An extended study of a Rossi type reactor device (see posts here and here) has been carried out by a team of Italian and Swedish researchers. The results again shows high energy output for which a nuclear reaction is the only explanation.
Mats Lewan, who has written extensively about the Rossi story for the technical magazine Ny Teknik, writes about the new paper: New scientific report on the E-Cat shows excess heat and nuclear process – An Impossible Invention
In order to avoid doubts that were presented with regard to their earlier report, several things have been changed: The measurement was performed during 32 days in a neutral laboratory in Switzerland, electric measurement on the input power has been improved, a 23-hour test of the reactor without charge was done in order to calibrate the measurement set-up, and chemical analysis of the fuel before and after the run has been performed with five different methods.
He includes some comments from one of the authors, Professor Bo Höistad of Uppsala University:
Mats: What have you done differently this time, based on the experiences from your last measurement and report?
Höistad: An accurate measurement, particularly the control of energy balance without fuel in the reactor, and a isotopic analysis of the fuel.
Mats: What reactions do you expect on the report?
Höistad: Hopefully that the interest in the possibility of achieving LENR reactors get a decent boost, and that critical overtones in the debate are downplayed in favor of scientific discussions.
Mats: What do you personally feel facing the inexplicable observations you have made?
Höistad: As pointed out in our paper, we face a phenomenon without explanation. However, we can not categorically reject the clear experimental results just because a credible theory is currently lacking. We need to relate to the actual experimental results and continue the investigations to gain more knowledge about the LENR phenomenon.
The paper has been submitted to Physics Review D and was available on the preprint site arXiv.org but was removed, no doubt because of the usual controversy that surrounds any cold fusion type paper. The report, however, is available on line:
Observation of abundant heat production from a reactor device and of isotopic changes in the fuel (pdf)
Giuseppe Levi – Bologna University, Bologna, Italy
Evelyn Foschi – Bologna, Italy
Bo Höistad, Roland Pettersson and Lars Tegnér – Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Hanno Essén – Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract:
New results are presented from an extended experimental investigation of anomalous heat production in a special type of reactor tube operating at high temperatures. The reactor, named E-Cat, is charged with a small amount of hydrogen-loaded nickel powder plus some additives, mainly Lithium. 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.
A sample of the fuel was carefully examined with respect to its isotopic composition before the run and after the run, using several standard methods: XPS, EDS, SIMS, ICP-MS and ICP-AES. 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, which however is hard to reconcile with the fact that no radioactivity was detected outside the reactor during the run.
Update: The CEO of Elforsk, the organization that runs the electric power plants in Sweden, responds to the report and announces the formation of a program to study the phenomenon. Here’s an English translation of his statement: CEO Elforsk Magnus Olofsson – LENR Forum. (Elforsk has been monitoring the work of the Italian-Swedish group for some time now.)
Update 2: Here’s an interview with prominent investor Tom Darden who is CEO of Cherokee Investment Partners, which in turn owns the company Industrial Heat that acquired the rights to Rossi’s eCat technology (see post here) : Raleigh investor Darden still bullish on controversial nuclear technology – Triangle Business Journal