Finally the 3rd party independent test results of Andrea Rossi’s LENR device, the E-Cat, have now been released. The test was conducted in March 2014 over a period of 32 days on a reactor tube operating at a temperature of 1400 °C . Note that thermal power plants require about 1000 degrees to produce electricity. The reactor, which is an improved version of the previous steel reactor, is made of a ceramic material known as Alumina, and has a reaction chamber with a volume less than 0.1 litres. Amazingly, a total of only one 1 gram of fuel was used in the entire duration of the test.
In the 1st half of the test, the reactor operated at 1260 ºC, and at about 1400 °C in the second half, with a COP of 3.5. The total net energy obtained during the 32 days run was about 1.5 MWh. According to the scientists, this amount of energy is far more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in such a small reactor volume.
The energy generation was ignited by a combination of heat and some specific electromagnetic pulses.
Below are some interesting observations:
- Micrometric Nickel is used, not nano metric.
- COP was kept at a low 3.5 for safety reasons but could be much higher.
- E-Cat Fuel = 1 gram.
- Reactor was shutdown after 32 days before fuel was spent.
- Power density = 1.6 GWh/kg.
- Efficiency = 6% (doesn’t really matter coz we’re dealing with energy at nuclear scale).
- The powder fuel is comprised of Nickel & what looks like a chemical/metal hydride, Lithium Alanate LiAlH4, plus some Iron. Lithium Alanate can hold up to 10.6 wt% hydrogen.
- Further analysis of the fuel showed that the mass ratio between Li and Al is compatible with the LiAlH4 molecule.
- The observed isotopic changes in Lithium & Nickel showed that the burning process in the E-Cat indeed changes the fuel at a nuclear level. Therefore this is a nuclear reaction
- No radiation.
- Self-sustain mode was possible but not utilized.
- Ceramic Alumina Cylinder has a Melting Point of 2,072 °C .
- Reaction Chamber Volume = 0.063 L.
- 23 hour dummy test produced no excess heat.
The device can actually go beyond 1400 °C but the scientists decided not to try this to avoid damage, because just raising the input power by 100 W led to a temperature gain of 140 °C . The speed with which the temperature had risen persuaded them to desist from any further attempt to increase the power input to the reactor. Maximum input power was therefore set to 900W.
Here are some interesting facts about hydrogen:
- Hydrogen Chemical Energy = 33 KWh/kg = 330 Wh/gram
- Hydrogen Nuclear Energy = 25 GWh/gram
- Average efficiency of nuclear power plants is 0.27 %
Comparison of 100 KWh in different energy systems:
(100 KWh is the equivalent of a full tank of gasoline in a Ford Focus)
|Li-ion Battery||Gasoline||PEM Fuel Cell
|Mass||900 kg||50 kg||5 kg (Hydrogen)||0.000004 grams|
|Volume||300 L||60 L||125 L (Hydrogen)||Negligible|
Extrapolating an estimate maximum possible efficiency of 30% (Like your typical Internal Combustion Engine or Thermal Power Plants), shows that future E-Cats will have a power density of up to 8 GWh/kg.
As the reporst said; “It is certainly most unsatisfying that these results so far have no convincing theoretical explanation, but the experimental results cannot be dismissed or ignored just because of lack of theoretical understanding.”
Well said. Below is the entire document.