FROM: Dr. Eugene F. Mallove, Editor-in-Chief Infinite Energy Magazine Cold Fusion Technology, Inc. PO Box 2816 Concord, NH 03302 Phone: 603-228-4516 Fax: 603-224-5975 editor@infinite-energy.com http://www.infinite-energy.com ********************************* A word of WARNING right up front: This is potentially VERY DANGEROUS work and must not be done without maximum, safety precautions and supervision by those thoroughly versed in laboratory safety! It involves high-temperatures, high-voltages, explosive mi xtures of oxygen and hydrogen, caustic solutions, and steam generation that if improperly contained could cause a deadly explosion. These are just the beginning hazards. This is unknown territory. Drs. Ohmori and Mizuno measured the transmutation of elem ents in this experiment. Thus, until further notice ^Ë and despite your possible skepticism about their claim of transmutation ^Ë this work must be considered, by definition, nuclear experimentation. With that said, we encourage every thoughtful group who can do this experiment safely to attempt it. Infinite Energy and Cold Fusion Technology, Inc. take no responsibility for the known or unknown radiation or other hazards that are associated this experiment. ********************************* Dear Colleagues: After much work we now have what appears to be a marvelous do-it-yourself "cold fusion" experiment. Any reasonably equipped chem/physics lab can see the effect within days to a week -- if they get their act together. The experiment has the following quali ties: 1. It is visually and audibly spectacular -- brilliant glowing, pink, purple, lavender with white flashes on an underwater tungsten (W) electrode ( e.g. 2 mm x 5 mm W foil or 1 cm x 1.6 mm diameter tungsten welding rod). A plasma-like underwater discharge on the electrode that often manages to disintegrate or melt tungsten underwater with only about 50 to 80 watts of power over a short period. (Tungsten's melting point is 3680 K or thereabouts.) The sound of the underwater "explosions" on the cathode -- brilliant white flashes on the purple background plasma -- is very impressive. 2. It is *totally reproducible* -- at will -- with no loading time as in the Pd/heavy water experiments 3. Calorimetry is simple to do because there is so much steam energy evolved from the reaction that by simply tallying the amount of water vaporized as steam, one gets over-unity every time (so far). Three groups have already gotten *preliminary* over-unity results: 1. Ohmori and Mizuno in Japan, who introduced the phenomenon at ICCF-7 (O/U estimated at 2.6/1); 2. Gene Mallove and FAA engineer Ed Wall here in Bow, NH during the past ten days -- work continuing -- (CONSERVATIVELY 1.4/1); 3. Engineer Mark Hugo of Northern States Power in Minnesota (but his affiliation has nothing to do with his home experiment) -- (CONSERVATIVELY 1.5/1), but owrk still continuing to check for errors. Chemist John Thompson in the Bahamas, who attended ICCF-7, was the first person outside of Japan to reproduce the effect and will do calorimetry on it soon. This will be in IE #20 out on July 22. 4. No one has patents or may be able to get them since the effect was noticed in other forms (1916!) and reported extensively in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society, April, 1950, p.133 in an article titled ("The Anode Effect in Aqueous Electrolysis," by Herbert Kellogg of the School of Mines, Columbia University. New York -- Hal Fox found this marvelous article, since it relates to some of the work his Trenergy Company is doing weith charge clustgers and radioactivity reduction. This may, indeed, be related to the underwater electrolysis ability to remediate nuclear waste. But -- OF COURSE! -- NO *calorimetry* was done in 1950. No one had any idea that such simple systems could be O/U. The systems were studied for other reasons. Further: the present tungsten effect is seen mainly on the cathode, but it can make the Pt anode incandescent too at lower water temperature (say 50 C) -- we normally work over 80 C. It is very mysterious -- was so to Kellogg in 1950 and remains so. 5. Ohmori and Mizuno found major evidence for transmutation of elements and volcanic ejection of metals from the tungsten surface -- these SEM photos were reproduced in their article. They find Hg, Os, Kr, Zn, Cu, Ni, Fe, Cr, Si, and Mg -- with anomalous isotopic content. Just as I said, in IE #15/16, this subject is more properly called ³Electro-Alchemy" 6. WARNING: Ohomori and Mizuno experienced significant apparent electromagnetic effects on their instruments. They were unsure whether some of the effect on their neutron counter were evidence of neutrons -- I doubt the latter, as did Srinivasan of BARC at ICCF7. I have kept a Geiger counter on during our experiments -- absolutely no sign of major ionizing radiation, but of course it could be localized within the cell. Ohmori and Mizuno's paper at ICCF7: " Strong Excess Energy Evolution, New Element Production, and Electromagnetic Wave And/Or Neutron Emission in the Light Water Electrolysis with a Tungsten Cathode." T. Ohmori and T. Mizuno, Catalysis Research Center, H okkaido University Here is my recommended recipe for an experiment to demonstrate the effect: 1. Take a 250 ml glass beaker, fill to about 200 ml level with 0.5 molar (0.5 M) K2CO3 -- potassium carbonate solution 2. Get 0.5 mm diameter Pt wire for both anode and cathode leads -- about 15 cm for each lead is adequate length. Shield them with teflon tubing down to the connection point with the Pt or W. 3. Use a small piece of Pt foil -- about 2 mm x 5mm on the anode (positive lead) crimped mechanically to the Pt wire -- no welding is needed. 4. Use a 2 mm x 5 mm size W foil on the cathode - negative side. It is tricky to attach the W foil (we used 0.1 mm thickness, which can be pierced with difficulty and the Pt lead wired through). Or, if W welding rod 1/16-inch diameter is available, wrap t he Pt wire around the W piece about 0.5 to 1 cm long. Warning: The reaction is so violent that it is hard to get the cathode piece in rod form not to fall out of its Pt wire cage! Runs up to 10 minutes or so are usually OK. Mark Hugo has run for up to 75 minutes , condunsing steam from the reaction -- but he has put other ingredients into the brew such as Li, and he has used a thicker cathode of 1/8-inch W rod. 5. Get a DC power supply up to 5 amps capacity and up to 200 volts. (I am eager to try beyond 180 volts, but we may need a concrete bunker before we try that! Eager also to try heavy water!) You can use a variac AC source to make DC power-- use a bridge rectifier and capacitor to make DC from the AC output. Install voltage and current metering devices -- digital display preferred, data acquisition system if you want to get fancy on the calorimetry later. I'm sure Scott Little and Mitch Swartz cojuld do this soon if they put their equipment into this specialized service. This is an excellent experiment for Barry Merriman too! 6. Heat up the beaker solution to 80 C either by electrolysis at low DC input power -- e.g. 20 V, 1.8 to 2 amps -- or with an external hot plate. (Turn off the hot plate and **remove it** if calorimetry is being used.) At about 80 deg --sometimes at a lower temperature -- crank up the volts to 120 to 180. The effect changes appearance as voltage increases. Current will drop substantially to 0.2 to 0.4 amps as the sheath of steam surrounds the glowiing plasma-sheathed cathode. Keep an alcohol thermometer suspended in the solution to measure the temperature. I would *initially* avoid thermocouples because of the threat of violent electromagnetic interference in this unknown phenomena. In calorimetric assessment: Heating credit should be taken for the full mass of water in the cell from the initial temperature of say 80 C to the boiling point. However, you may find it difficult to push the average solution temperature up to 100C (we were only in the low to mid 90s), because the steam ejected cools the solution so rapidly. The boiling point is elevated -- McKubre estimated to me in aprivate communciation by only 0.25 deg C for such a solution). This is wonderful, because we WANT steam. It will be no problem at all to power steam engines with this, if pending thorough verification of excess energy (This *is* work in progress that must be confirmed!) we figure out how to get the power ratio high enough, if it is not there already. The main source of the excess is the amount boiled off: water vaporized requires about 2260 J/gm. Why was this missed by other cold fusion people? Simple: everyone was looking for a sedate reaction that P&F had started with when the real pay off was in these higher voltage systems that trigger with metals like tungsten. W is recommended due to its temperature resistance, but John Thompson has found that other metals such as Al, Cu, Ni, and Zr also work -- as far as the *visible* effect. The colors of the emissions are different -- different hot plasma near the cathode surface. Other parameters that need to be explored: * Higher voltage * Can energy be extracted from the recycled water after steam condensation or if Mills-type hydrinos are formed, do they become "inert"? * Other electrolytes -- KCl also works, according to Thompson, try higher molarity values * Other metals * Pressurized systems -- BE CAREFUL!!! * Recombine oxygen and hydrogen -- but a very small part of the effect, undoubtedly -- to get extra energy in the output * Try heavy water in various mixtures with light water * Detect electromagnetic pulse from the device -- if it is there as they found in Japan * Examine the element production and non-natural isotope ratios formed * SEM imaging for morphology of craters * Look for radiation -- use film fogging techniques, CR-39 plastic detectors, etc. This will keep a lot of people busy for a long time. As soon as we pin down the thermal characteristics a bit more, we and others well be hell-bent to scale up to larger power-producing units -- with SAFETY FIRST as our motto. ********** This is a typical, very brief O/U investigation run that Ed Wall and I performed here recently in an uninsulated glass beaker on a metal surface -- VERY rough calculation, conservative, we think. Among other factors reducing effect apart from ZERO insulation is the recondensation and re-boiling of material -- we had a plastic cover on the beaker with holes drilled in it. A distillation recondensation device would be preferred to observe water evolved as steam. Input: 0.7 to 0.8 amps, avg 0.75 A input at 168 volts = 26,590 J Duration: 3 minutes, 31 seconds Solution reduced from 183 ml to 173 ml due to boil-off Output = 10 x 2260 J/gm H2O + 183 x (about 15 C rise during heating to full boiling at about 92 C) x 4.18 J/gm C = 34,060 output/input = 1.28 Credit for uninsulated vessel and re-bailing of condnsed liquid could easily push this to 1.40 and beyond. Much more work needs to be done. I hope that other Vortexians will try this -- CAREFULLY, please! ************ Ohmori and Mizuno did calorimatry on the last few mintues BEFORE boiling and compared the rate of temperature rise to that of a joule heater's effect on the same volume of electrolyte. That's how they got their 2.6/1. ****** See Infinite Energy #20 for more information in late July.