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Italian inventor Andrea Rossi's Energy Catalyzer device (E-Cat), which supposedly produces energy in the form of heat through a low energy nuclear reaction (LENR), has undergone third party testing by independent researchers at various universities for the last year. Their report has now been released under the name
Observation of abundant heat production from a reactor device and of isotopic changes in the fuel
Their central findings, from the abstract, are
The reaction is primarily initiated by heat from resistor coils around the reactor tube. Measurements of the radiated power from the reactor were performed with high-resolution thermal imaging cameras. The measurements of electrical power input were performed with a large bandwidth three-phase power analyzer. Data were collected during 32 days of running in March 2014. The reactor operating point was set to about 1260 ºC in the first half of the run, and at about 1400 °C in the second half. The measured energy balance between input and output heat yielded a COP factor of about 3.2 and 3.6 for the 1260 ºC and 1400 ºC runs, respectively. The total net energy obtained during the 32 days run was about 1.5 MWh. This amount of energy is far more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in the small reactor volume.
and
The isotope composition in Lithium and Nickel was found to agree with the natural composition before the run, while after the run it was found to have changed substantially. Nuclear reactions are therefore indicated to be present in the run process [...]
Since the measurements were all performed by independent researchers, at locations and using equipment of their choosing. Yet, much remains unexplained, particularly the lack of neutron or gamma emissions.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday October 09 2014, @01:05PM
"net power generation of 1.5MWh"
Technobabble for most non-EE ish people.
So thats 1500 kilowatt hours. Thank you SI system I didn't want to express that in slug footcandles per fortnight or whatever imperial BS.
A typical figure of merit is you can't buy a COTS rechargeable battery that exceeds many hundreds of watt hours per kilo. The one in your car, unless you own a Tesla, is a lot worse BTW.
The report contains a pix of the device on a cheap cooking class scale (well, slightly better, but not a six sig fig analytical balance) showing it masses about half a kilo.
So if it was a COTS lithium battery you'd expect ah maybe a quarter kilowatt hour out of it. OK impressive about 6000 times more than a COTS battery. He doesn't have a bunch of radio shack lithium AA cells in there.
High tech lab only probably vaporware one time use best result we got and give us a grant as reported in the free press you might get one kilowatt hour out of a unobtanium research level lithium battery weighing that much.
However, there's more to chemistry than rechargable batteries.
A watt hour is exactly 3600 joules or a KWH is close enough to a MJ not to matter (for one sig fig). Thats mega joule not "minecraft joules" the predecessor of minecraft RF power. But I digress.
So dude is getting about 3000 MJ per kilo of "thing". Obviously a bunch of pipes and stuff are not generating power. So he's getting maybe to one sig fig "four thousand MJ/Kg"
Thats WAY beyond any fuel I can think of. ALL hydrocarbons are about 50 MJ/Kg off the top of my head (now don't give me shit about Bunker C actually being 42.424242 or methane/natgas being nearly 60, "about to one sig fig" all hydrocarbons, all of them, are about 50 MJ/Kilo, because you can F around with how you arrange H and C atoms but fundamentally, its just a pile of H and C atoms) So an energy density per mass of about 100 higher than petroleum based fuel. So its not just a rounding error.
Assuming the measurements are good.
Or back to my original assertation that it makes no sense to non EEs, the point I'm making is its maybe almost ten thousand times higher energy density that your laptop battery and a hundred or so times higher density than the gas tank of your car or any other fuel. So its no rounding error or minor miscalculation (any miscalculations are my own)
(Score: 1) by G-forze on Thursday October 09 2014, @01:10PM
The 1,5 MWh they got out of the device was during the 32 day time span, after which they had enough data to rule out any chemical energy source and turned it off. There is nothing saying it could not have gone on for much longer. In fact, Rossi's aim is a device which needs re-fueling every six months, and runs continously in between.
If I run into the term "SJW", I stop reading.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday October 09 2014, @01:55PM
Page 25 of TFA:
(they fed about 1g of "fuel" into the e-cat)
Page 26:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by emg on Thursday October 09 2014, @04:59PM
"Obviously a bunch of pipes and stuff are not generating power."
You do realize you can send power along 'a bunch of cables and stuff', right?
I haven't looked at this in any detail, but just looking at the pictures, I can think of plenty of ways to get power into the device.
BTW, if anyone really believes this is really a nuclear reactor of some kind, why aren't governments demanding he be licensed for building nuclear reactors?