Rossi Energy Catalyzer

[CaptainChewbacca]

So my brother sent this my way today, and it seems a bit wacky. They aren't calling it cold fusion, but rather an energy 'catalyzer' of copper.

Link

"Experimentally, we obtained copper; and we believe that its appearance is due to the fusion of atomic nuclei of nickel and hydrogen, the ingredients that feed our reactor. Since hydrogen and nickel 'weigh' with less, copper must have released a lot of energy, since 'nothing is created or destroyed.' Indeed, the 'Missing Mass' has been transformed into energy, which we have measured: it is in the order of a few kilowatts, two hundred times the energy that was the beginning of the reaction."

And more recently, Nobel Laureate Joseph Laurenson has spoken in favor of this technology. He suggests the media isn't covering it because they've been burned a few times already on cold fusion. Anyone have some thoughts? I can't believe a 10-kilowatt reactor can sit on my kitchen counter, but I don't know the science enough to say WHY its wrong.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

So my brother sent this my way today, and it seems a bit wacky. They aren't calling it cold fusion, but rather an energy 'catalyzer' of copper.

Link

"Experimentally, we obtained copper; and we believe that its appearance is due to the fusion of atomic nuclei of nickel and hydrogen, the ingredients that feed our reactor. Since hydrogen and nickel 'weigh' with less, copper must have released a lot of energy, since 'nothing is created or destroyed.' Indeed, the 'Missing Mass' has been transformed into energy, which we have measured: it is in the order of a few kilowatts, two hundred times the energy that was the beginning of the reaction."

And more recently, Nobel Laureate Joseph Laurenson has spoken in favor of this technology. He suggests the media isn't covering it because they've been burned a few times already on cold fusion. Anyone have some thoughts? I can't believe a 10-kilowatt reactor can sit on my kitchen counter, but I don't know the science enough to say WHY its wrong.

Let's go down the bullshit checklist:

1) Device works by some mysterious magical mechanism not fully understood or explained by the laws of physics: Check (mysteriously, all radiation products produced by their reactor are wholly absorbed by the lead shielding, and there is allegedly no sign of the usual byproducts of a fusion reaction (for one thing, if you somehow got a proton to fuse with the typical atom of nickel to form an atom of copper, the predominant isotope formed would be noticeably radioactive.)
2) Device's only references come in the form of woo-woo blogs: Check.
3) Device proponents assert that there is some sort of agreement in the mass media preventing coverage of their world-changin device: Check.
4) All demonstrations of the device take place under conditions tightly controlled by the inventors: Check.
5) Device inventors make claims about the device that aren't backed up by solid proof: Check (allegedly the device was used in a factory . . . somewhere.)
6) The device inventors have bypassed the step of publishing a paper in a peer-reviewed journal, instead going right to the press: Check (there is one article published in a scientific journal, but it predates the device by some years.)

So . . . bullshit? Definitely.

[starslayer]

What a load of bullshit. Nickel and hydrogen fusion cannot possibly release energy simply due to the difference in binding energies between nickel and copper; copper, IIRC, is actually less tightly bound than nickel, so making it from nickel takes energy and won't release more than is put in. Oh, and Brian Josephson's the Laureate.

[Terralthra]

Yeah, this hits all the "skeptic" alarms. If it's really a scientific breakthrough, it would be duplicable by other laboratories. Instead, it gets 3-4 highly controlled and secretive black box "demonstrations" (with results only as reported by the inventor) before the inventor licenses the "technology" to potential plant operators.

Triggers my bullshit detector as well.

[sciguy]

Nickel and hydrogen fusion cannot possibly release energy simply due to the difference in binding energies between nickel and copper; copper, IIRC, is actually less tightly bound than nickel, so making it from nickel takes energy and won't release more than is put in.

58Ni goes up slightly in energy when it undergoes proton capture to form 59Cu, but the 59Cu rapidly decays into 59Ni, which is lower in energy than the 58Ni that you stated with. It's certainly possible to produce energy with nickel-proton fusion, if you can get it to happen without wasting too much energy with inefficient efforts to get the nuclei to fuse. Rossi isn't claiming anything that's fundamentally impossible or in violation of the laws of physics. Fusion catalysts are possible, and one could definitely produce energy from nickel-proton fusion if one had an efficient fusion catalyst for the reaction.

Of course, just because it's theoretically possible doesn't mean that he's actually got it working.

[CaptainChewbacca]

What a load of bullshit. Nickel and hydrogen fusion cannot possibly release energy simply due to the difference in binding energies between nickel and copper; copper, IIRC, is actually less tightly bound than nickel, so making it from nickel takes energy and won't release more than is put in. Oh, and Brian Josephson's the Laureate.

Thank you, 'binding energy' was the term I couldn't think of.

[PeZook]

There's also a nice profile of the inventor where he claims he was put down by "corrupt bureaucrats" before he could revolutionize the world in the 1970s.

It's what nearly all alternative energy frauds claim: "LOL we could've saved the world, except there's a conspiracy to put us down!"

[Crossroads Inc.]

For the record...

The line "We we're put down by Big Bussines fearing our free energy!" Is something that should forever be questioned because on the very face of it, it makes no sense.

Let us say someone truely created some miracle box that made "free" energy. Such a thing would not be simple, would probably be very expensive and require skilled manufacture. Companies are out to make money, not to enforce some evil world order out to stop "the little guy" If someone created some new energy device, you can be assured it would not be suppressed , but bought up and exploited.

If something like this existed, energy companies would fall over themselves to develop it for profit. The free market at work!

[Serafina]

Heck, screw companies. There are plenty of governments who would gladly buy a free(or cheap)-energy device. After all energy-independence is a serious political topic for every industrial nation.

[Hamstray]

Why are there no higher resolution images of this cardboard box strapped to a hookah wrapped in aluminium foil?

[Magis]

EDIT: My original post is not applicable because I misread the article and thought they were claiming to have produced nickel instead of copper.

Anyways, the "journal" that this thing got "published" in seems to be a crackpot journal. The article on the journal website isn't written in any formal academic style (regarding terminology, etc.), and a search for a Dr. Andrea Rossi at the University of Bologna yielded no hits. So I think this story was made up right from the start.

[Hamstray]

Dr. Andrea Rossi at the University of Bologna yielded no hits.

Oh, does it say Università di Bologna? I'm sure they meant to say Università di Salsiccia da Bologna.

[LaCroix]

Dr. Andrea Rossi at the University of Bologna yielded no hits.

Oh, does it say Università di Bologna? I'm sure they meant to say Università di Salsiccia da Bologna.

I heard he transferred to Mortadello College last year...

And changed his name...

After all, there are some multi-national corporations out for his head...

[Zac Naloen]

Ny Teknik reports they were given a sample of unused nickel powder, and some that Rossi reported as used for 2.5 months; analysis showed the unused powder was pure nickel while the used powder contained 10 percent copper and 11 percent iron,[16] although iron production is not mentioned anywhere in the patent.[18] In their discussion, Essen and Kullander caution, "Since we do not have access to the internal design of the central fuel container and no information on the external lead shielding and the cooling water system we can only make very general comments."[17]



From the Wiki, this leads me to believe this is a scam.

Iron is lighter than Nickel and Copper, what could account for iron appearing in the sample, my basic knowledge of this would suggest that is impossible as they claim they are fusing hydrogen in nickel to create copper. Iron shouldn't enter the picture.

[Zac Naloen]

EDIT: My original post is not applicable because I misread the article and thought they were claiming to have produced nickel instead of copper.

Anyways, the "journal" that this thing got "published" in seems to be a crackpot journal. The article on the journal website isn't written in any formal academic style (regarding terminology, etc.), and a search for a Dr. Andrea Rossi at the University of Bologna yielded no hits. So I think this story was made up right from the start.

Reading around, that is actually Rossi's own blog. It was published there after the journal was rejected by an actual Journal for not complying with known science and lacking an explanation as to how it actually works.

[Hamstray]

As for what people here previously already mentioned:

What isotopes of nickel are consumed?

The nickel powder put into the device is not of any specific isotope. It is just common ordinary nickel of a very small particle size. However, is thought that only two isotopes of nickel (62Ni and 64Ni) are being consumed.

I'm quite surprised they would think they could get away with such stupendous claims at all.
Every kid with a slight interest in astrophysics must have heard something similar as this 90s style website puts it:

The buildup of heavier elements in the nuclear fusion processes in stars is limited to elements below iron, since the fusion of iron would subtract energy rather than provide it. Iron-56 is abundant in stellar processes, and with a binding energy per nucleon of 8.8 MeV, it is the third most tightly bound of the nuclides. Its average binding energy per nucleon is exceeded only by 58Fe and 62Ni, the nickel isotope being the most tightly bound of the nuclides.

i remember having read about something like this when i was 7 (in connection with the fate of our sun)

[sciguy]

Hamstray: Rossi's US patent application (US 2011/0005506 A1) explicitly says that the reactor can't be fueled by isotopes of Ni that result in stable copper isotopes (like 62Ni) since the reactor relies on decay of unstable copper isotopes (created by the nickel-proton fusion) to generate power when they undergo beta decay. I'm not sure where that wiki is getting its information, but it doesn't appear to actually be affiliated with Rossi.

As I said above, Rossi isn't claiming anything that's fundamentally impossible. The dude has a PhD in physics. He's educated enough to make up bullshit that is hypothetically possible.

On a side note, after reading the application I'd say there's no way in hell he's going to get his US patent...there appears to be all sorts of things wrong with the application. Not the least of which is that the PTO will almost surely not believe that the thing works...