Progress in Understanding and Scaling Up the Lattice Energy Converter (LEC)
F. E. Gordon · H. J. Whitehouse
Abstract and summary · read the original at the source
In one page
Frank Gordon and Harper Whitehouse have spent a decade on a device that looks too simple to work: two electrodes of different metals in a sealed gas, one of them a palladium or iron surface loaded with hydrogen, and nothing else inside. The loaded metal ionises the gas around it continuously, the difference in the two metals’ work functions sets up a voltage, and a current flows into whatever you attach — no radioactive source, no power supply. This paper is their progress report. Cell output climbed about a hundredfold between the 2022 and 2023 conferences, from roughly 300 nanowatts to 30 microwatts, and the authors set out the physics that governs the rest of the climb: gas conduction with the diffusion terms put back in, which makes the cell non-ohmic, so the current does not vanish when the voltage does. They also report that the gas can be replaced altogether — epoxies, gels and de-ionised water carry the same effect — which widens the LEC into a family they call electrophysical direct energy converters.
Why it matters hereChapter 12 holds that a hydrogen-loaded metal lattice does real work at ordinary temperatures, and the LEC is the most stripped-down form of that claim: nothing plugged in, nothing radioactive inside, an output a hand meter reads. Chapter 6 needs converters that turn a field directly into electricity rather than through heat and a turbine, and this paper is the engineering account of how far that one has been pushed and what governs the next factor of ten. The authors’ 2024 scale-up paper is on this site at /library/stm-0577272226 — read that one for the five focus areas, and this one for the conduction physics and the move beyond gas.
What it claims
01Hydrogen occluded in a hydrogen-host-material such as palladium or iron, in fluidic contact with a gas, makes that gas spontaneously and continuously ionised without any naturally radioactive material present; placed against a second electrode of a different work function, the cell self-initiates and self-sustains an open-circuit voltage and delivers a current into an external load. The authors have published the result in peer-reviewed journals and other researchers have independently replicated it in five separate reports.Abstract; Section 1, Introduction, citing references 6 to 8 and 9 to 13
On the bench now02Measured cell output rose about two orders of magnitude in one year of development: approximately 300 nanowatts and 4 microamps per square centimetre reported at ICCF-24 in July 2022, and 30 microwatts with 138 microamps per square centimetre at ICCF-25 in August 2023. Five further orders of magnitude would give 3 watts and eight would give 3 kilowatts.Section 3, opening paragraph; Figures 2a and 2b
On the bench now03The cell conducts non-ohmically. Writing the charge-conservation equations of Riecke as rewritten by Darrow, the current density keeps a diffusion term that survives when the electric field goes to zero, so voltage and current do not vanish together — measured as the cube root of cell current falling linearly with cell voltage to a non-zero intercept, with a slope of 0.0241 microamps to the one-third per volt and an intercept of 1.3 microamps to the one-third.Section 4; Figures 4a and 4b; the current-density equation attributed to Darrow, reference 28
Published and peer-reviewed04Peak power appears where the average ion drift lifetime and the average ion diffusion lifetime are equal, which at room temperature puts the optimum cell voltage near 250 millivolts; output rises with cell temperature, which the authors attribute partly to ion physics and partly to increased lattice activity.Section 3, the drift-lifetime and diffusion-lifetime relations and the paragraph following them
On the bench now05The gas is not essential. High-temperature epoxies, electrode gel, de-ionised water and other self-ionising materials placed between electrodes of different work function also produced a sustained voltage and current, and mixing palladium-hydrogen particulate into the gel or epoxy raised the output further — which the authors present as a broader class of contact-potential-difference electrophysical direct energy converter devices.Section 5, the tests using liquids, gels and epoxy electrolytes, and the tests using palladium-hydrogen particulate
On the bench now06The physical process producing the ionisation is not yet identified, and the authors name the experiment that would discriminate: run a cell inside a well-instrumented Dewar while drawing electrical energy from it. Conservation of energy says the cell should cool; if it does not cool, a heat-producing reaction in the lattice is offsetting the energy removed.Abstract, second sentence; Section 5, the paragraph on non-gaseous electrolytes and the Dewar test
What to watch
Read it · abstract
Abstract
The Lattice Energy Converter (LEC) is an electrophysical gaseous electronic device (GED) where hydrogen occluded hydrogen-host-material (HHM) in fluidic contact with the gas results in the gas becoming spontaneously and continuously ionized without requiring the use of naturally radioactive materials. The physical process and nature of the ionization is currently unknown since any possible ionizing radiation is difficult to detect. The ionized gas is an electrolyte in the sense that it contains both positive and negative mobile ions. Thus, when the gaseous electrolyte is in fluidic contact with the electrodes and an external potential difference is applied between the electrodes, the device operates in a manner similar to an ionization chamber and the density of the gaseous ions can be estimated. However, when the ionized gas is in fluidic contact with separated electrodes that have different work functions, a LEC cell results. A LEC cell self-initiates and self-sustains the production of an ‘open-circuit’ contact potential difference (CPD) voltage between its electrodes that can be measured. Upon connecting a load impedance to the LEC’s electrodes, a current will flow, thus charging a capacitive impedance or delivering electrical power to a resistive impedance. Furthermore, the CPD phenomenon may be used with materials other than gases, such as auto-ionizing or self-ionizing liquids, gels, or even solid-state materials. When these non-gaseous materials have mobile ions and thus behave as an electrolyte, they can be used to implement another type of CPD direct energy conversion device. Both CPD gaseous and non-gaseous devices and combinations thereof form a new class of Electrophysical Direct Energy Converter (EDEC) devices.
Keywords: direct energy conversion; electricity generation; ionizing radiation.
F. E. Gordon and H. J. Whitehouse, InovL Inc., San Diego, California. Research article, Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science 39 (2025) 14–35.
(Abstract only. The complete article — the conduction physics of Sections 3 and 4, the experimental tests of Section 5, and Appendix A’s history of the effect in its discoverers’ own words from Volta in 1800 onward — is free to read at the journal; see the rights note above for why the full text is not reproduced here. The authors’ 2024 paper on the five scale-up focus areas is on this site at /library/stm-0577272226.)
The way in
https://doi.org/10.70923/001c.134029The article is printed with ’© 2025 ICCF. All rights reserved. ISSN 2227-3123’ and carries no Creative Commons statement anywhere in the text, so this page holds the summary, the claims and the authors’ own abstract and sends the reader to the source. Published as F. E. Gordon and H. J. Whitehouse, InovL Inc., San Diego, research article, Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science 39 (2025) 14–35; the complete article, including Appendix A’s history of the effect from Volta in 1800 through Graham’s 1866 work on hydrogen occlusion, is free to read at the journal. The abstract below is the authors’ own, with the word-spacing damage introduced by the PDF text layer repaired and nothing else changed. The authors’ 2024 scale-up paper has its own sheet at /library/stm-0577272226.
How to cite it
F. E. Gordon, H. J. Whitehouse (2025) Progress in Understanding and Scaling Up the Lattice Energy Converter (LEC). doi:10.70923/001c.134029
Where it sits in the curriculum