How to Make and Detect a FAKE Rossi/Focardi eCAT LENR

Alan Fletcher
Version 1, March 4, 2011

1. Introduction

A new "Cold Fusion" or "LENR" device -- the Rossi/Focardi Energy Catalyser or eCAT was recently demonstrated at the University of Bologna, Italy on Jan 15, 2011:

Rossi-Focardi Energy Catalyzer

Unlike the Pons and Fleischmann setup, this uses Hydrogen and Nickel, produces large amounts of energy (more than 10KW), and can be turned on and off on demand.

This paper takes a "Devil's Advocate" position : if it's not real, how can the experiment be faked? And if it's faked, how can we detect it, or eliminate it?

And if all possible fakes are eliminated ... Sherlock Holmes' axiom applies.

This paper doesn't not include any NUCLEAR fakes.

2. eCAT Demonstrator Apparatus

The basic setup is

                                              *======> steam 
                                              |        outlet
                                         *---------*
                                         |    :    |
                                         |    :    |
                                         | Vertical|
                            Main         | Arm     | 
                            Unit         |    :    |
                                         |    :    |
                           Horizontal Arm|    :    |
                           *-------------*    :    |
                           |    Reactor       :    |
                           |   * - - - - - -* :    |
                           |   :Shielding   : :    |
           *------*        |   *- - - - - - * :    |
Water  ====| pump |=======>|::>: Heat       :-*    |
           *------*        |   : Exchanger  :      |
       *--------------*    |   *- - - - - - *      |
AC:--->| Control Unit |===>|::>: Resistors  :      |
       *--------------*    |   *- - - - - --*      |
            *------*       |   : Chamber    :      |
Compressed  | H    |======>|::>: Ni/H       :      |
Hydrogen    |      |       |   *- - - - - - *      |
            *------*       |                       |
            ^^^^^^^^       *-----------------------*
            scale            ||                || metal legs
                        *============================* 
                                 board

The components are:

• Main Unit (Made up of a Horizontal and Vertical Arm)
• Horizontal Arm : Contains the Reactor Unit, reportedly made up of:


• eCat -- contains Nickel, fed with Hydrogen
• Resistors -- used to "ignite" the reactor, then lowered to maintain the reaction
• Heat exchanger -- heats and/or boils the water.
• Radiation Shielding -- Lead


• Vertical Arm
• Water and Pump
• Control Unit powered from a wall-plug.
• Compressed Hydrogen bottle, weighed before and after.

The entire Horizontal and Vertical arms were enveloped in tinfoil for the December/January trials.

The presence or absence of any evidence of nuclear activity is NOT considered in this paper.

Operation:

• Load the reactor with hydrogen
• Apply 1KW through the control panel until the reactor "ignites"
• Reduce the input power to 400W
• Pump water in at a measured rate and temperature
• Observe steam output, measure temperature and (January) dryness
• Accurately measure the weight of the hydrogen bottle, before and after

3. Experiments

3.1. January Experiment

In December 2010 a team of scientists was allowed to examine the device, and performed a number of experiments.

In January a "press" demonstration was held -- though the reactor developed an internal problem (reportedly on the leads to an internal heating resistor), took a long time to "ignite", and ran at lower efficiency (higher inout power).

These two will be referred to as the "January" apparatus and experiment.

The things we know about the January apparatus as a whole are:

• The input power to the controller
• The input water volume and temperature
• The output steam temperature and dryness
• The amount of hydrogen used
• ESTIMATED volumes of the various elements
  (These could be confirmed from the photographs).

The things we do NOT know about the January apparatus include:

• The contents of the controller
• The power from the controller to the main unit
• The output steam volume
• The weights before and after, other than the hydrogen bottle
• Whether any air was taken in by the device, or combustion products released.

ASSUMING that ALL the water was converted to steam the total OUTPUT energy was computed:

• Heat water to boiling point
• Convert to steam
• Heat the steam

Given the rate of flow, the output power (KW) and energy (KWH) were computed, and the INPUT power (KW) to the controller was subtracted.

The volume of the various elements were estimated by Villa to be:

• Control Box 60 litres
• Horizontal Arm 22 litres
• Vertical Arm 9 litres

The measured values are:

• Flow Rate: 17.5 L/Hr (292 ml/min)
• Input Power : 400W
• Excess Power 12.5 KWH
• Factor 12.5/0.4 = 31

3.2. February Experiment

The February trail reportedly had the same general structure, except that is was only used to HEAT water, not to convert it to steam.

The (sole?) observer of the February run, Prof Levi, was allowed to examine everything except the central reactor, which he estimated to be about 1 liter in volume. He reported that a lot of the volume of the horizontal and vertical arms was insulation, and that lead shielding was visible around the reactor.

The things we know about the February apparatus as a whole are:

• The Control Unit and all parts of the Main Unit except the reactor were inspected.
• The input power to the controller
• The input water volume and temperature
• The output water temperature
• The amount of hydrogen used
• ESTIMATED volume of the reactor
• Very little water could be stored (see note)

The things we do NOT know about the February apparatus include:

• The power from the controller to the main unit
• The weights before and after, other than the hydrogen bottle
• Whether any air was taken in by the device, or combustion products released.

Note: Since all of the system was visible except the central reactor, and a high rate of flow was used, we can reasonably assume that ALL the water was sent through the system.

4. Methodology for FAKE eCATS and their Detection

4.1. Energy Densities

4.2. FAKES by VOLUME

The January values are :

4.3. FAKES by WEIGHT

5. Rothwell's Razor

This is a variation of (the usually misquoted) Occam's razor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is very tempting to propose elaborate schemes by which the eCat could be faked. For instance, in the author's physorg.com posts he suggested feeding it a brew of various isotopes of water to make sure that the SAME water goes in and comes out.

However, in the Vortex mailing list Re: [Vo]:Hidden wire hypothesis redux

Jed Rothwell suggests in response to another comment:

For the December/January STEAM version I'd clarify that the parameters for the ORIGINAL demonstration were: For the February WATER version we need: For FUTURE WATER versions we need:

6. Spreadsheet

Spreadsheets were used to perform these calculations. See Spreadsheets v1 (In progress).

7. Physorg Posts

These ideas were first noted in PhysOrg (posting as alanf777)

The 1,000-character posting limit made my comments rather hard to read), so I have extracted and clarified them in Physorg v1

Version 1, March 4, 2011 AlanFletcher@FarCad.com Home