Lattice Energy Converter II: Iron Hydrogen Host Material
F.E. Gordon · H.J. Whitehouse
Abstract and summary · read the original at the source
In one page
A Lattice Energy Converter is about as plain as hardware gets: two electrodes of different metals in a sealed gas, one of them a metal surface loaded with hydrogen. It starts itself, and it delivers a voltage and a current into a load with nothing plugged in and nothing radioactive inside. In the first cells that loaded metal was palladium. Frank Gordon and Harper Whitehouse report here that ordinary iron does the same job — a black iron pipe nipple plated with iron from a solution of iron chloride produced the same spontaneous voltage, the same current, and the same signature of ionising radiation, and other people have replicated it. Iron matters because it is cheap and available everywhere, and because hydrogen moves through iron roughly a hundred times faster than through palladium at room temperature. The authors keep the accounting strict: the cell converts lattice energy, no excess energy is claimed, and a commercial device is still six to ten orders of magnitude away.
Why it matters hereChapter 12 holds that a hydrogen-loaded metal lattice does real work at ordinary temperatures, and swapping palladium for iron moves that claim out of the precious-metals cabinet and into the hardware aisle. Chapter 6 wants converters that turn a field straight into electricity rather than through heat and a turbine, and this is that device built on a material anyone can buy.
What it claims
01A working electrode of codeposited iron-hydrogen, plated onto a black iron pipe nipple from an aqueous solution of iron chloride, produced spontaneous and sustained electrical energy and ionizing radiation with capabilities similar to the palladium-hydrogen cells reported earlier, and multiple Fe-H cells did so; the Pd-H and Fe-H results have been replicated by several independent individuals.Abstract; Section 2, Experimental description, closing paragraph, citing references 4 and 5
On the bench now02Hydrogen diffusivity in iron is approximately two orders of magnitude greater than in palladium at room temperature, and roughly equal to palladium’s diffusivity at palladium’s melting point; because iron is far cheaper and available worldwide, the authors argue diffusivity and cost together make it the material to test for economic feasibility.Section 1, Introduction, citing Mehrer reference 3, page 322; Figure 1
Published and peer-reviewed03The cell is non-ohmic: the current density and the electric field do not go to zero at the same time, and the cell behaves as a current source shunted by a variable voltage conductance. The authors account for this with Eduard Riecke’s 1903 conduction equations, which keep the ion diffusion term alongside the drift term, and with Karl Darrow’s 1932 explanation of the potential difference that must exist to hold equal positive and negative ion concentrations steady.Section 3, the paragraphs following Figure 4, Equations 1 and 2; Section 4, the Darrow quotation; Appendix A
Published and peer-reviewed04Cell voltage varies with time and temperature and can reverse sign: in a thirteen-hour run the voltage rose while the cell stayed below 100 degrees Celsius, then decayed and changed polarity as the temperature climbed, and a load test at about 160 degrees Celsius reproduced the same current, shunt-current and power curves in absolute value.Section 3, Figures 5 and 6 and the paragraphs describing them
On the bench now05After that temperature run the iron working electrode carried features the authors had not seen before — ejecta forming a cylindrical tower perpendicular to the surface, large enough to see with the naked eye, unlike the few-micron features previously reported from palladium-deuterium electrodes, with interior colouring consistent with oxidised iron.Section 3, Figure 7 and the paragraph describing it
On the bench now06The energy path is a multi-step conversion — thermal energy in the hydrogen-occluded lattice into radiation, radiation into ionised gas and heat, ionised gas into voltage and current in an external load — with total energy conserved and no excess energy produced. The heating implied by the measured ion population is several orders of magnitude below what calorimetry can detect, which the authors read as a reason lattice-enabled reactions may be more common than calorimetric surveys suggest; scaling to a commercial energy device needs six to ten orders of magnitude, through better metallurgy and plating, higher flux from flowing gas, temperature and pressure, better cell and electrode geometry, and applied magnetic or electric fields.Section 4, opening paragraphs; Section 6, Future research and development, the four numbered routes
On the bench now
Read it · abstract
Abstract
Continuing development of Lattice Energy Converter (LEC) technology has resulted in both experimental and theoretical advancements. Replicated experimental results and analysis for a LEC wherein a codeposited palladium-hydrogen working electrode produced spontaneous and sustained electrical energy attributed to ionizing radiation have been previously reported. Herein is reported the use of a working electrode comprised of codeposited iron-hydrogen from an aqueous solution of FeCl2 which demonstrated similar capabilities to produce spontaneous and sustained electrical energy as well as ionizing radiation. These results also have been replicated. http://ikkem.com/iccf23/PPT/Invited%20Gordon%20ICCF%2023%20LEC%20T5.MP4. This paper updates the presentation at the workshop in honor of Dr. Srinivasan in January 2021 which is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4dzTWY_aWM This paper provides additional analysis that supports the observed experimental results from both presentations.
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 36 (2022) 1–24.
(Abstract only. The complete article — the experimental description and results of Sections 2 and 3, the voltage-generation mechanisms of Section 4, and the two appendices carrying Riecke’s 1903 conduction analysis in English translation — is free to read at the journal; see the rights note above for why the full text is not reproduced here. The authors’ 2024 scale-up paper is on this site at /library/stm-0577272226 and their 2025 progress report at /library/stm-70be5425fa.)
The way in
https://doi.org/10.70923/001c.72584The article is printed with ’© 2022 ICCF. All rights reserved. ISSN 2227-3123’ on its first page 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 36 (2022) 1–24; the complete article, including Appendix A’s English translation of Eduard Riecke’s 1903 Göttingen paper on conduction through an ionised gas and Appendix B on ion distribution, is free to read at the journal. The authors’ later papers have their own sheets at /library/stm-0577272226 and /library/stm-70be5425fa.
How to cite it
F.E. Gordon, H.J. Whitehouse (2022) Lattice Energy Converter II: Iron Hydrogen Host Material. doi:10.70923/001c.72584
Where it sits in the curriculum