaning the compound antimony hydride will not spontaneously
form when bulk antimony and hydrogen are brought together, this process will occur when
nanoparticles of antimony in hydrogen at high pressure are heated to a few hundred C
together. This process can be made to recycle with better energetic's when the compound
antimony iodide is reacted in compressed hydrogen at a few hundred C with nickel
powder. The reaction reaches equilibrium where the reactants antimony, hydrogen, and
iodine, form compounds that react, and release atomic hydrogen onto the surface of
nickel particles, thus increasing the surface concentration, while reforming the
reactants as the product gases diffuse to slightly cooler parts of the reactor. All the
compounds from antimony iodide reacting with hydrogen are gases. They are hydrogen
iodide, antimony hydride, and antimony iodide. The atoms of hydrogen released onto the
nickel surface would then diffuse into the interior lattice structure of the nickel
metal.
This hypothesis will be evaluated and modified in my own experiments to duplicate
making NAC fuel using nickel, and fuels for higher temperature.
A superior method might be to use carbon nanotubes containing nickel atom clusters..
Atomic hydrogen inside the tubes can rise to high concentrations due to the electronic
configuration among the carbon atoms, and between the nickel atom clusters and the
carbon nanotube structure. Magnetic effects mediated by interaction of the d- orbital
configuration of the nickel atom clusters, and the nanotube structure, is also strongly
enhanced. Both these effects would serve to enhance NAC properties.
01 Dec 2011
The claims of W0 2010/058288 indicate Piantelli is using nano-clusters of metals,
especially nickel,(although his patent claims cover most of the metallic elements).
He does not mention it, but electroplating is used in industry because it is a cost
effective way to make deposits continuously. My studies reveal making nano-clusters
during electroplating is feasible. Clearly this method should be studied to make NAC
deposited on metal sheets. Piantelli mentions thin sheets of metal support having
nano-clusters deposited on the surface. This design would be excellent to make the
combination reactor and heat exchangers needed for a thermo-acoustic converter with
linear generator. The lighter weight, higher power per mass ratio, of a TAG system might
be more applicable to powering aircraft, but any vehicle can benefit from a lighter
weight power source.
(Following transfer from my blog at http://opensourcenuclearfuel.blogspot.com/).
HYDRINO ACTIVATOR USED IN E-CAT?
Any person with a science background who has studied
the research of Randell Mills and his scientists at Black Light Power, will realize
that given the test and measuring equipment they work with, and the kind of experiments
they have done for many years to increase atomic hydrogen on nickel, and cause the
atomic hydrogen to collapse to a lower energy state called the hydrino atom, that they
MUST have observed the nickel and hydrogen releasing reaction that is in the news now
with the E-Cat product publicity. That is not a question. It does not matter if one
believes the theory or not. IF energy is released in any kind of nickel and hydrogen
reaction, Black Light Power would have seen it. The Black Light Power experiments are
ALL about energy measurements that use hydrogen, and catalytic nickel is used in many
of the experiments, going back many years, with a very large number of catalysts that
activate the energy collapse process. Yet, Black Light Power has NOT said they know
what the Rossi reaction is. Or have they? Well, not directly. But indirectly Mills may
have revealed that he knows, and he knew years ago. Skeptics have asked about the
hydrino reaction releasing 200 times the energy of combustion of hydrogen with oxygen.
Mills replied years ago that was true in the beginning, but since then they had tested
reactions that release over 1000 times the energy of hydrogen combustion with oxygen.
Now, according to the Mills theory, more energy is released as the hydrogen collapse
progressively increases, and the hydrino can catalyze the collapse of other atomic
hydrogen, and any other hydrino, it contacts. Contact, is the key. Many years ago Mills
made some observations and comments that collapsed hydrogen atoms might interact with
the electron bands of atoms, and approach near the atomic nuclei where they could
either react with the nuclei, or with each other. Since then it was learned that the
hydrino atom forms negative ions. This would cause the negative hydrino ions (a form of
hydrogen) to be trapped in the interstitial lattice space of transition metals, and
because of their confinement, in accordance with the Piantelli hypothesis explaining
how hydrogen can react with nickel atom nuclei, and the Robert Bass hypothesis how the
Gamow factor is reduced because of the lattice periodicity and phonon vibration, they
would be "activated" to cause nuclear reactions at a higher rate than just hydrogen
adsorbed on the surface, as it typical for catalysts used in the chemical industry. In
other words, the hydrino could activate the nickel and hydrogen nuclear reaction, and
increase the power density of the NAC (nuclear active catalyst). The highest power
density and highest temperature NAC, therefore, is going to have nano-cluster size
metal particles, with a more rigid lattice structure than nickel, activated by a
spillover catalyst that increases the atomic hydrogen density (for example antimony
iodide in compressed hydrogen at elevated temperatures), with a gaseous compound that
can cause hydrino formation. This is the hypothesis that needs to be studied.
Such a compound "may" be hydrogen iodide, one of the products of the antimony iodide
reaction with high temperature compressed hydrogen. Hydrogen chloride does provide a
energy hole for hydrino formation, but it is unknown if the iodide has a similar
function for hydrino formation with hydrogen. Both would react in compressed high
temperature hydrogen to increase the atomic hydrogen formation on the nickel, but the
HCL resulting from antimony chloride decomposition in the hydrogen would have the
additional effect of causing the formation of collapsed hydrogen to H(1/p) with p=2.
There are enough unknown variables here that only by experiment can it be determined if
SbCl3 might be a better activator than SbI3. Antimony tri-chloride boils at about 220
C, compared to 401 C for antimony iodide, so that would not be a problem.
If this hypothesis can be proven correct, it offers a way to use any number of hydrino
forming catalysts, to enhance the nickel and hydrogen energy release reaction. And more
than that, it would prove that the nickel and hydrogen reaction may actually be an
example of CAF (coulomb annihilation fusion) that Randell Mills thought might be
possible, at least a far back as 1995, when I learned about it studying his published
work. Finally. it would offer a more clear path to making NAC fuel compositions with
much higher power density, at much higher temperatures, than NAC using nickel. Rocket
propulsion becomes feasible at 2000 C and multi-megawatt power densities. That should
be a goal for advanced NAC fuels.
29 Dec 2011 MORE NOTES ABOUT NAC ROCKET ENGINE.
Given the Gamow factor becoming zero when the particles in a potential well are
both prohibited from diffusion it is clear the individual quantum fields
determine, particle localization, and their interaction is not by tunneling. The
lattice cell reactors of osmium nano tubes should be able to operate near the
melting temperature of osmium at 3024 C. giving exhaust velocities comparable to
the solid core nuclear rocket engines of the NERVA project last mid century,
using hydrogen reaction mass. Power density can be increased by extracting part
of the power from the engine exhaust with an MHD converter to generate an EM
field about the engine core at the resonance condition of the potential wells
and hydrogen. Electroforming of metal sheets with cavity nano tube potential
wells sized to provide optimum power output in a MITEE design LANR rocket
engine may be feasible in the near term. An advantage of operating at higher
temperature is more hydrogen will be disassociated into atoms without catalyst.
Potential well size control by electroforming nano tubes in other transition
metals can also lend itself to making other NAC fuels for domestic and
industrial applications, as well as enabling transmutation of element ionic
species introduced into the potential wells. Much more information is needed on
reaction rate kinetics and coordination vectors to determine if LANR pellets can
be fabricated for pulse propulsion to delta V of a few hundred kilometers per
second. The power output per unit mass would be much greater than the MITEE
sheets, and the heat excessive to distribute to the lattice. It should be
possible to force localization in the potential wells of the lattice structure,
all at once but can it be done for a large percentage of the lattice cells
before the released energy turns the fuel pellet into plasma? The objective is
ideally still ground launch, and enough power for at least inner system space
travel and to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Even 50 miles per sec enables
travel to Mars in just a couple weeks. This technology would have been developed
last century, except for the delay of progress by the insane oligarchy.