Scientific Critique Against Rossi Claim

On 28 October 2011 Andrea Rossi performed an experiment with his E-cat in front of several journalists. He claimed to have liberated large amounts of thermal energy by using a simple inexpensive apparatus and small amounts of input energy. If his claim is correct, this would mean a major scientific breakthrough and the key to inexpensive clean energy. I argue that his experiment includes mistakes. However, I point out that nuclear fusion under desktop conditions is possible and that a major scientific breakthrough has been published this year. Real scientific breakthroughs are always published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.Andrea Rossi claims to liberate large amounts of thermal energy by using a simple inexpensive apparatus and small input energy.

Rossi claims that at least since 2008 he can liberate the thermal energy reproducible at will.

Rossi says that each module of his E-cat includes 50 grams of nickel and some amount of hydrogen gas at high pressure and high temperature. The nickel is not pure, but contains a secret catalyst.

For an experiment which Rossi started on 5 March 2009 and terminated on 26 April 2009 he claims to have liberated 3768 kWh of thermal energy, where the input electric energy was only 18.54 kWh. Rossi says that after the experiment he examined the nickel via secondary ion mass spectroscopy. The nickel included 30% of copper, where the ratio of the copper isotopes was Cu-63 / Cu-65 = 1.6, whereas the natural ratio of the isotopes is Cu-63 / Cu-65 = 2.2. Rossi states also to have observed radioactivity from his modules. His explanation for the appearance of the thermal energy, the copper, the anomalous copper isotope ratio and the radioactivity is that the nickel and the hydrogen transmute into copper by the help of the secret catalyst.

On 28 October 2011 Rossi performed an experiment in front of several journalists. The experiment started at 9:00 h and terminated at 23:00 h that day. Data for the experiment were given only for the time between 12:30 h and 18:00 h. The experiment included 107 modules of his E-cat.

Rossi says that for this time interval of 5.5 hours the only input energy was 66 kWh to run the fans and pumps. He claims that the output thermal energy was 2635 kWh.

In this and in all other experiments, Rossi determined the output energy by flow calorimetry. Before the experiment he measured the water flow as 675.6 litres/hour. The temperature of the input water was 18.3 degrees Celsius. By assuming that the water flow was constant, the consumed water was 3716 kg. Rossi says that only 5 kg of the water has not vaporized. So 3711 kg of water are assumed to have been heated from 18.3 degrees Celsius to the boiling temperature of 100 degrees Celsius, which requires 4.18 Joule per gram per Kelvin. To vaporize water to steam further 2272 Joule per gram are required. The total output energy is therefore

3711000 * (2272 + 4.18 * (100 – 18.3)) J = 9.699 * 10^9 J = 9.699 GJ = 2694 kWh.

This looks fascinating and like a major scientific breakthrough. Take some nickel and hydrogen, use 66 kWh of electric energy and get 2635 kWh of thermal energy. Thereby the nickel is transmuted to copper, where the isotope ratio of the produced copper is anomalous and radioactivity is measured.

But is the claimed evidence real? I have strong doubts. My reasons are the following.

(1) Rossi says that his E-cat liberates thermal energy only if the catalyst is used. The catalyst is secret. So no one else can reproduce his experiment. Any failure to reproduce his experiment can be explained by saying that “you have not used the right catalyst”. Recall that reproducibility by others is a sign of physical science, non-reproducibility is a sign of occultism.

(2) Rossi worked together with scientists, especially with Sergio Focardi. None of these scientists knows what the E-cat consists of, i. e. is the nickel in the form of powder, sponge or rod, what is the nature of the catalyst, does the E-cat include nickel and hydrogen at all?

(3) Several scientists were allowed to do measurements with his E-cat. But they had to regard the entire apparatus as a black box. They had no possibility to check whether the input energy was determined correctly. Was there no additional input energy?

(4) The claim of huge amounts of liberated thermal energy stands and falls with the assumption that the flow rate of the water was constant in time. The flow rate was measured only once before the experiment. The calculated output thermal energy has in all experiments been identical with the energy required to heat and vaporize the entire water, but not more and not less energy. This identity has always been independent of the input electric energy. There is no reason for this miracle. But this miracle can be explained if the flow rate changes during the experiment, if only so much water can flow as vaporizes.

(5) Rossi claims that 3711 litres of water have been vaporized within 5.5 hours. How could he and the journalists have breathed? The air in the room must have consisted of water!

(6) Rossi claims that the E-cat generates radioactivity. If this is true, this would be strong evidence of nuclear reactions. Why doesn’t he say whether these radioactive rays are alpha, beta or gamma rays, what their intensity, temporal behavior and energy distribution is?

Secrecy, lack of controls, insufficient information, no possibility for reproducibility by independent researchers are not signs of science but of occultism.

However, nuclear fusion under desktop conditions is possible. By using pyroelectric crystals Naranjo and collaborators and Geuther and collaborators have measured the intensity, the temporal behavior and the energy of the generated neutrons and X-rays. Moreover they have published their results in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

B. Naranjo, J. K. Gimzewski and S. Putterman, Nature 434, 1115-1117 (2005).

J. Geuther, Y. Danon and F. Saglim, Physical Review Letters 96, 054803 (2006).

Real scientific breakthroughs are always published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

For example, I argued that light consists not only of the Einstein electric photon but also of the hypothetical Salam magnetic photon. I argued that the intensity of the magnetic photon rays depends on the absolute speed of the laboratory and that these magnetic photon rays have already been observed. I argued that absolute motion is compatible with physics and required by general relativity. I published my work in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

R. W. Kühne, “Quantum Field Theory with Electric-Magnetic Duality and Spin-Mass Duality but Without Grand Unification and Supersymmetry”, African Review of Physics 6, 165-179 (2011)

http://www.aphysrev.org/index.php/aphysrev/article/view/460/211

http://vixra.org/abs/1103.0104