Advancements in the Production of Anomalous Heat Effect in Constantan Wires: Developing a Robust Experimental Protocol
Francesco Celani · C. Lorenzetti · G. Vassallo · E. Purchi · S. Fiorilla · S. Cupellini · M. Nakamura · P. Cerreoni · R. Burri · P. Boccanera · A. Spallone · E. F. Marano
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In one page
Francesco Celani’s group at Italy’s Frascati national laboratory has been chasing anomalous heat since 2011 in the cheapest wire they can buy: Constantan, a copper-nickel-manganese alloy, drawn to 200 micrometres, oxidised in air until its surface is a sub-micrometric sponge, then painted with strontium, iron, potassium and manganese salts that bake down to oxides. This paper is their attempt to write the activation recipe down so other laboratories can follow it. The wire coils around an iron tube inside a thick borosilicate reactor, heated by its own current in hydrogen or deuterium, with helium runs as the reference. What they report is that the recipe is mostly patience: plain direct-current heating for 50 to 150 hours activates a virgin coil, the heat effect grows with every conditioning cycle, and it leaves a positive memory that lasts 10 to 20 hours. And for the first time in fourteen years of these experiments, deuterium beat hydrogen — better than 9 watts against 5 at the same input.
Why it matters hereChapter 12 wants the conditions that make a metal lattice a place where tunnelling matters, and this paper is about nothing else: not a new material but a written-down activation procedure, with the control knobs named — time at high power, voltage gradient along the wire, resistance ratio, number of cycles. It earns chapter 1 for the honesty of its bookkeeping, including the awkward finding that even the helium calibration run is not a true blank because hydrogen from the coating comes back out of the bulk above 120 watts. The same group’s later reactor, which adds a transverse plasma discharge and reaches a coefficient of performance near 1.27, is on the site at /library/stm-458152e275, and Michael Staker’s superabundant-vacancy picture runs through both.
What it claims
01A straightforward procedure of high-power direct-current Joule heating sustained for 50 to 150 hours activates virgin Constantan coils, provided the thin wire surfaces have been treated, mainly with low work function materials — the pulsed high-peak-power route the group used earlier is more efficient but has proved hard for other laboratories to reproduce.Abstract, Key Findings; Section 4, Procedures of Reactor Preparation at INFN-LNF
On the bench now02The material and geometry are fully specified: Ni44-Cu55-Mn1 Constantan wire of 200 micrometre diameter and about 158 to 160 centimetres length weighing 0.45 grams, coiled in roughly 50 to 75 turns around an inner 5 millimetre iron counter-electrode inside a 3.2 millimetre-walled borosilicate reactor, with the outer wall wrapped in aluminium foil painted with a black compound of emissivity greater than 90 percent, reaching 900 degrees Celsius internally and 380 externally at more than 150 watts input.Sections 2 and 3, Experimental Set-Up and Reactor Design; Figures 2 to 4
Published and peer-reviewed03Activation accumulates. Across cycles H2 number 1 to H2 number 4 the anomalous heat rose steadily while the normalised resistance ratio fell, the same qualitative pairing seen with palladium since 1990, so the dominant control is the time the wire spends at high power under a large voltage gradient rather than the gas pressure — and the effect also grows with the number of cycles between high and low power and leaves a positive memory lasting 10 to 20 hours.Section 5, First type of Experiments: Increasing Activation; Figure 5
Published and peer-reviewed04The activated state can be spoiled and only partly recovered: 15 hours of dynamic vacuum at 730 degrees Celsius followed by fresh hydrogen gave a lower heat effect in cycle H2 number 5 than in H2 number 4, most visibly at high power, and a further 113 hours of conditioning at 152 watts in cycle H2 number 6 reduced it further rather than restoring it.Section 6, Second Type of Experiment: Effect of Vacuum Degassing and Refilling Cycles; Figure 6
Published and peer-reviewed05An isotopic effect appeared for the first time in this campaign, run from 21 December 2021 to 10 March 2022: after twelve activation cycles, deuterium gave more than 9 watts of anomalous heat against 5 watts under hydrogen at the same 130 watt input, with a peak specific value near 20 watts per gram of Constantan at wire temperatures of 500 to 600 degrees Celsius. In earlier years the comparison had gone the other way or given nothing, and the authors note the deuterium runs followed the hydrogen runs, so a positive aging effect is not excluded.Section 7, First Type of Experiment: Isotopic Effect; Figure 7
Published and peer-reviewed06Two things are stated as unfinished. The calibration is not as clean as it looks — even the first helium cycle is not a true blank, because hydrogen taken up from the coating solution during pre-conditioning at about 900 degrees Celsius comes back out of the bulk once applied power exceeds 120 watts. And the whole procedure still costs weeks of high-power operation, so the group’s named next step is an energy-efficient reactor in which high peak power pulses supply the gas flux for far less external input.Section 4, on the helium blank; Section 9, Conclusions and Future Plans
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Abstract
This paper presents a comprehensive summary of a presentation delivered at the 24th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (ICCF24), which took place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, from July 25-28, 2022. Since 2011, our research team has been dedicated to discovering simple yet effective procedures for activating a specific material that we developed. This material consists of surface-modified Constantan in the form of long and thin wires, utilizing Joule heating. Our main objective has been to generate measurable values of the Anomalous Heat Effect (AHE). In our most recent efforts, we have not only replicated our previous findings but also conducted new tests to explore potential isotopic effects. The results obtained have reinforced our interpretation of the AHE’s main origin, aligning with the initial discoveries made by researchers in the United States, Japan, and Italy, some as early as 1989. The impetus for this work stemmed from our desire to reaffirm the procedures we extensively discussed during the ANV8 Workshop held in Assisi, Italy, in December 2021. Our presentation at the Workshop, which garnered considerable interest within the LENR-AHE community, led to numerous inquiries, particularly regarding the reproducibility of our methods starting from the wire and its treatments. Consequently, we incorporated new experiments into our study, focusing on exploring any potential isotopic effects by employing H2 and D2 gases, in relation to the magnitude of AHE. The core geometry of our reactor remained consistent with the configuration we have developed since 2019, known as the “inverse coaxial coil”. For energy balance calculations at various fixed input powers, we employed thermometry, which enabled faster measurements compared to conventional flow calorimetry. As reference points, we conducted preliminary experiments under helium gas conditions, maintaining similar pressures (typically exceeding 0.5 bar) to those used with the active gases (H2, D2). In assessing the energy balance, we relied on temperature measurements taken at the external wall of the glass reactor. This surface was covered with multiple layers of thermally conductive thick aluminum foil, with the side facing the ambient environment coated in a high-emissivity (greater than 90%) black compound capable of withstanding high temperatures (800 C). The recorded maximum temperatures during the experiments were 900 C internally and 380 C externally, with a maximum applied power exceeding 150 W. The weight of the wire employed in our tests was 0.45 g.
Key Findings. We successfully reaffirmed that a straightforward procedure involving high-power DC Joule heating over extended durations (50-150 hours) remains effective in activating virgin Constantan coils, provided the thin wire surfaces are appropriately treated, primarily with Low Work Function materials. Furthermore, we observed that the measured AHE during the cooling cycles from the highest power levels is contingent upon the time the reactor’s core spends at these elevated powers. Notably, we identified a form of “positive memory effect” relating to AHE, which typically persists for 10-20 hours. Additionally, we discovered that the AHE increases as the number of cycles between high and low power levels is increased. We also observed that increasing the wire resistance through suitable “pre-conditioning” treatments enhances the magnitude of AHE. We speculate that this effect might be attributed to an increased surface area resembling a spongy texture, facilitating the flow of active gases, i.e., flux, in and out of the wire. In our most recent experiments, we measured higher AHE values (9 W) when utilizing D2 gas compared to H2 (5 W) at an input power of 130 W.
Discussion and Future Directions. The AHE observed in our experiments is directly related to the voltage drop along the wire, with larger drops yielding more pronounced effects.
Francesco Celani and colleagues, ISCMNS_L1 and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, with the University of Palermo and the EU Horizon 2020 CleanHME project. Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science 38 (2024) 211–224.
(Abstract only. The complete article is free to read at https://jcmns.org/article/124958.pdf and via https://doi.org/10.70923/001c.124958 — see the rights note for why the full text is not reproduced here.)
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https://doi.org/10.70923/001c.124958Published as J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 38 (2024) 211 to 224, a written-up version of the authors’ ICCF24 presentation at the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, 25 to 28 July 2022. Licence checked directly in the article rather than taken from an aggregator label: the paper carries the line ‘© 2023 ICCF. All rights reserved. ISSN 2227-3123’ on the title page and again at the foot of the abstract, and no Creative Commons statement, so this page carries the summary, the claims and the authors’ own abstract and sends the reader to the source. The complete article is free to read at the journal, jcmns.org/article/124958.pdf. ABSTRACT SOURCE. The registry abstract for this DOI is corrupt — its opening runs ‘We have developed new kinds of materials made of nanoparticles of nickel-based alloys… starting from hydrotalcite acting as precursors… in a custom-made heat-flow calorimeter’, which belongs to a different Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science article and was spliced onto the tail of this one, picking this paper up mid-sentence at ‘facing the ambient environment coated in a high-emissivity’. The abstract reproduced below is taken from the paper itself. Partial funding came from the European Union Horizon 2020 CleanHME project, grant agreement 951974.
How to cite it
Francesco Celani, C. Lorenzetti, G. Vassallo, E. Purchi, S. Fiorilla, S. Cupellini, M. Nakamura, P. Cerreoni, R. Burri, P. Boccanera, A. Spallone, E. F. Marano (2024) Advancements in the Production of Anomalous Heat Effect in Constantan Wires: Developing a Robust Experimental Protocol. doi:10.70923/001c.124958
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