NTSB’s experimental data implies that the local temperature of the battery casing’s Type 304 stainless steel hotspots directly exposed to the internal short’s arc plasma didn’t just get to the melting point of such steel (~1,482 degrees C) --- instead these local areas got all the way up to the boiling point of stainless (> 3,000 degrees Centigrade), were turned into a gaseous vapor (expanding in volume by >50,000 x in the process of vaporizing); solid steel then recondensed from hot metallic vapor in the form of perfect nanoscale steel spheres as portions of the super-hot metallic Fe-alloy vapor quench-cooled. We will now briefly review some high points and conclusions concerning this important factual data:
Almost nothing can withstand enormous, star-surface-like local temperatures created by arcs or LENRS and remain unreactive.
Creation of nightmarish local “witches’ brew cauldrons” of inter-reacting compounds and ions in some regions of failing batteries; very fast, hyper-accelerated reaction rates in superheated zones.
Witches’ cauldrons can generate their own supplies of Oxygen to support combustion processes that propagate spatially within and between battery cells via fast-moving, autocatalytic flame-fronts coupled with intense emission of thermal infrared and UV radiation.
Arc- and/or LENR-heated regions’ behavior is almost more akin to chemistry of stellar atmospheres than ‘normal’ electrochemistry.
Speculation - extreme events involve thermite-like pyrotechnic metal reactions.
Damage observed to materials located inside Logan battery enclosure were consistent with main destructive processes being venting and partial combustion of flammable electrolyte liquids; measured weight loss of ~6 lbs. vs. exemplar battery is consistent with this hypothesis; no large-scale evidence for occurrence of thermite-like pyrotechnic reactions; if so, would have had vastly worse damage.
Conclusion: Logan battery runaway was not a worst-case Armageddon scenario.
Identifying Challenges and Solutions in Electric Ladle PreheatingLeonardo ENERGY
Foundries use ladles to transfer molten metal from the melt operation to cast operation. Currently, gas and oil firing are the most common method of drying and heating of refractory lined ladles, tundishes, soaking pits and various furnaces in steel mills and other small and big foundries. Convective heating for heating the refractory linings can be achieved by using dedicated burner setups for ladles and tundishes. However, this method has very low efficiency, in the order of 5-25%. Alternatively, electric ladle pre-heating offers many advantages over the current methods. In this webcast, the current practices used in foundries for pre-heating ladles, some of the disadvantages of the current practices, and few potential solutions to improve efficiency of this process will be covered.
Future role of graphene in power systemsDODDI NAGASAI
Graphene properties like electrical, mechanical, optical, thermal, chemical can change the world of power system into a ideal power system like super conduction.
Lattice Energy LLC-LENRs and Cold Fusion are Different Concepts - Dec 13 2011Lewis Larsen
“Cold fusion” and LENRs are not necessarily synonymous and isomorphous, as I will explain. First, LENRs are legitimate science. Second, “cold fusion” (i.e., D + D --> He-4 + heat; more generally, nuclear fusion of charged particles in the presence of high Coulomb barriers at high reaction rates at low temperatures) is not, and never was legitimate science. LENRs and “cold fusion” are different, readily distinguishable concepts. In the end, LENRs differ in that they are ‘real’ but “cold fusion” is not.
Identifying Challenges and Solutions in Electric Ladle PreheatingLeonardo ENERGY
Foundries use ladles to transfer molten metal from the melt operation to cast operation. Currently, gas and oil firing are the most common method of drying and heating of refractory lined ladles, tundishes, soaking pits and various furnaces in steel mills and other small and big foundries. Convective heating for heating the refractory linings can be achieved by using dedicated burner setups for ladles and tundishes. However, this method has very low efficiency, in the order of 5-25%. Alternatively, electric ladle pre-heating offers many advantages over the current methods. In this webcast, the current practices used in foundries for pre-heating ladles, some of the disadvantages of the current practices, and few potential solutions to improve efficiency of this process will be covered.
Future role of graphene in power systemsDODDI NAGASAI
Graphene properties like electrical, mechanical, optical, thermal, chemical can change the world of power system into a ideal power system like super conduction.
Lattice Energy LLC-LENRs and Cold Fusion are Different Concepts - Dec 13 2011Lewis Larsen
“Cold fusion” and LENRs are not necessarily synonymous and isomorphous, as I will explain. First, LENRs are legitimate science. Second, “cold fusion” (i.e., D + D --> He-4 + heat; more generally, nuclear fusion of charged particles in the presence of high Coulomb barriers at high reaction rates at low temperatures) is not, and never was legitimate science. LENRs and “cold fusion” are different, readily distinguishable concepts. In the end, LENRs differ in that they are ‘real’ but “cold fusion” is not.
Lattice Energy LLC - Hyperlinked index to documents re Widom-Larsen theory an...Lewis Larsen
Fully hyperlinked and cross-referenced Index and User Guide to relevant documents concerning the Widom-Larsen theory and ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs)
Lattice Energy LLC - Battery energy density - product safety - thermal runawa...Lewis Larsen
Global quest to improve performance drives battery R&D toward ever-higher energy densities. High gravimetric energy density rewards battery users with lighter portable or mobile power sources and longer operating times between recharges. Product safety & reliability could be the hidden costs --- higher energy density is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways. Internal electrical shorts, hot sparks, and catastrophic electric arcs are reducing durability and causing thermal runaways, fires, and even explosions in Lithium-ion batteries. Ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs) may be causing some of these extreme events; engineering for LENR effects could potentially help improve future battery safety and durability.
Lattice Energy LLC- New Russian Experiments Further Confirm Widom-Larsen Theo...Lewis Larsen
In series of different experiments with laser irradiation (sometimes combined with electrolysis) of hydride-forming metallic targets immersed in D2O, Barmina et al. claim to have observed both production and so-called “accelerated decay” of Tritium. If correct, their claimed detection of significant amounts of radioactive Tritium production is an extremely interesting experimental result because over the past 24 years, out of the hundreds of thousands of LENR experiments conducted, literally only a handful have ever claimed to observe Tritium as a measurable nuclear product. In separate very recent publications (2012, 2013), Barmina et al. claim to have developed a theory which can explain all their experimental data; their theoretical approach includes ‘new nuclear physics’ and exotic concepts such as a so-called “in-shake-up” nuclear state that enables production of new bound di-/tri-neutron particles.
Presuming that their experimental data are shown to have been correctly measured and results are successfully repeated by other independent researchers, their reported data provides further confirmation of Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs in a type of laser-based LENR experimental system pioneered by Letts & Cravens (USA) ca. 2002 – 2003.
During the past decade or so, there have also been increasing numbers of experimental reports published in various peer-reviewed journals in which authors claimed to have observed changes in intrinsic nuclear decay rate constants of certain isotopes/elements.
Importantly, there is probably a subset of such anomalous reported data in which experimentalists were blithely unaware of any possibility that LENR transmutations could be occurring inside their experimental systems. In such cases, the measured parameter(s) indicating a given nuclear decay rate, say intensities of a series of gamma emission lines, changes because the isotope(s) producing the gammas being measured has/have simply captured W-L ULM neutrons and been transmuted to other different --- perhaps even stable --- isotope(s); ergo, measured isotopes’ intrinsic nuclear decay rate constants did not really change during such types of experiments. Thus, the long-mysterious “Reifenschweiler effect” could in reality be just conversion of Tritium into neutrons that are captured by, among other things, substrate atoms..
Lattice Energy LLC - Electroweak nuclear catalysis and chemical catalysis are...Lewis Larsen
Chemical catalysis and electroweak nuclear catalysis share certain key features
Heretofore, chemical and nuclear processes were thought to be vastly distant realms; we now believe that they can happily coexist in close proximity to each other and may interoperate on nm to μ length-scales.
Herein we will argue that there are some very surprising similarities between the operation of active sites in LENR electroweak, enzymatic, and inorganic chemical catalysis: all three can utilize high local electric fields as well as many-body collective quantum effects to achieve dramatic increases in reaction rates and overall catalytic proficiency.
With respect to LENR active sites vs. those of enzymes and other types of chemical catalysts, what separates chemical from nuclear catalysis could be presence of many-body entangled protons and electrons in close proximity, coupled with input energy that triggers attosecond-scale pulses in local electric fields up to values that are > 2 x 1011 V/m.
It has become clear to Lattice that key knowledge about details of LENR electroweak catalysis may well provide very useful insights into chemical catalysis and vice-versa. We look forward to working with others to exploit this and thus advance technical progress in both areas.
Visualization of the Electrical Field in the Vicinity of a THz Pulse Exposed ...kagikenco
Application of terahertz pulses (THz pulse) are widely spread in the field of bioelectrics recently. The responses of a THz pulse exposed cell are observed with visualizations of the cell before and after the exposure. To discuss the phenomena quantitatively the electrical field in the vicinity of a THz pulse exposed cell are simulated by finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation. In this paper the effect of cell shape and width of THz pulse are shown.
Lattice Energy LLC - LENRs in condensed matter mimic results of Big Bang nucl...Lewis Larsen
LENRs in condensed matter are able to create four primordial Big Bang elements: Deuterium, Helium, Lithium, and Beryllium. No superhot nuclear fusion processes are involved: a combination of many-body collective electroweak neutron production under surprisingly moderate macrophysical conditions, subsequent neutron captures and various following nuclear decays can produce the same reaction products as the Big Bang event at the birth of our Universe.
Paul Ahern - Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting ReviewPaul Ahern
Mechanical energy is among the most plentiful and consistent energy sources in our day-to-day lives, which is available to us regardless of the whims of the weather or the cycles of day and night. Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters (PEH’s) are compact devices which allow the scavenging of low grade energy from ambient sources such as human and environmental vibrations, with the aim of using this energy to power autonomous electronic devices. Many decades of research and development in the field has led to commercially available devices based on piezoelectric materials which can be used to harvest milliwatts of energy from mechanical sources such as vibration, stress or strain.
Approach To Power Harvesting With Piezoelectric MaterialIJERA Editor
Nowadays, most of the research in the energy field is to develop sources of energy for the future, With oil resources being over, tapped and eventually bound to end, it is time to find renewable Piezoelectric materials are being more and more studied as they turn out to be very unusual materials with very specific and interesting properties. In fact, these materials have the ability to produce electrical energy from mechanical energy, for example, they can convert mechanical behavior like vibrations into electricity. Recent work has shown that these materials could be used as power generators, the amount of energy produced is still very low, hence the necessity to optimize them. The objective of this work is to study the all of the piezoelectric material systems and calculated the possible power generated from it, and a special case to design and build a fully functional floor tile device that when stepped on will generate enough energy to light an LED, The system will be charge a temporary energy storage device, a capacitor bank, and then use this stored energy to power an LED.
Lattice Energy LLC - Scalability of LENR power generation systems - Nov 29 2015Lewis Larsen
Lattice shows how LENR power generation systems could someday scale-up from today’s primitive milliwatt thermal devices to kwh and megawatts of electrical output.
In this PowerPoint presentation, we outline how substantial scale-up of LENR (safe ultralow energy neutron reactions) power generation systems from today’s primitive milliwatt thermal devices to kwh and megawatts is a feasible goal in the near-future. LENR reactors would be vastly smaller and less expensive than equivalent fission counterparts with comparable thermal output.
D-T fusion reactors like ITER and other similar Tokamaks mainly create heat by harvesting the kinetic energy of deadly 14.1 MeV neutrons. Consequently, they require massive shielding and containment systems for safe operation and unsurprisingly have enormous costs and unavoidably huge physical size. Given that the radiation-free Lithium LENR fuel cycle releases nearly 27 MeV versus a total Q-value of 17.6 MeV for the D-T fusion reaction, it is hard to imagine a sound economic argument for spending 100s of billions on commercial fusion reactors if LENR technology is successfully developed and scaled-up as we have outlined herein.
Lack of hard radiation and radioactive wastes permit downward scalability that could enable future development of revolutionary, compact battery-like portable LENR power sources that can compete directly on $ price/kwh with chemical batteries in many applications including power tools, tablets, and smartphones.
Lattice Energy LLC - US Government Labs Reported Clear-cut Neutron Capture Da...Lewis Larsen
In Oct 1989, scientists working at two U.S. national laboratories reported unequivocal, spectacular experimental data showing that neutron captures were a causative mechanism for LENRs.
At that time, certain researchers were obviously aware that neutrons were driving LENR processes: experimental data from well-respected U.S. national laboratories clearly indicated that neutron captures were occurring in materials on cathode surfaces in otherwise ordinary electrochemical cells.
Unfortunately, this unquestionably good isotopic shift data was totally ignored by the U.S. government and overwhelming majority of scientists because it violated contemporary conceptual paradigms about well-understood nuclear processes like fission and fusion. In addition, theory available at that time was unable to provide a sensible physics mechanism that could explain in situ production of neutrons in chemical cells operating at ~STP.
Experimental data reported by Rolison & O’Grady of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory at an EPRI-NSF Workshop in October 1989 was a ‘smoking gun’ for neutron capture on Palladium isotopes comprising cathodes in Pons-Fleischmann-type electrochemical cells --- exactly as predicted by the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs published many years thereafter.
Data reported through Edward Teller of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the same EPRI-NSF Workshop described LLNL experiments in which researchers observed significant depletion of Lithium-6 on cathodes in Pons-Fleischmann-type electrochemical cells. This result is indicative of neutron captures inside such cells and, again, exactly as predicted by Widom-Larsen today.
This important experimental data clearly implicating neutron capture processes in LENRs was lost in the intervening years following the acrimonious controversy about “cold fusion” that raged worldwide during 1989-90. New Energy Times recently obtained copies of the long-lost Proceedings of the EPRI-NSF Workshop and provided copies of report sections to Lattice for evaluation.
In retrospect, high quality experimental data conclusively demonstrating that LENRs must somehow involve ultralow energy neutrons was already available by late 1989. However, the inexplicable (prior to Widom-Larsen) absence of deadly, energetic neutron and gamma radiation when neutrons were obviously being captured on experimental materials (expected accompanying prompt capture gammas were not observed) was too much of a radical conceptual paradigm shift for most scientists.
Consequently, by 1991 an accumulating body of anomalous experimental results were simply chalked-up to misinterpretation and/or systematic experimental errors and mistakenly dismissed.
Lattice Energy LLC - 1994 conference paper - Prof John Dash reported producti...Lewis Larsen
Synopsis: In a ‘lost’ conference paper published 23 years ago, Prof. John Dash et al. correctly concluded that “slow neutrons” were responsible for creating Gold and Silver transmutation products that were clearly observed in electrochemical cells that had been electrolyzed for 400 hours. However, they mistakenly thought that such neutrons were produced by a nuclear fusion process.
More recently, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has used a proprietary gas permeation method for LENR transmutation of Tungsten to Osmium and finally to Platinum. However, MHI’s ultralow energy neutron fluxes in Deuterium gas permeation cleanroom systems were not quite high enough to proceed all the way down the neutron-catalyzed LENR transmutation pathway to reach Gold like Dash et al.
Mitsubishi is presently pushing aggressively to increase LENR transmutation rates and product yields in laboratory devices. In a recent company technical bulletin, the company revealed that transmutation product yields had been increased by nearly 3 orders of magnitude in 3 years by shifting from gas to electrochemical permeation through a thin-film metal-oxide sandwich structure (see slides #34 - 36). Interestingly, to achieve this increase in yields, MHI unknowingly followed guidelines that were already spelled-out in a Widom-Larsen theory rate calculation paper published back in 2007 (slide #33).
Since MHI is also using semiconductor-like fabrication methods, cleanrooms, and some nanotech to build devices and increase transmutation product yields, it begs the question of whether there are any parallels between today’s primitive LENR devices and the historical development of transistors in the semiconductor industry. Well, there are.
Slides #37 – 43 explain how --- in certain ways --- LENR active sites really do resemble electronic transistors used in microchips. I also discuss what this unexpected similarity may mean for future development and commercialization of LENRs for power generation. Amazingly, some aspects of future transistors and LENR device technology will probably converge and perhaps even strongly overlap.
Lattice energy LLC - Climate change can reduce wind and solar power output - ...Lewis Larsen
A mystery wind drought hit the U.S. in the first half of 2015. Total wind-powered electrical output in the U.S. during that year went down 6% while total installed capacity went up 9%. Thus climate change disrupts prior weather patterns which can then impact renewables. If you believe wind and solar can someday totally replace short-notice sources of dispatchable power generation then think again, because they simply can’t --- ever.
Given innate variability in power output from renewable green energy sources, substantial amounts of short-notice dispatchable generation capacity are an unavoidable necessity that, along with a shift toward distributed generation, could serve as key system components crucial to maintaining modern high-availability electricity grids that continue to provide customers with 99+ % uptime during an era of increasing climate change. Having adequate dispatchable power generation capacity on-hand would thus be invaluable in helping to insure reliable, low-cost energy production and prudent risk management with respect to sudden unexpected “Black Swan” events such as extremely large volcanic eruptions and violent earthquakes that can adversely impact power generation by renewables.
Published peer-reviewed data suggests that it would also be prudent for global society to reduce future CO2 emissions from power generation activities. This will eventually happen anyway because at current rates of consumption, British Petroleum has estimated that fossil fuel resources will be totally exhausted in <150 years. Well, nuclear power plants are dispatchable and do not emit any CO2. Like it or not, major worldwide expansion of nuclear power generation is probably inevitable and could play a key strategic role in the long-term future of energy. In that regard, if safe radiation-free ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs) are successfully commercialized for producing green nuclear power, they could someday provide the future “energy miracle” sought by Bill Gates.
Lattice Energy LLC - Neutron production and nucleosynthesis in electric disch...Lewis Larsen
LENR transmutations can occur all around us. Neutrons can be created when Hydrogen atoms (protons) are present within many different types of electric discharges that can include among diverse other things: atmospheric lightning on earth and other planets, arcs between electrodes in air, water, hydrocarbons, as well as in nano-arcs (internal shorts) that can occur in electrochemical batteries.
Lattice Energy LLC - Hyperlinked index to documents re Widom-Larsen theory an...Lewis Larsen
Fully hyperlinked and cross-referenced Index and User Guide to relevant documents concerning the Widom-Larsen theory and ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs)
Lattice Energy LLC - Battery energy density - product safety - thermal runawa...Lewis Larsen
Global quest to improve performance drives battery R&D toward ever-higher energy densities. High gravimetric energy density rewards battery users with lighter portable or mobile power sources and longer operating times between recharges. Product safety & reliability could be the hidden costs --- higher energy density is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways. Internal electrical shorts, hot sparks, and catastrophic electric arcs are reducing durability and causing thermal runaways, fires, and even explosions in Lithium-ion batteries. Ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs) may be causing some of these extreme events; engineering for LENR effects could potentially help improve future battery safety and durability.
Lattice Energy LLC- New Russian Experiments Further Confirm Widom-Larsen Theo...Lewis Larsen
In series of different experiments with laser irradiation (sometimes combined with electrolysis) of hydride-forming metallic targets immersed in D2O, Barmina et al. claim to have observed both production and so-called “accelerated decay” of Tritium. If correct, their claimed detection of significant amounts of radioactive Tritium production is an extremely interesting experimental result because over the past 24 years, out of the hundreds of thousands of LENR experiments conducted, literally only a handful have ever claimed to observe Tritium as a measurable nuclear product. In separate very recent publications (2012, 2013), Barmina et al. claim to have developed a theory which can explain all their experimental data; their theoretical approach includes ‘new nuclear physics’ and exotic concepts such as a so-called “in-shake-up” nuclear state that enables production of new bound di-/tri-neutron particles.
Presuming that their experimental data are shown to have been correctly measured and results are successfully repeated by other independent researchers, their reported data provides further confirmation of Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs in a type of laser-based LENR experimental system pioneered by Letts & Cravens (USA) ca. 2002 – 2003.
During the past decade or so, there have also been increasing numbers of experimental reports published in various peer-reviewed journals in which authors claimed to have observed changes in intrinsic nuclear decay rate constants of certain isotopes/elements.
Importantly, there is probably a subset of such anomalous reported data in which experimentalists were blithely unaware of any possibility that LENR transmutations could be occurring inside their experimental systems. In such cases, the measured parameter(s) indicating a given nuclear decay rate, say intensities of a series of gamma emission lines, changes because the isotope(s) producing the gammas being measured has/have simply captured W-L ULM neutrons and been transmuted to other different --- perhaps even stable --- isotope(s); ergo, measured isotopes’ intrinsic nuclear decay rate constants did not really change during such types of experiments. Thus, the long-mysterious “Reifenschweiler effect” could in reality be just conversion of Tritium into neutrons that are captured by, among other things, substrate atoms..
Lattice Energy LLC - Electroweak nuclear catalysis and chemical catalysis are...Lewis Larsen
Chemical catalysis and electroweak nuclear catalysis share certain key features
Heretofore, chemical and nuclear processes were thought to be vastly distant realms; we now believe that they can happily coexist in close proximity to each other and may interoperate on nm to μ length-scales.
Herein we will argue that there are some very surprising similarities between the operation of active sites in LENR electroweak, enzymatic, and inorganic chemical catalysis: all three can utilize high local electric fields as well as many-body collective quantum effects to achieve dramatic increases in reaction rates and overall catalytic proficiency.
With respect to LENR active sites vs. those of enzymes and other types of chemical catalysts, what separates chemical from nuclear catalysis could be presence of many-body entangled protons and electrons in close proximity, coupled with input energy that triggers attosecond-scale pulses in local electric fields up to values that are > 2 x 1011 V/m.
It has become clear to Lattice that key knowledge about details of LENR electroweak catalysis may well provide very useful insights into chemical catalysis and vice-versa. We look forward to working with others to exploit this and thus advance technical progress in both areas.
Visualization of the Electrical Field in the Vicinity of a THz Pulse Exposed ...kagikenco
Application of terahertz pulses (THz pulse) are widely spread in the field of bioelectrics recently. The responses of a THz pulse exposed cell are observed with visualizations of the cell before and after the exposure. To discuss the phenomena quantitatively the electrical field in the vicinity of a THz pulse exposed cell are simulated by finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation. In this paper the effect of cell shape and width of THz pulse are shown.
Lattice Energy LLC - LENRs in condensed matter mimic results of Big Bang nucl...Lewis Larsen
LENRs in condensed matter are able to create four primordial Big Bang elements: Deuterium, Helium, Lithium, and Beryllium. No superhot nuclear fusion processes are involved: a combination of many-body collective electroweak neutron production under surprisingly moderate macrophysical conditions, subsequent neutron captures and various following nuclear decays can produce the same reaction products as the Big Bang event at the birth of our Universe.
Paul Ahern - Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting ReviewPaul Ahern
Mechanical energy is among the most plentiful and consistent energy sources in our day-to-day lives, which is available to us regardless of the whims of the weather or the cycles of day and night. Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters (PEH’s) are compact devices which allow the scavenging of low grade energy from ambient sources such as human and environmental vibrations, with the aim of using this energy to power autonomous electronic devices. Many decades of research and development in the field has led to commercially available devices based on piezoelectric materials which can be used to harvest milliwatts of energy from mechanical sources such as vibration, stress or strain.
Approach To Power Harvesting With Piezoelectric MaterialIJERA Editor
Nowadays, most of the research in the energy field is to develop sources of energy for the future, With oil resources being over, tapped and eventually bound to end, it is time to find renewable Piezoelectric materials are being more and more studied as they turn out to be very unusual materials with very specific and interesting properties. In fact, these materials have the ability to produce electrical energy from mechanical energy, for example, they can convert mechanical behavior like vibrations into electricity. Recent work has shown that these materials could be used as power generators, the amount of energy produced is still very low, hence the necessity to optimize them. The objective of this work is to study the all of the piezoelectric material systems and calculated the possible power generated from it, and a special case to design and build a fully functional floor tile device that when stepped on will generate enough energy to light an LED, The system will be charge a temporary energy storage device, a capacitor bank, and then use this stored energy to power an LED.
Lattice Energy LLC - Scalability of LENR power generation systems - Nov 29 2015Lewis Larsen
Lattice shows how LENR power generation systems could someday scale-up from today’s primitive milliwatt thermal devices to kwh and megawatts of electrical output.
In this PowerPoint presentation, we outline how substantial scale-up of LENR (safe ultralow energy neutron reactions) power generation systems from today’s primitive milliwatt thermal devices to kwh and megawatts is a feasible goal in the near-future. LENR reactors would be vastly smaller and less expensive than equivalent fission counterparts with comparable thermal output.
D-T fusion reactors like ITER and other similar Tokamaks mainly create heat by harvesting the kinetic energy of deadly 14.1 MeV neutrons. Consequently, they require massive shielding and containment systems for safe operation and unsurprisingly have enormous costs and unavoidably huge physical size. Given that the radiation-free Lithium LENR fuel cycle releases nearly 27 MeV versus a total Q-value of 17.6 MeV for the D-T fusion reaction, it is hard to imagine a sound economic argument for spending 100s of billions on commercial fusion reactors if LENR technology is successfully developed and scaled-up as we have outlined herein.
Lack of hard radiation and radioactive wastes permit downward scalability that could enable future development of revolutionary, compact battery-like portable LENR power sources that can compete directly on $ price/kwh with chemical batteries in many applications including power tools, tablets, and smartphones.
Lattice Energy LLC - US Government Labs Reported Clear-cut Neutron Capture Da...Lewis Larsen
In Oct 1989, scientists working at two U.S. national laboratories reported unequivocal, spectacular experimental data showing that neutron captures were a causative mechanism for LENRs.
At that time, certain researchers were obviously aware that neutrons were driving LENR processes: experimental data from well-respected U.S. national laboratories clearly indicated that neutron captures were occurring in materials on cathode surfaces in otherwise ordinary electrochemical cells.
Unfortunately, this unquestionably good isotopic shift data was totally ignored by the U.S. government and overwhelming majority of scientists because it violated contemporary conceptual paradigms about well-understood nuclear processes like fission and fusion. In addition, theory available at that time was unable to provide a sensible physics mechanism that could explain in situ production of neutrons in chemical cells operating at ~STP.
Experimental data reported by Rolison & O’Grady of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory at an EPRI-NSF Workshop in October 1989 was a ‘smoking gun’ for neutron capture on Palladium isotopes comprising cathodes in Pons-Fleischmann-type electrochemical cells --- exactly as predicted by the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs published many years thereafter.
Data reported through Edward Teller of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the same EPRI-NSF Workshop described LLNL experiments in which researchers observed significant depletion of Lithium-6 on cathodes in Pons-Fleischmann-type electrochemical cells. This result is indicative of neutron captures inside such cells and, again, exactly as predicted by Widom-Larsen today.
This important experimental data clearly implicating neutron capture processes in LENRs was lost in the intervening years following the acrimonious controversy about “cold fusion” that raged worldwide during 1989-90. New Energy Times recently obtained copies of the long-lost Proceedings of the EPRI-NSF Workshop and provided copies of report sections to Lattice for evaluation.
In retrospect, high quality experimental data conclusively demonstrating that LENRs must somehow involve ultralow energy neutrons was already available by late 1989. However, the inexplicable (prior to Widom-Larsen) absence of deadly, energetic neutron and gamma radiation when neutrons were obviously being captured on experimental materials (expected accompanying prompt capture gammas were not observed) was too much of a radical conceptual paradigm shift for most scientists.
Consequently, by 1991 an accumulating body of anomalous experimental results were simply chalked-up to misinterpretation and/or systematic experimental errors and mistakenly dismissed.
Lattice Energy LLC - 1994 conference paper - Prof John Dash reported producti...Lewis Larsen
Synopsis: In a ‘lost’ conference paper published 23 years ago, Prof. John Dash et al. correctly concluded that “slow neutrons” were responsible for creating Gold and Silver transmutation products that were clearly observed in electrochemical cells that had been electrolyzed for 400 hours. However, they mistakenly thought that such neutrons were produced by a nuclear fusion process.
More recently, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has used a proprietary gas permeation method for LENR transmutation of Tungsten to Osmium and finally to Platinum. However, MHI’s ultralow energy neutron fluxes in Deuterium gas permeation cleanroom systems were not quite high enough to proceed all the way down the neutron-catalyzed LENR transmutation pathway to reach Gold like Dash et al.
Mitsubishi is presently pushing aggressively to increase LENR transmutation rates and product yields in laboratory devices. In a recent company technical bulletin, the company revealed that transmutation product yields had been increased by nearly 3 orders of magnitude in 3 years by shifting from gas to electrochemical permeation through a thin-film metal-oxide sandwich structure (see slides #34 - 36). Interestingly, to achieve this increase in yields, MHI unknowingly followed guidelines that were already spelled-out in a Widom-Larsen theory rate calculation paper published back in 2007 (slide #33).
Since MHI is also using semiconductor-like fabrication methods, cleanrooms, and some nanotech to build devices and increase transmutation product yields, it begs the question of whether there are any parallels between today’s primitive LENR devices and the historical development of transistors in the semiconductor industry. Well, there are.
Slides #37 – 43 explain how --- in certain ways --- LENR active sites really do resemble electronic transistors used in microchips. I also discuss what this unexpected similarity may mean for future development and commercialization of LENRs for power generation. Amazingly, some aspects of future transistors and LENR device technology will probably converge and perhaps even strongly overlap.
Lattice energy LLC - Climate change can reduce wind and solar power output - ...Lewis Larsen
A mystery wind drought hit the U.S. in the first half of 2015. Total wind-powered electrical output in the U.S. during that year went down 6% while total installed capacity went up 9%. Thus climate change disrupts prior weather patterns which can then impact renewables. If you believe wind and solar can someday totally replace short-notice sources of dispatchable power generation then think again, because they simply can’t --- ever.
Given innate variability in power output from renewable green energy sources, substantial amounts of short-notice dispatchable generation capacity are an unavoidable necessity that, along with a shift toward distributed generation, could serve as key system components crucial to maintaining modern high-availability electricity grids that continue to provide customers with 99+ % uptime during an era of increasing climate change. Having adequate dispatchable power generation capacity on-hand would thus be invaluable in helping to insure reliable, low-cost energy production and prudent risk management with respect to sudden unexpected “Black Swan” events such as extremely large volcanic eruptions and violent earthquakes that can adversely impact power generation by renewables.
Published peer-reviewed data suggests that it would also be prudent for global society to reduce future CO2 emissions from power generation activities. This will eventually happen anyway because at current rates of consumption, British Petroleum has estimated that fossil fuel resources will be totally exhausted in <150 years. Well, nuclear power plants are dispatchable and do not emit any CO2. Like it or not, major worldwide expansion of nuclear power generation is probably inevitable and could play a key strategic role in the long-term future of energy. In that regard, if safe radiation-free ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs) are successfully commercialized for producing green nuclear power, they could someday provide the future “energy miracle” sought by Bill Gates.
Lattice Energy LLC - Neutron production and nucleosynthesis in electric disch...Lewis Larsen
LENR transmutations can occur all around us. Neutrons can be created when Hydrogen atoms (protons) are present within many different types of electric discharges that can include among diverse other things: atmospheric lightning on earth and other planets, arcs between electrodes in air, water, hydrocarbons, as well as in nano-arcs (internal shorts) that can occur in electrochemical batteries.
Simulation study of single event effects sensitivity on commercial power MOSF...journalBEEI
High-frequency semiconductor devices are key components for advanced power electronic system that require fast switching speed. Power Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET) is the most famous electronic device that are used in much power electronic system. However, the application such as space borne, military and communication system needs Power MOSFET to withstand in radiation environments. This is very challenging for the engineer to develop a device that continuously operated without changing its electrical behavior due to radiation. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to investigate the Single Event Effect (SEE) sensitivity by using Heavy Ion Radiation on the commercial Power MOSFET. A simulation study using Sentaurus Synopsys TCAD software for process simulation and device simulation was done. The simulation results reveal that single heavy ion radiation has affected the device structure and fluctuate the I-V characteristic of commercial Power MOSFET.
Fabrication and characterization of printed zinc batteriesjournalBEEI
Zinc batteries are a more sustainable alternative to lithium-ion batteries due to its components being highly recyclable. With the improvements in the screen printing technology, high quality devices can be printed with at high throughput and precision at a lower cost compared to those manufactured using lithographic techniques. In this paper we describe the fabrication and characterization of printed zinc batteries. Different binder materials such as polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) and polyvinyl butyral (PVB), were used to fabricate the electrodes. The electrodes were first evaluated using three-electrode cyclic voltammetry, x-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy before being fully assembled and tested using charge-discharge test and two-electrode cyclic voltammetry. The results show that the printed ZnO electrode with PVB as binder performed better than PVP-based ZnO. The XRD data prove that the electro-active materials were successfully transferred to the sample. However, based on the evaluation, the results show that the cathode electrode was dominated by the silver instead of Ni(OH)2, which leads the sample to behave like a silver-zinc battery instead of a nickel-zinc battery. Nevertheless, the printed zinc battery electrodes were successfully evaluated, and more current collector materials for cathode should be explored for printed nickel-zinc batteries.
Lattice Energy LLC-Widom-Larsen Theory Explains Data Presented in New Mitsubi...Lewis Larsen
Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs can successfully explain the various experimental data that was presented and discussed in the recently published, LENR-related US patent application filed June 8, 2012, by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (Japan), US 2012/0269309 A2.
Readers are encouraged to download copies and compare various details of Lattice’s fundamental patent US # 7,893,414 (issued by the USPTO on February 22, 2011) with Mitsubishi’s above-noted, recently published US application.
Mitsubishi uses their EINR model published in 1998 to explain their experimental data; however, it is strictly a conceptual phenomenological model and does not explain physics of exactly how LENR catalytic neutrons are formed and why copious energetic neutron radiation is not observed; neither does it explain why prompt and delayed MeV gamma radiation is not emitted during neutron captures on various isotopes.
Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs, as published in 2006 and 2010, fully explains the physics of ultra-low momentum neutron production, as well as the absence of deadly fluxes of energetic neutrons and ‘hard’ MeV-energy gamma radiation; Widom-Larsen theory’s deep insights in detailed device physics enables meaningful engineering of useful LENR devices for controlled production of thermal energy and/or purposeful transmutation of elements to accomplish a variety of objectives.
Conclusions: the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs can successfully explain the various experimental data that was presented and discussed in the recently published, LENR-related US patent application filed June 8, 2012, by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (Japan), US 2012/0269309 A2.
As a parting thought, please note that a number of large Japanese companies now have ongoing LENR R&D programs --- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toyota Central Research, and Toyota Motors, among others. That being the case, it is highly likely that one or more companies, somewhere, sometime in the not-too-distant future, will eventually succeed in commercializing LENRs.
The author and his students have investigated anomalous heat generation during carbon arcing done under saline water solutions using carbon electrodes. Energy balance calculations, indicate a marginal excess energy of up to 50 % with MS electrodes while with carbon electrodes output to input energy ratios are found to be as high as a factor of eight indicating excess heat up to 700%. We think that the anomalous excess energy could be due to some type of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) but the nature of these reactions have not been studied by us so far. The carbon-electrode arc results on heat-accounting corroborate the mass-spectroscopic findings reported by BARC, Texas A & M University and other groups.
Lattice Energy LLC-Are LENRs Occurring in Compact Fluorescent Lights-March 7 ...Lewis Larsen
Peer-reviewed paper by Mead et al. just published in February (Environmental Science & Technology) contains amazing new experimental data on anomalous shifts in abundances of Mercury isotopes found in compact fluorescent lights (CFL) used in homes and businesses. When viewed through the conceptual lens of the Widom-Larsen theory, their carefully collected Hg isotope data suggests that low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) transmutations may actually be occurring at extremely low rates in CFLs during normal operation. We discuss their paper and its implications in a new 102-slide Lattice PowerPoint presentation dated March 7, 2013. Therein, we conclude that if the intriguing possibility about LENRs in CFLs unveiled in this data is substantiated by further experimentation, it provides yet more proof that LENRs are likely to be a truly ‘green’ nuclear technology that has great promise for use in CO2-free power generation, providing LENR device heat outputs and operational longevity can be scaled dramatically upwards by applying and adapting recently acquired technical knowledge found in nanotech, plasmonics, and advanced materials science.
A 2D MODELLING OF THERMAL HEAT SINK FOR IMPATT AT HIGH POWER MMW FREQUENCYcscpconf
A very useful method of formulating the Total Thermal Resistance of ordinary mesa structure of DDR IMPATT diode oscillators are presented in this paper. The main aim of this paper is to provide a 2D model for Si and SiC based IMPATT having different heat sinks (Type IIA diamond and copper) at high power MMW frequency and study the characteristics of Total thermal resistance versus diode diameter for both the devices. Calculations of Total thermal resistances associated with different DDR IMPATT diodes with different base materials
operating at 94 GHz (W-Band) are included in this paper using the author’s developed formulation for both type-IIA diamond and copper semi-infinite heat sinks separately. Heat
Sinks are designed using both type-IIA diamond and copper for all those diodes to operate near 500 K (which is well below the burn-out temperatures of all those base materials) for CW
steady state operation. Results are provided in the form of necessary graphs and tables.
In electrical discharge machining (EDM), Copper
and Graphite are commonly used as electrode (tool) materials.
EDM process is based on thermoelectric energy between an
electrode and workpiece. In this paper, the effect of electrode wear
rate (EWR) in 202 stainless steel is observed. Copper Electrode is
used as tool material and SS-202 is used as workpiece. Copper
electrode possess high structural integrity, so it can produce very
fine surface finishes, even without special polishing circuits.
STUDY THE EFFECT OF METALLIC PARTICLE ON DIFFERENT SPACER IN A CO-AXIAL DUCT ...EditorIJAERD
Particle accelerators can be placed in two general classes, those which operate by direct time varying electric or
magnetic fields. The following discussion will relate primarily to the direct acceleration machine where the maximum
particle energy is determined by the voltage which can be insulated. In this work, it is proposed the breakdown of air gaps in
a co-axial geometry, due to the presence of metallic particle has been studied. Bare copper wire particles of different lengths
have been introduced in to a co-axial geometry and breakdown strength of air gap has been estimated. The testing high ac
voltage, positive dc voltage and negative dc voltage is carried out. The study repeated with dielectric covering to the control
conductor. When a sufficiently high electric field is applied to a gas, avalanche ionization (TOWNSEND PROCESS) occurs
which will lead to breakdown. Gas insulated systems are extensively used in air insulated system due to advantages of weight
and volume reduction, limited overall space requirements and easy maintenance. Even though case wise, GIS is very
expensive has compared to AIS, it is preferred because of better service, more reliable performance and facility of higher
operating stresses. In recent years, SF6 has been considered to green house gas and hence, all round efforts are made to
reduce emission of SF6 gas in to the atmosphere. This was successfully used in GITL (gas insulated transmission lines) and
experimental lines of few kilometers lengths are available
Lattice Energy LLC-On Oct 1 Tesla Model S Caught Fire on Highway-Has Companys...Lewis Larsen
Key takeaways:
In July 2010, Lattice began to issue public warnings about thermal runaway risks with large, scaled-up Lithium-based battery packs; on Slide #54 in an August 6, 2013 Lattice presentation subtitled “A Fool’s Paradise” we questioned whether Tesla’s engineering had solved problematic runaway issues, or whether they had just been lucky - so far.
October 1, 2013 fire incident (really a form of battery runaway) with Tesla Model S that occurred near Seattle, WA suggests that they had merely been lucky to date --- battery thermal runaway issues have not yet been truly solved by Tesla Motors or anyone else.
As seen in the progression of news stories quoted from herein, Tesla began the news cycle by trying to assert that the battery pack had nothing to do with the hot fire that consumed the front end of a $70,000 car. By Wednesday evening they finally admitted that the battery was in fact the culprit, but that the incident had been triggered by the vehicle’s impact with “metal debris” that had been lying on the road surface and that consequent mechanical damage to battery cells triggered the thermal runaway fire event; they are emphatically asserting that the battery did not catch fire spontaneously.
While Tesla’s theory of the incident is plausible, it is inconsistent with statements made by the highway patrol officer --- trained to be keenly observant --- who first investigated the accident scene and found no evidence whatsoever of any claimed “metallic debris.”
Unless conclusive physical evidence is revealed that proves otherwise, Lattice believes it is more likely that the fire was caused by a spontaneous heat-event inside the battery.
IJRET : International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology is an international peer reviewed, online journal published by eSAT Publishing House for the enhancement of research in various disciplines of Engineering and Technology. The aim and scope of the journal is to provide an academic medium and an important reference for the advancement and dissemination of research results that support high-level learning, teaching and research in the fields of Engineering and Technology. We bring together Scientists, Academician, Field Engineers, Scholars and Students of related fields of Engineering and Technology
Guide to Concepts-Experimental Evidence for W-L Theory of LENRs-Feb 17 2012Lewis Larsen
Herein, we will discuss the non-fusion, weak interaction-driven Widom-Larsen theory and its application to LENRs occurring in abiological condensed matter systems, abiological magnetically organized classical and dusty plasmas, and terrestrial biological systems. At the highest level of abstraction, WLT integrates many-body collective electromagnetic and condensed matter Q-M effects with modern electroweak theory under the ‘umbrella’ of the Standard Model; no “new physics” are invoked anywhere in this work.
Current Advanced Research Development of Electric Discharge Machining (EDM): ...sushil Choudhary
Electrical discharge machining (EDM) process is one of the most commonly used nonconventional
precise material removal processes. Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is a process for
shaping hard metals and forming deep complex shaped holes by arc erosion in all kinds of electroconductive
materials. Erosion pulse discharge occurs in a small gap between the work piece and the
electrode. This removes the unwanted material from the parent metal through melting and vaporizing in
presence of dielectric fluid. In recent years, EDM researchers have explored a number of ways to improve
EDM Process parameters such as Electrical parameters, Non-Electrical Parameters, tool Electrode based
parameters & Powder based parameters. This new research shares the same objectives of achieving more
efficient metal removal rate reduction in tool wear and improved surface quality. This paper reviews the
research work carried out from the inception to the development of die-sinking EDM, Water in EDM, dry
EDM, and Powder mixed electric Discharge Machining. Within the past decade. & also briefly describing the Current Research technique Trend in EDM, future EDM research direction.
Using the electric apparatus to execute a series of tests with non destructive carriers immersed in sensitive solvable materials that will result into nuclear transmutations with simultaneous appearance of thermal energy exceeding the provided electric energy by the electric apparatus. The overall apparatus materials and procedures combined will form the GEOLENT TECHNOLOGY that can be used as an alternative tool in order to confront the urgent problem of clean energy generation and the climate change problem.
Similar to Lattice Energy LLC- Technical Discussion-NTSB Logan Dreamliner Runaway Data Suggest High Local Temps-May 7 2013 (20)
Lattice Energy LLC - Strategic importance of accelerating commercialization o...Lewis Larsen
Prospects for commercialization of LENRs have radically improved. New Lattice report “Strategic importance of accelerating commercialization of LENRs for green radiation-free nuclear power and propulsion” aims at a broad audience and outlines strategic case for greatly increasing R&D funding to accelerate development of ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs) for CO2-free power generation. Recent Japanese government-funded NEDO project solved previously intractable problems with rational device design & fabrication, experimental repeatability, and erratic, limited thermal output that bedeviled researchers worldwide since 1989-90.
Given spectacular Japanese progress, it appears very likely that LENRs will be commercialized, probably sooner rather than later. Today, Japan is by far the experimental leader along that path; heavily involved companies include Mitsubishi Heavy industries, Toyota, and Nissan..
Lattice Energy LLC - Green hard-radiation-free len rs could provide game-chan...Lewis Larsen
Green hard-radiation-free ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs) could provide game-changing nuclear power for military combat systems ranging from aircraft to individual warfighters. LENRs are the only energy technology on the foreseeable horizon that could provide a quantum-leap in military power generation and propulsion capabilities in the 2030 - 2050 time-frame.
Lattice Energy LLC - LENRs enable green radiation-free nuclear power and prop...Lewis Larsen
If commercialized, LENRs could become one of the world’s preeminent energy technologies. At system electrical power outputs of just 5 - 10 kwh, modular LENR-based distributed power generation systems providing combined heat and electricity (CHP) could satisfy energy requirements of a majority of urban and rural households as well as smaller businesses worldwide. Much lower-output, revolutionary portable LENR power sources could displace chemical batteries in applications where ultrahigh performance and longevity are needed.
At electrical outputs of 60 - 200 kwh, LENR-based integrated power generation systems would be able to power vehicles, drones, as well as smaller aircraft and watercraft. This would break oil-based fuels’ 150-year stranglehold on internal combustion engines and decisively decarbonize the entire transportation sector. High-performance LENR thermal sources could also provide high-quality heat for many types of industrial processes.
Although they could very likely be designed and built, development of megawatt-output LENR systems is not mandatory to disrupt the world of energy for the better. If wide deployment of small-scale, low-cost LENR CHP distributed generation could be achieved, large numbers of fossil-fired and/or fission power plants would not have to be built to supply competitively priced, uninterruptible electricity to regional grids serving urbanized areas. Under that scenario, centralized grid power generation would be gradually displaced by vast numbers of smaller, price-competitive distributed LENR power systems inside homes and businesses.
Lewis Larsen - DJIA approaches previous all-time record high close of 26828 -...Lewis Larsen
Dow-Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is approaching previous all-time record high close of 26,828 - what happens next? If U.S. economy speeds-up by 3Q 2019 and/or good China-US trade deal is completed, DJIA could hit new all-time highs and increase by 3,000 to 6,000 points during next 6 - 18 months.
Lattice Energy LLC - Microbial radiation resistance transmutation of elements...Lewis Larsen
Microbial radiation resistance, possible transmutation of elements, and the dawn of life on Earth
Multi-species communities of microorganisms will expend energy to assimilate and process heavy elements like Cesium, Gold, and Uranium that -- now -- play no obvious roles in growth or metabolism. Credible experimental data suggests some bacteria are shifting isotope ratios and possibly even transmuting certain elements. How and why are microbes doing this? LENRs may explain how, but why?
Although credible experimental data suggests some microbes can transmute certain elements via LENRs, much more experimentation will be required to decisively demonstrate that microorganisms can truly transmute chemical elements at will and determine which species of microbes have such capabilities. LENRs may not be all that uncommon out in Nature; if so, there will be major implications for geochemistry, isotope geology, and nuclear waste remediation.
LENRs can mimic isotopic effects of mass-dependent and mass-independent chemical fractionation. Elements and isotopes conserve their mass-balances in purely chemical systems; that is not necessarily true if LENRs are also occurring in same systems. Accurate measurement of total mass balances for all chemical species may be needed to discriminate between chemical and nuclear processes.
ULE neutron-catalyzed transmutation is not energetically practical for more-abundant chemical elements found in living systems such as Carbon. However, transmutation could potentially be an energetically feasible and advantageous capability that could enable some fortunate microbes to produce life-critical, low-abundance catalytic active site metals that are unavailable in local environments.
Japanese government-funded project with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toyota, Nissan, and four universities is developing abiotic LENRs for power generation. Recently reported outstanding heat production results at working temperatures and pressures far lower than those found in many undersea hydrothermal vents.
Lattice Energy LLC - Korean scientists use bacteria to reduce concentration o...Lewis Larsen
Korean scientists used experimental laboratory mixtures of bacteria to reduce concentration of radioactive Cesium-137 (as indicated by gamma emissions) present in aqueous growth solutions irradiated with light at 12-hour intervals, shaken, and incubated at 25o C.
During experiments, and compared to controls, measured gamma radiation for flasks containing bacteria decreased at vastly higher rates than would be expected for ‘normal’ rate of Cs-137 β-decay. Is radioactive Cesium actually being transmuted into heavier Cs isotopes and other elements by living bacteria?
Lattice Energy LLC - Widom-Larsen theory reveals surprising similarities and ...Lewis Larsen
Widom-Larsen theory unveils additional surprising similarities and connections between LENRs and chemical catalysis.
Synopsis: recent extensions of the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs have for the first time revealed additional striking and unexpected similarities between electroweak nuclear catalysis --- collective many-body en + pn reaction in condensed matter --- and enzymatic catalysis, inorganic chemical catalysis, plasmon-mediated chemical photocatalysis with “hot” charge carriers, as well as widely published nanotechnology concept of heterometallic plasmonic antenna-reactor nanoparticles for photocatalysis. Among a number of surprising commonalities between LENRs and chemical catalytic processes, many-body collective quantum effects and high local electric fields > 1010 V/m enable many chemical reactions and LENRs to proceed with substantial rates at vastly lower working temperatures and pressures. Existence of all these unexpected parallels suggests that valuable engineering insights can be obtained by data mining state-of-the art technical knowledge about nanotech and chemical catalysis and then applying and leveraging new insights derived therefrom to help accelerate future development of LENRs for power generation.
Lattice energy LLC - Chinese chemists report photochemical triggering of LENR...Lewis Larsen
Experiments reported in 2017 by Prof. Gong-xuan Lu et al. at Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, in Lanzhou, China showed photocatalytic triggering of ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs) at NTP with visible light. Experimental results reported in “Journal of Molecular Catalysis” (China) in 2017 claimed production of Deuterium and Helium as well as nuclear transmutation of Potassium to Calcium. Very significant discovery if experimental claims can be independently confirmed by other researchers using same methods. If Lu et al.’s claims are confirmed, their work has important implications. For chemical catalysis, it suggests that LENR transmutations can occur at very low rates in parallel with ordinary chemical reactions; LENRs can coexist and interoperate at NTP. Also implies total mass-balances for chemical elements comprising reactants and products might not necessarily be conserved. For astrophysics and cosmochemistry, it means that nucleosynthesis can occur on surfaces of Hydrogen- and metal-rich dust grains irradiated by starlight.
Lattice Energy LLC - LENR experiment conducted by The Aerospace Corporation r...Lewis Larsen
LENR experiment conducted independently in 2017 by The Aerospace Corporation (non-profit company that operates a FFRDC) effectively repeated excess heat results reported by the Japanese government-funded NEDO LENR fabrication and testing project. Experimental data from this confirmatory experiment was reported by Dr. Edward Beiting, a physicist and Senior Scientist at The Aerospace Corporation, in a presentation that occurred on June 5, 2018 at the ICCF-21 conference held at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, Colorado.
Lattice Energy LLC - LENRs are revolutionary disruptive energy technology for...Lewis Larsen
Safe, radiation-free ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs) expand use of nuclear power & propulsion into huge range of land vehicles, aircraft, watercraft, and spacecraft. Scales downward from large fission reactors used in nuclear naval aircraft carriers and submarines. Enormous energy densities of LENR-based power & propulsion technology could confer decisive combat systems advantages on near-future battlefields.
Lattice Energy LLC - Revolutionary LENRs for power generation - accelerating ...Lewis Larsen
Commercialization of radiation-free ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs) for power generation could potentially occur with surprising speed. In just 2.5 years, Japanese government NEDO-funded LENR device fabrication and testing project achieved TRL-4 (refuting the skeptics) and validated application of Widom-Larsen theory, materials science, and nanotech to help accelerate commercialization pathway from present developmental level of TRL-4 to future commercial LENR-based products at TRL-9.
Lattice Energy LLC - March 2 Technova seminar in Tokyo released more info re ...Lewis Larsen
Japan’s NEDO-sponsored LENR device project released additional technical details at Technova seminar held in Tokyo on March 2, 2018. Japanese government is targeting commercialization of LENRs as a revolutionary, radiation-free nuclear technology for use in power generation and propulsion applications. NEDO project results to date have demonstrated Watt-level reproducibility of excess heat in small nanocomposite LENR devices. Assuming substantial scale-up of device heat output is possible, NEDO project’s technical achievement validates future potential for LENRs to someday become an important source of green CO2-free energy.
Lattice Energy LLC - Russia announces nuclear fission-powered cruise missile ...Lewis Larsen
In globally televised speech on March 1, President Vladimir Putin claimed that Russia has successfully developed and tested a nuclear-powered cruise missile with unprecedented performance capabilities. If real (which appears likely), this advanced weapon system is probably powered by an unshielded Uranium fission reactor. Such a propulsion system would almost certainly produce large emissions of deadly energetic neutron/gamma radiation and release radioactive waste particulates into reactor exhaust plumes that would be rather dangerous to exposed people and the environment.
Radiation-free ultralow energy neutron reactions (LENRs) --- which involve neither fission nor fusion --- now under development by Lattice, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toyota, and Nissan are a truly safe, green nuclear technology. Importantly, LENRs can potentially be scaled-up and might someday be able to safely propel future missiles, manned aircraft/UAVs, manned submarines/UUVs, and everyday motor vehicles.
Lattice Energy LLC - Japanese NEDO industry-academia-government project - nan...Lewis Larsen
Nanocomposite LENR devices in Japanese NEDO industry-academia-government R&D project produced enough cumulative excess heat to boil a cup of tea.
Since 1989, production of calorimetrically measured excess heat during vast majority of experiments with purpose-fabricated LENR devices was a hit-or-miss proposition. When excess heat produced, was typically < 1 Watt for periods ranging from few hours to several days. NEDO greatly improved device fabrication, reproducibility, longevity, and excess heat performance.
For years skeptics summarily dismissed LENRs as a potential new energy source because experiments were unable to produce enough excess heat to even “boil a cup of tea.” Thanks to results of NEDO project, not any more.
NEDO project has demonstrated that LENRs can produce non-trivial, Watt-level amounts of excess heat from nanocomposite multi-metal devices without emission of deadly fluxes of energetic neutron or gamma radiation --- it is safe, radiation-free nuclear technology.
Lattice Energy LLC - Japanese NEDO LENR project reported reasonably reproduci...Lewis Larsen
Japan’s NEDO industry-academia-government R&D program’s recent experimental results technically validated potential for LENRs to become major future energy source.
Excess heat was produced in ~ 80% of project’s reported LENR experiments. Whenever excess heat was created, it is most often at Watt-levels or better at reactor operating temperatures of 200 - 300 degrees C. Duration of excess heat production ranged up to weeks, which is non-trivial. Such LENR device behavior represents excellent reproducibility for complex early-stage technology. With respect to reproducibility of device fabrication methods and heat production, these are best-ever experimental results reported to date in field of LENRs.
Watt-level excess heat was produced in Hydrogen (H)- and Deuterium (D)-loaded experimental systems. No deadly energetic (MeV-energy) gamma or neutron radiation was detected during heat production in any project experimental runs. Such observations are consistent with and predicted by the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs which posits production and capture of ultralow energy neutrons on ‘fuel’ atoms which drive hard-radiation-free nuclear transmutation reactions and decays that release nuclear binding energy in form of copious heat.
In Lattice’s opinion, NEDO project’s outstanding experimental results change LENRs’ Technology Readiness Level (TRL) from TRL-3 to TRL-4 (European Commission definitions). This is an important step in commercialization of LENRs for power generation applications.
Lattice Energy LLC - Japanese NEDO LENR project reported good progress in exc...Lewis Larsen
Japan now funding R&D in LENR technology for use in power generation applications. Quietly threw down the gauntlet to global oil industry.
January 2018: terse project report summarizing progress in Japanese government NEDO-funded R&D in LENRs for period of Oct. 2015 through Oct. 2017 was released by Technova Inc. on ResearchGate. Herein we will review and discuss NEDO project’s reported progress.
Project scientists reported significant R&D progress toward developing LENR devices that serve as powerful heat sources. Reproducibility of device fabrication techniques and excess heat output were improved. Certain nanocomposite, multi-metal LENR test devices with mass <140 grams cumulatively produced up to ~85 megajoules (MJ) of excess heat per mole (MJ/mol) of absorbed Hydrogen (H) or Deuterium (D); some: duration of heat > 1 month. By contrast, complete combustion of Hydrogen releases ~0.286 MJ/mol of H. Chemical processes cannot explain these results.
Japan, Inc. appears to be developing LENR technology to someday replace the internal combustion engine.
Lewis Larsen - Dow-Jones Industrial Average reaches 26000 - what happens next...Lewis Larsen
Dow-Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has just gone above 26,000 for first time ever. What happens next? Boom or bust?
Short pithy answer: “We ain’t seen nothin’ yet”; quoted from Barron’s article published in February 1988
Slightly longer answer: We are presently in an era of low-inflation economic growth and explosion of new technologies. Therefore, a continued global financial and economic boom subject to episodic, healthy market price corrections is much more likely to occur than a fearsome bust like the near-collapse of U.S. financial markets in 2008 and subsequent Great Recession from which world financial markets and many national economies are just beginning to fully recover. Herein we present key reasons why this bullish scenario should transpire as events unfold.
Lattice Energy LLC - Polar vortex cold wave in USA has potential for lower te...Lewis Larsen
Today, the United States is gripped in jaws of a Polar Vortex extreme cold weather event in Midwest and Northeast. On December 27, 2017 the nighttime low temperature in Duluth, Minnesota hit bone-chilling 41 degrees below zero F. This severe cold snap is predicted to persist through January 5 – 7, 2018. How will wind & solar renewable energy sources and commercial natural gas pipelines perform during this latest Polar Vortex event in U.S.? It will be interesting to see what happens between today and mid-January 2018.
Lattice Energy LLC - Fossil fuels and nuclear vs renewables for powering elec...Lewis Larsen
Enormous potential future value for diversified portfolios of renewable, fossil-fueled, and nuclear power generation --- enable grids to have resilience against extreme weather events related to climate change and “Black Swan” volcanic eruptions.
Proverb: “In the first place … an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Benjamin Franklin (1735). Fukushima lessons: mitigate improbable extreme events if not too expensive; $200 million was thought too costly to fix backup generators in 2006 but the ‘cure’ for the 2011 nuclear disaster now costs $189 billion and could take 30 - 40 years.
What may appear ‘greener’ and less $$$ in myopic short-term decision-making about grids could end-up being extremely $$$ expensive or catastrophic in longer-term. Data suggests that is it too risky for society to put all its energy “eggs” into a single renewable basket. Lattice therefore believes balanced diversity of different types of grid power sources is best strategy for insuring 99+% future reliability and excellent resiliency of electricity grids facing onslaughts of extreme weather events and low but non-zero probability for catastrophic Black Swan volcanic eruptions.
Since high % of renewable energy sources on electricity grids is a new phenomenon and unexplored territory, there aren’t preexisting road maps to guide government regulation and critical implementation by industry. Private sector companies by nature are concerned with short-term bottom line profitability and have more narrowly focused interests; by contrast, government is responsible for insuring national energy security over much longer time-frames and broader range of grid-threatening events.
Rick Perry/DOE’s controversial NOPR to FERC in September created an important opportunity for U.S. government and industry to begin productive dialogue about how to enhance the U.S. electricity grid’s ability to maintain present reliability and adapt to climate change.
PHP Frameworks: I want to break free (IPC Berlin 2024)Ralf Eggert
In this presentation, we examine the challenges and limitations of relying too heavily on PHP frameworks in web development. We discuss the history of PHP and its frameworks to understand how this dependence has evolved. The focus will be on providing concrete tips and strategies to reduce reliance on these frameworks, based on real-world examples and practical considerations. The goal is to equip developers with the skills and knowledge to create more flexible and future-proof web applications. We'll explore the importance of maintaining autonomy in a rapidly changing tech landscape and how to make informed decisions in PHP development.
This talk is aimed at encouraging a more independent approach to using PHP frameworks, moving towards a more flexible and future-proof approach to PHP development.
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
Observability Concepts EVERY Developer Should Know -- DeveloperWeek Europe.pdfPaige Cruz
Monitoring and observability aren’t traditionally found in software curriculums and many of us cobble this knowledge together from whatever vendor or ecosystem we were first introduced to and whatever is a part of your current company’s observability stack.
While the dev and ops silo continues to crumble….many organizations still relegate monitoring & observability as the purview of ops, infra and SRE teams. This is a mistake - achieving a highly observable system requires collaboration up and down the stack.
I, a former op, would like to extend an invitation to all application developers to join the observability party will share these foundational concepts to build on:
A tale of scale & speed: How the US Navy is enabling software delivery from l...sonjaschweigert1
Rapid and secure feature delivery is a goal across every application team and every branch of the DoD. The Navy’s DevSecOps platform, Party Barge, has achieved:
- Reduction in onboarding time from 5 weeks to 1 day
- Improved developer experience and productivity through actionable findings and reduction of false positives
- Maintenance of superior security standards and inherent policy enforcement with Authorization to Operate (ATO)
Development teams can ship efficiently and ensure applications are cyber ready for Navy Authorizing Officials (AOs). In this webinar, Sigma Defense and Anchore will give attendees a look behind the scenes and demo secure pipeline automation and security artifacts that speed up application ATO and time to production.
We will cover:
- How to remove silos in DevSecOps
- How to build efficient development pipeline roles and component templates
- How to deliver security artifacts that matter for ATO’s (SBOMs, vulnerability reports, and policy evidence)
- How to streamline operations with automated policy checks on container images
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Le nuove frontiere dell'AI nell'RPA con UiPath Autopilot™UiPathCommunity
In questo evento online gratuito, organizzato dalla Community Italiana di UiPath, potrai esplorare le nuove funzionalità di Autopilot, il tool che integra l'Intelligenza Artificiale nei processi di sviluppo e utilizzo delle Automazioni.
📕 Vedremo insieme alcuni esempi dell'utilizzo di Autopilot in diversi tool della Suite UiPath:
Autopilot per Studio Web
Autopilot per Studio
Autopilot per Apps
Clipboard AI
GenAI applicata alla Document Understanding
👨🏫👨💻 Speakers:
Stefano Negro, UiPath MVPx3, RPA Tech Lead @ BSP Consultant
Flavio Martinelli, UiPath MVP 2023, Technical Account Manager @UiPath
Andrei Tasca, RPA Solutions Team Lead @NTT Data
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI support
Lattice Energy LLC- Technical Discussion-NTSB Logan Dreamliner Runaway Data Suggest High Local Temps-May 7 2013
1. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 1
NTSB reports indicate very high temperatures
Data suggests that extremely high temperatures likely occurred at local hotspots
which were created by electric arcs that erupted inside certain GS Yuasa battery
cells during Boeing 787 Dreamliner thermal runaway incident at Logan airport
Implications of “witches’ brew cauldrons” in superheated regions of cells
Technical
Discussion
Lewis Larsen
President and CEO
Lattice Energy LLC
May 7, 2013
Contact: 1-312-861-0115
lewisglarsen@gmail.com
http://www.slideshare.net/lewisglarsen
“Facts do not cease to exist
because they are ignored.”
Aldous Huxley in
“Proper Studies” 1927
Presence of perfect stainless steel
microspheres in battery debris suggests
that local temperatures were > 3,000o C
Perfect stainless steel microspheres are
created by condensation of droplets from a
vapor phase; similarities to laser ablation
Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image
NTSB Report No. 13-013 NTSB Report No. 13-013
2. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 2
When NTSB scientists investigated charred debris found inside the ruined Logan
GS Yuasa battery cells with a scanning electron microscope (SEM), near locations
where electric arcs (internal short circuits) had obviously occurred they discovered
notable numbers of perfect (microscopic) stainless steel microspheres lying
amongst the disorganized rubble of various battery materials
What most technical people following the NTSB’s investigation may not have fully
appreciated was that these beautiful little metallic microspheres are smoking gun
evidence for vaporization and condensation of stainless steel comprising the
battery cell casing in local hotspots created by high-current, low voltage electric
arcs, i.e., one or more internal shorts likely occurred inside GS Yuasa battery cell #5
This experimental data implies that the local temperature of the battery casing’s
Type 304 stainless steel hotspots directly exposed to the internal short’s arc plasma
didn’t just get to the melting point of such steel (~1,482 degrees C) --- instead these
local areas got all the way up to the boiling point of stainless (> 3,000 degrees
Centigrade), were turned into a gaseous vapor (expanding in volume by >50,000 x in
the process of vaporizing); solid steel then recondensed from hot metallic vapor in
the form of perfect nanoscale steel spheres as portions of the super-hot metallic Fe-
alloy vapor quench-cooled. We will now discuss the NTSB’s important factual data.
Summary
Creation of stainless steel microspheres implies local hotspots > 3,000o C
3. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 3
Dreamliner GS Yuasa battery: electrode construction
separator
separator
Al
Cu
Carbon-based material
Not to scale
Carbon-based material
Source: figure adapted from Slide #13 in NTSB PowerPoint slideshow
presented by Deborah Hersman at news conference on January 24, 2013
Copy of source document: http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/2013/boeing_787/JAL_B-787_1-24-13.pdfs
AnodeCathode
CuandAlcurrentcollectors
4. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 4
Dreamliner GS Yuasa battery: conceptual schematic
Separators: polyethylene (M.P. ~125o C) or polypropylene (M.P. ~155o C)
Separator: microporous insulating plastic film that allows Li+ ions to freely
migrate through it, but still prevents anode and cathode from coming into
direct physical contact with each other and shorting-out via hot electric
arcs; plastic separator films in batteries are only 20 - 30 μm thick
Anode
Cathode
Carbon Lithium cobalt dioxide
Lithiumtransportsalt
inelectrolyte=LiPF6
Electrolyte=diethyl
carbonateorperhaps
dimethoxyethane
Couldbepolyethylene
orpolypropyleneormix
SEIlayer
5. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 5
Internal physical organization of GS Yuasa battery cell
Source: NTSB report:
CT scan image
Source: GS Yuasa - prismatic cell a la 787 Dreamliner battery
Source: SONY “jelly roll” cell - commodity Lithium-ion battery
Source: USPTO – sample patent
drawing for prismatic battery cell
Source: NTSB #13-013 February 19, 2013
6. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 6
Hole punched through internal electrode by electric arc
Hole
Source: Slide #18 in NTSB PowerPoint
slideshow presented by Deborah Hersman
at news conference on January 24, 2013
Purple arrow
added by Lattice
7. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 7
Source: page #18 in NTSB – Materials laboratory factual report No. 13-013 dated February 19, 2013
Copy of source document: http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/2013/boeing_787/docket_documents/787_docket_doc2.pdf
Excerpt from NTSB report
8. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 8
Source: Slide #28 in NTSB PowerPoint slideshow presented by Deborah Hersman - January 24, 2013
Excerpt directly from NTSB presentation
CRES Elements
• Finding: electrical arc between battery cell and
inside of battery case
• Not believed to be initiating event
9. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 9
Electric arcs punched 4 holes thru battery cell #5 casing
Source: page # 78 in NTSB – Materials laboratory
factual report No. 13-013 dated February 19, 2013
Lattice comment: electric arcs
from battery case definitely
crossed 0.2” air gap and
discharged into (blue painted)
aluminum battery system
enclosure (which is highly
conductive compared to stainless
steel). If this were just air, would
require ~15 kilovolt potential for
arc to cross gap. Since it was hot
inside case during Logan fire,
intervening gas was very likely
more conductive with ionization
present. Nonetheless, arcs could
have been somewhere in kV range
Lattice note: battery casing material is stainless steel alloy
Purple arrows
added by Lattice
External battery enclosure made of Aluminum
10. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 10
SEM images: stainless steel microspheres - NTSB report
Purple arrows
added by Lattice
11. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 11
Low-voltage electric arcs reach enormous temperatures
Excerpted directly from Ghezzi’s thesis:
Source: PhD Thesis -“Modeling and Simulation of Low Voltage Arcs”
by Luca Ghezzi, Technical University of Delft - Netherlands (2010)
To obtain a copy:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=%E2%80%9Cmodeling%20and%20simulation%20of%20low%20voltage%20arcs%E2%80%9D%
20luca%20ghezzi%20pdf&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Frepository.tudelft.nl%2Fassets%2Fuuid%3
Addf219d8-5572-45c5-9249-
aacbb68683cd%2FModeling_and_Simulation_of_Low_Voltage_Arcs.pdf&ei=vQeAUe3XCovO9ATNjYCoCQ&usg=AFQjCNGnoKc_QU7EMx
au7xNIlz-tL8dceg&bvm=bv.45645796,d.eWU
12. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 12
Similar results can occur during laser ablation of surfaces
Spherically-shaped droplets can be created in such processes
Excerpted and quoted directly from:
“Multiplicity and contiguity of ablation mechanisms in laser-assisted analytical micro-sampling”
D. Bleiner and A. Bogaerts
Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy 61 pp. 421 - 432 (2006)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0584854706000437
Fig. 1. Phase stability diagram of a liquid metal near
the critical point. For fast heating, as obtained
during ns laser ablation, the melt can be
pushed close to critical conditions (superheating),
which favors the realization of explosive boiling
Fig. 2. Schematic visualization of the
hydrodynamic evolution of a fluid system under
and impulse stress (here milk). Note the non-
deterministic formation of jets at the sides and
their break-up into droplets. From Ref. [58].
13. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 13
Similar results can occur during laser ablation of surfaces
Spherically-shaped droplets can be created in such processes
Excerpted and quoted directly from:
“Thermal and fluid processes of a thin melt zone during femtosecond laser ablation of glass: the formation of rims by
single laser pulses”, A. Ben-Yakar et al., Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 40 pp. 1447 - 1459 (2007)
http://www.stanford.edu/~rlbyer/PDF_AllPubs/2007/423.pdf
14. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 14
Cathodic arc discharges and LENRs are very energetic
Amazingly, details of electric arcs are still imperfectly understood
Electrical breakdown and arc discharges (i.e., sparks, shorts):
Although they have been studied for 200 years, in many ways electric
discharges are still not all that well understood. Recent measurements
(2007) of spark discharge in low-pressure Xenon gas using rapidly pulsed
lasers has helped better understand the still enigmatic process:
“A spark flying between a metal doorknob and your hand is an intricate chain of electrical
events … researchers report the first direct measurements of the sharply changing electric
fields that pave the way for a visible flash in a precisely controlled laboratory arc. Their
results provided concrete detail in an area where theoretical modeling remains scanty, and
may offer a way to study electrical discharges in settings ranging from plasma televisions to
lightning strikes ... Whether it's a lightning bolt or the spark inside a bad switch, the process
is the same: The voltage across a region of air becomes large enough to drive an electric
current by creating a plasma. The process starts when a few stray electrons--accelerated by
the electric field--knock into atoms and liberate more electrons, which continue the process.
In carefully designed lab experiments the region between a pair of electrodes fills with
plasma smoothly, starting at the positive end, with a wave front that sweeps quickly across
to the negative end. At the leading edge of this so-called ionization front is a narrow band of
enhanced electric field, according to theory and indirect experiments, but theorists only
vaguely understand what determines the field's profile. Nor have experimenters been able to
map the field profile directly, because inserting metal probes distorts the discharge.
Researchers have tried to infer field strengths from the glow following the breakdown, but
that light is feeble and only appears once the ionization is well under way.
Source: D. Monroe, Physical Review Focus, “Xenon on the verge of an electric breakdown,”
Feb. 9, 2007 URL = http://focus.aps.org/story/v19/st4
High E-M field region
E. Wagenaars/Eindhoven Univ. of Tech
Reference: E. Wagenaars, M.
Bowden, and G. Kroesen,
“Measurements of electric field
strengths in ionization fronts during
breakdown,” Physical Review
Letters 98 pp. 075002 (2007)
15. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 15
Cathodic arc discharges and LENRs are very energetic
Field emission is precursor to surface breakdown and electric arcs
Field electron emission (associated with very high, often rapidly changing local E-M fields):
“Field emission (FE) (also known as electron field emission) is an emission of electrons induced by external electromagnetic fields.
Field emission can happen from solid and liquid surfaces, or individual atoms into vacuum or open air, or result in promotion of
electrons from the valence to conduction band of semiconductors. The terminology is historical because related phenomena of
surface photoeffect, thermionic emission or Richardson-Dushman effect and ‘cold electronic emission’, i.e. the emission of
electrons in strong static (or quasi-static) electric fields, were discovered and studied independently from 1880s to 1930s. When
field emission is used without qualifiers it typically means the ‘cold emission’.”
“Field emission in pure metals occurs in high electric fields: the gradients are typically higher than 1000 volts per micron and
strongly dependent upon the work function. Electron sources based on field emission have a number of applications, but it is most
commonly an undesirable primary source of vacuum breakdown and electrical discharge phenomena, which engineers work to
prevent.”
“Field emission was explained by quantum tunneling of electrons in the late 1920s. This was one of the triumphs of the nascent
quantum mechanics. The theory of field emission from bulk metals was proposed by Fowler and Nordheim. A family of
approximate equations, ‘Fowler- Nordheim equations’, is named after them.”
“In some respects, field electron emission is a paradigm example of what physicists mean by tunneling. Unfortunately, it is also a
paradigm example of the intense mathematical difficulties that can arise. Simple solvable models of the tunneling barrier lead to
equations (including the original 1928 Fowler-Nordheim-type equation) that get predictions of emission current density too low by a
factor of 100 or more. If one inserts a more realistic barrier model into the simplest form of the Schrödinger equation, then an
awkward mathematical problem arises over the resulting differential equation: it is known to be mathematically impossible in
principle to solve this equation exactly in terms of the usual functions of mathematical physics, or in any simple way. To get even
an approximate solution, it is necessary to use special approximate methods known in physics as "semi-classical" or "quasi-
classical" methods. Worse, a mathematical error was made in the original application of these methods to field emission, and even
the corrected theory that was put in place in the 1950s has been formally incomplete until very recently.”
Source: Wikipedia article titled “Field electron emission” as of July 10, 2010 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_electron_emission
16. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 16
Cathodic arc discharges and LENRs are very energetic
Seidman: “… highest power density commonly found in Nature”
D. Seidman’s candid comments on field emission and
breakdown in a grant proposal written back in 2005:
Dave Seidman is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science
and Engineering at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, and leads
the Seidman Research Group at NWU’s Center for Atom-Probe
Tomography (NUCAPT) - http://arc.nucapt.northwestern.edu/Seidman_Group
Prof. Seidman has a unique knowledge of high surface electric fields,
field emission, and arc discharges as a result of his many years of
work with atom-probe tomography (APT) which uses nanoscale local
electric fields of 1010 V/m and higher to image the structure and
analyze the chemical composition of surfaces on near atomic-scales
(see image to right courtesy of Imago, Inc., a manufacturer of APTs)
Quoting (ca. 2005), “NUCAPT is among the world leaders in the field of
three-dimensional atom-probe microscopy, particularly as result of the
recent installation of a LEAP microscope, manufactured by Imago
Scientific Instruments. Currently only three other LEAP microscopes,
with a comparable performance, exist throughout the world.”
Readers will find a boldness and blunt candor in Seidman’s insightful
remarks to follow that tend to be absent in published refereed papers
Seidman’s quoted remarks were made
in the context of a publicly posted
2005 grant proposal: Seidman, D., and
Norem, J., “Experimental study of high
field limits of RF cavities”
Please see source URL:
http://www.hep.uiuc.edu/LCRD/LCRD_
UCLC_proposal_FY05/2_49_Seidman_
Norem.pdf
Image: Larson & Kelly, Imago, Inc., local-
electrode atom probe image of ordered L12
Al3Sc precipitate in aluminum matrix (Al – blue,
Sc – red). The <200> planar spacing of the
crystalline Al lattice (spacing ~0.2nm) is evident
and contrasts with the <100> planar spacing
(~0.4 nm) of the Al3Sc precipitate. Alloy provided
by van Dalen, Dun, and Seidman
17. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 17
Cathodic arc discharges and LENRs are very energetic
Seidman: “… highest power density commonly found in Nature”
Seidman’s comments circa 2005:
“[Electric arc] breakdown at surfaces was discovered by Earhart and Michelson, at
[the University of] Chicago, in 1900 … While checking the new ‘electron’ theory of
gas breakdown at small distances, they discovered that there were two mechanisms
present, at large distances gas breakdown dominated, and at small distances [i.e.,
on small length-scales] breakdown of the surface was correctly identified as the
mechanism. The break point where the two mechanisms met, at atmospheric
pressure, occurs at about 300 V … This was confirmed 5 years later by Hobbs and
Millikan, and is consistent with modern data on vacuum breakdown.”
“Although high electric fields have been used in DC and RF applications for many
years, up to now there has been no fundamental agreement on the cause of
breakdown in these systems … Until our work, no theoretical understanding of this
process developed over the last 100 years, although many papers have been
written.”
“Another interesting feature of this [electrical breakdown] mechanism is that the
power densities involved are enormous. The numbers can be obtained from the
values we measured for field emitted currents, electric field, the emitter dimensions,
and volume for transferring electromagnetic field energy into electron kinetic
energy. Combining these gives, (10 GV/m)(10−7 m)(1 mA)/(10−7m)3 = 1021 W/m3, a
value that seems to be greater than all other natural effects, except perhaps Gamma
Ray Bursters (GRB’s). The power density is comparable to nuclear weapons.
Michelson and Millikan noticed the ‘hot sparks’ in 1905, bought a vacuum pump,
(which they didn’t have), and invented vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy. Both
moved on, and did not look in detail at the mechanisms involved.”
Seidman, D., and Norem, J., “Experimental
study of high field limits of RF cavities”
Again, please refer to source URL:
http://www.hep.uiuc.edu/LCRD/LCRD_UCL
C_proposal_FY05/2_49_Seidman_Norem.p
df
In the following Slide, we modify a chart
shown in Seidman & Norem’s above-noted
proposal to illustrate the very approximate
regions of physical parameter space in
which LENRs may occur if ALL the
necessary preconditions that we have
previously outlined are obtained. Please
note carefully that just the presence of
very high local E-M fields by itself does
not guarantee that LENRs will take place at
a given location in time and space
Also please note that once the nuclear
processes begin, power densities in
LENR-active patches can go even higher
for brief periods of time until nearby
nanostructures are destroyed by violent
flash heating and LENRs temporarily
cease in a given patch (all of this occurs
on the order of <1 to 400 nanoseconds)
18. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 18
Source: Fig. 2, pp. #3, Seidman & Norem 2005 proposal, "Experimental study of high field limits of RF cavities”
Lattice modification of original chart: yellow-shaded regions capped by red-colored bars
are approx. regions of parameter space where LENRs may occur in condensed matter
systems if all of the necessary conditions met (please refer back to earlier Slides)
Adapted by L. Larsen after Seidman & Norem (2005)
Astrophysical
gamma ray burst
Nuclear weapons
Electron field emitter
Supernovas
Cathodic arc discharges and LENRs are very energetic
Seidman: “… highest power density commonly found in Nature”
Local micron-scale power densities can be enormous during brief lifetime of an LENR-active patch
They can exceed huge power densities reached during electrical breakdown a la Seidman & Norem
19. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 19
Cathodic arc discharges and LENRs are very energetic
Seidman: “… highest power density commonly found in Nature”
D. Seidman’s comments circa 2005 (continued):
“We think we have developed a model of breakdown that explains the phenomenon in
almost all environments ….The model strongly argues that breakdown events are the
result of fragments or clusters breaking off of the surface and rapidly being ionized in
the electron beams from the field emitter. Within the active volume, the power
involved in these beams is comparable to nuclear weapons. This model is also
generally in agreement with the experience with APFIM samples at the high fields
used. Tiny APFIM samples operate at fields about 5 times higher than the local E field
limit we postulate, but they also frequently fail, however there has been no systematic
study of these failure modes.”
“Combining these two ideas, however, one can conclude that: 1) this mechanism
produces perhaps the highest power density commonly found in nature, and, 2) it is
accessible to anyone with a wall switch or an electric light, and is used many times a
day by everyone.”
“While there has been extensive study of the time development of breakdown events
from the first small local ionization to complete breakdown of a cavity, the trigger for
breakdown, and how it was related to the metallurgy of surfaces has received very
little attention until now. Our model predicts that the production of clusters and
fragments is an essential component of breakdown. This is consistent with
experience in Atom Probe Tomography, however there is almost no systematic data
on sample failures under the high field environment used in data taking. Our previous
work has been published in three refereed papers and many conference papers.”
Breakdown of
surface
Figure courtesy of
B. Jüttner, Berlin
Note creation of
~spherical droplets
20. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 20
Cathodic arc discharges and LENRs are very energetic
Anders has developed model for “arc spot ignition” runaways
In 2010, Dr. Andre Anders of Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory (LBNL) publicly posted a very
interesting 32-slide PowerPoint presentation
titled “Cathodic arcs and related phenomena”:
Among other things, he believes that “hot cathode
spots” are fractal, as shown in the Figure to the right,
and that the electron current is higher than the arc
current (see his Slide #6)
On his Slide #7: he makes an important distinction
between collective electron emissions that occur in arc
discharge regimes (namely, thermionic, field, thermo-
field, and explosive emissions) versus “individual”
electron emission mechanisms (such as secondary
electron emission by primary ion, electron, or excited
atom impact, and photo-emission) that tend to occur in
glow discharge regimes
On Slide #11: he describes an “arc spot ignition”
involving a “Local thermal run-away process [that]
leads to micro-explosion and formation of extremely
dense plasma”
Evidence that “cathode spots” are fractal:
Original source: A. Anders, “Cathodic Arcs,” Springer, NY (2008)
In 2010, this Figure appears in a workshop presentation:
A. Anders (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - LBNL),
“Cathodic Arcs, and related phenomena,” work supported by
the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC02-
05CH11231
URL =
https://twindico.hep.anl.gov/indico/getFile.py/access?sessionI
d=3&resId=0&materialId=1&confId=69
21. Lattice Energy LLC
Lattice Energy LLC, copyright 2013 All rights reserved , May 7, 2013 21
Cathodic arc discharges and LENRs are very energetic
Anders’ model for “arc spot ignition” runaways can lead to LENRs
Dr. Andre Anders - LBNL (continued):
On Slide #11, he then elaborates his model as follows:
High [local] electric field, enhanced by:
Protrusion (e.g. roughness, previous arcing) [e.g., dendrites]
Charged dielectrics (e.g. dust particles, flakes) [nanoparticles]
1. Higher field leads to locally greater e-emission
2. Joule heat enhances temperature of emission site
3. Higher temperature amplifies e-emission non-linearly
4. Runaway!
To which we would add, based on the Widom-Larsen theory:
5. LENRs --- if other necessary preconditions are also
fulfilled, as we have outlined elsewhere
Positive
feedback
loop
Anders then goes on to show an
array of fascinating SEM images of
surfaces on which explosive
cathode arcs have occurred that
bear a certain resemblance to post-
experiment SEM images of LENR
cathodes (with a difference in their
aspect-ratios that we will explain)
Crater in cathodic arc experiment:
A. Anders: “Cathodic Arcs, and related
phenomena,” Slide #12 of 32 (2010)
22. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs and LENRS both involve very high local E-M fields
E-fields can increase greatly between nanoparticles and at sharp tips
E-M field strength enhancement
as a function of interparticle spacing
Electric field enhancement
at nano-antenna tip:
R. Kappeler et al. (2007)
Sharp tips can exhibit the so-called “lightning
rod effect” in terms of local enhancement of
electric field strengths; dendrites are but one
type of such a structure – there are others
Above: classic
Mandelbrot fractal form
Certain juxtapositions of metallic
contaminant nanoparticles could also
potentially trigger formation of LENR-
active sites inside Lithium-based batteries
23. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs and LENRS both involve very high local E-M fields
E-fields can increase greatly between nanoparticles and at sharp tips
Many fractal or dendrite structures have sharp, tapered tips:
Fractals are intrinsically self-similar on all length-scales, from
meters down to nanometers. As illustrated in these Figures,
many types of natural fractal forms narrow-down to very sharp
tips on smaller length-scales. Structures with such geometries
can be prone to exhibit the lightning rod effect if they happen to
be comprised of materials such as metallic conductors
TEM image: nm-scale Tungsten dendrite
Credit: Furuya & Hasegawa, CNMT - Korea
Image: macroscopic cm length-scale Copper dendrite
growing in aqueous Copper Sulfate solution
Image: terrestrial lightning
very large length scale
Image: mm length-scale Lichtenberg Figures
from electrical discharge through plastic
24. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs and LENRS both involve very high local E-M fields
E-fields can increase greatly between nanoparticles and at dendrite tips
Examples of fractal dendritic structures that can grow inside Li-ion batteries over time and many
charge/discharge cycles:
Image: Lithium metal dendrites growing within solid polymer electrolyte - G. Stone
et al., Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, APS March 17, 2010
Abstract: Q16.00005 - “Retarding Dendrite Formation in Rechargeable Lithium
Metal Batteries with Block Copolymer Electrolytes”
Actual SEM image of “mossy” Li
dendrite inside a Li-ion battery
Source: Fig. 2 in J. Tarascon and M. Armand,
“Issues and challenges facing rechargeable lithium
batteries”
Nature 414, pp. 359 - 367 (2001)
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Morphological similarities between arc craters and LENRS
Key difference: LENR craters can have much higher aspect-ratios
Anders’ SEM photos vs. selected images of post-experiment surfaces in LENR experiments:
LENR Pd surface post-experiment: P. Boss et al.
Anders cathodic arc: post-experiment surface feature
Please note what appears to be a somewhat common
morphological difference between LENR craters and those
produced by prosaic cathodic arcs as discussed by
Anders. Many central craters in LENR SEM images often
appear to have more sharply defined, crisper interior walls
and greater depths (relative to the surface area) compared
to arc discharges without LENRs (i.e., a higher aspect-
ratio); this may be indicative of much more rapid, higher
levels of heating than those envisioned by Anders
LENRs - U.S. Navy SPAWARCathodic arcs - Anders
26. Lattice Energy LLC
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This example of laser ablation crater has high aspect-ratio
Craters at many LENR-active sites often have high aspect-ratios
Excerpted and quoted directly from:
“Ultrafast laser patterning of OLEDs on flexible substrate for solid-state lighting”
D. Karnakis, A. Kearsley, and M. Knowles
Journal of Laser Micro/Nanoengineering 4 pp. 218 - 223 (2009)
http://www.jlps.gr.jp/jlmn/upload/25e2c628adb23db70b26356271d20180.pdf
Fig. 6 from Karnakis et al. (2009)
LENR Pd surface post-experiment: P. Boss et al.
U.S. Navy - SPAWAR
Quoting from Karnakis et al.:
“Laser irradiation at
fluences between 137-360
mJ/cm2 removed the
cathode layer only, resulting
in a uniform flat floor and an
intact LEP surface, allowing
a relatively wide process
window for cathode
removal.
A typical example of such
laser patterned Ba/Al
cathode layer on the OLED
stack is shown in Figure 6.
The average fluence was 230
mJ/cm2 irradiated with an
estimated spot diameter at
1/e2 of 35 μm.
This resulted in a crater
diameter of 21.5 μm.”
27. Lattice Energy LLC
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Morphological similarities between arc craters and LENRS
Note quenched droplets frozen in mid-formation on crater rims
Anders’ SEM photos vs. selected images of post-experiment surfaces in LENR experiments:
A. Anders “Cathodic Arcs, and related phenomena” (2010)
Anders: Slide #27
A. Anders “Cathodic Arcs, and
related phenomena” (2010)
Cathodic Arcs LENRs
Pd surface post-experiment SEM
P. Boss et al. , U.S. Navy - SPAWAR
Cathodic Arcs
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Morphological similarities between arc craters and LENRS
Note much higher aspect-ratios of some LENR crater-like structures
Cathodic Arcs LENRs
A. Anders: “Cathodic Arcs, and related
phenomena,” Slide #12 of 32 (2010)
“Elemental analysis of palladium electrodes after Pd/Pd
light water critical electrolysis” Y. Toriabe et al., Fig. 9
Free copy of paper: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ToriyabeYelementala.pdf
Anders’ SEM photos vs. selected images of post-experiment surfaces in LENR experiments:
29. Lattice Energy LLC
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Morphological similarities between arc craters and LENRS
Anomalous non-contaminant elements seen near LENR-active sites
A. Anders: Spot Type 1 - “contaminated” surface
LENR surface shown to right, which started-out
smooth at the beginning of the experiment, appears
to be much rougher in texture than the cathodic arc
Zhang and Dash (2007) --- Fig. 10. SEM picture of region #2 in Fig.
4(b). SEM No.WS060424Pd-H-CC-i2-150X
A. Anders “Cathodic Arcs, and related phenomena” (2010)
Free copy of Zhang
and Dash paper at:
http://www.lenr-
canr.org/acrobat/Zha
ngWSexcessheat.pdf
Cathodic Arcs LENRs
Fig. 11. Characteristic X-ray spectrum of spot #1 in Fig. 10.
Quoting from discussion of
Fig. 10: “Ni was listed as “not
detected” in the chemical
analysis provided by the vendor
of the Pd foil. It is very unlikely
to have resulted from the cold
rolling process or from
electrodeposition because it is
highly localized near one corner
of the cathode. If it is the result
of either contamination from the
rolling mill or from electroplating
it should not be highly localized
on only one corner of the
cathode. It could not have
resulted from SEM systems
because the stainless steel
components of the SEM
chamber also contain Fe and Cr.
Fe and/or Cr are not present in
any of the spectra. The SEM
does not have components
made of pure Ni. Therefore, the
origin of the Ni is not known.”.
Nickel (Ni) anomalies
observed on surface
Anders’ SEM photos vs. selected images of post-experiment surfaces in LENR experiments:
30. Lattice Energy LLC
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LENR transmutation products can be found near craters
Number of other researchers have also observed this with SIMS
Selected images of post-experiment surfaces in LENR experiments by Zhang and Dash:
LENRs: Zhang and Dash (2007) - Fig. 9
Fig. 9. SEM picture of crater at another time. SEM
No.WS060607Pd-H-CC-i2-2kX
Zhang and Dash: Table IX. Relative atomic percent concentrations of silver (Ag) in area and spots shown in Fig. 9
Spot # wa* area** +1 +2 +3 +4 +5
Ag/(Pd+Ag) 1.2 +/- 0.5 5.6 +/- 0.4 6.8 +/- 0.4 5.6 +/- 0.3 6.3 +/- 0.4 3.6 +/- 0.6 1.2 +/- 0.5
*wa = whole entire area comprising image in Fig. 9
** area = delimited by the white square outlined in Fig. 9
Following likely took place in these experiments:
Pd + n unstable n-rich Pd isotope Ag isotopes→ →
neutron capture beta decay
Palladium Cathode
Note: Pd surface b.p. = 2,970o C
Palladium Cathode
LENRs: Zhang and Dash (2007) - Fig. 8
Free copy of
Zhang and Dash
paper at:
http://www.lenr-
canr.org/acrobat/
ZhangWSexcessh
eat.pdf
Quoting: “The most common finding
is that silver occurs in craters, such
as those shown in Fig. 8. These
craters with rims almost certainly
formed during electrolysis. Pt
deposition was concentrated on
these protruding rims.”
31. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs and LENRS are both extremely energetic processes
Uncontrolled heating can lead to thermal runaways of varying severity
Lithium metal classic dendrites growing in solid polymer electrolyte Mossy-type Lithium dendrite growing in solid polymer electrolyte
Zotye M300 EV taxi - Hangzhou, China (2011) Boeing 787 Dreamliner - Logan Airport, Boston (2013)Surface area vs. volume decreases with increased size
Smaller batteries
tend to cause
relatively small-
scale problems
For exothermic chemical reactions that
occur inside battery cells, total cell heat
production scales with the cube of the size
of the battery cell(V ∝ r³), but a cell’s heat
transfer capability scales with square of
the size (A ∝ r²), so that heat production-
to-area ratio scales with the size (V/A ∝ r)
Consequence of this immutable scaling
relationship between volumetric generation of
heat within a given mass of reactants in a cell
versus its area-related ability to dissipate
produced heat is that reaction networks that
operate very safely in small cells are potentially
dangerous, thermally unstable, in larger ones
Positive system-level
thermal feedback loops
leading to runaways become
‘easier’ in larger physical
sizes
20 μm
Scale-up of the internal energy densities, electrical capacity, and sheer physical size of battery systems can lead to much larger thermal runaway events
32. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs/LENRs can trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Their high temps can melt/decompose/vaporize/ignite anything in cell
Zotye M300 EV taxi - Hangzhou, China (2011) Renault F1 car: Li-ion battery in KERS system (2011)
Scale-up of the internal energy densities, electrical capacity, and sheer physical size of battery systems can lead to much larger thermal runaway events
Extremely high temperatures can drive very complex, rapidly evolving chemical reaction networks
Causative agent that can
trigger thermal runaways
Regime or
requirements
Physical dimensions Key
details
Temperature
range in o C
Comments
Electric discharges: that is,
arcs or sparks; alternative names
for internal electrical short circuits
that can occur inside battery cells
Outer edges of tubular
arc plasma sheath
Arc lengths can range in
length from 2 nm between
metallic nanoparticles all
the way up to as long as
several centimeters (cm)
between larger structures
Chemical
and nuclear
reactions
can occur
within; dep.
on current
~2,727 up to ~4,727
Heat radiation is mainly
created via Joule heating by
electrons and ions found in
arc discharge plasma; very
damaging to materials; can
even breach battery cell case
Innermost core of arc
plasma’s tubular
sheath-like structure
~9,726 up to ~19,726
LENR-active hotspots: can occur
on metallic surfaces or at oxide-
metal interfaces anywhere inside
battery where be: e-, p+ and metals
Require local presence
of hydrogen (protons),
metals, and surface
plasmon or π electrons
2 nanometers (nm) to as
large as ~100+ microns (μ)
in diameter; roughly
circular in shape
MeV-energy
nuclear
reactions
occur within
~3,700 up to ~5,700
Directly radiate infrared heat
photon energy; ionizes nearby
molecules, materials, destroys
μ-scale nanostructures
Thermal runaway
+ feedback loop
33. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Heating accelerates chemical reactions and drives complex networks
Within as little as milliseconds after the creation of an electric arc or LENR-active site, nm- to cm-scale local
regions of a battery cell at or near such locations can become a super-hot, fiendishly complicated chemical
“witches’ brew”1. consisting of many different types of old and newly created compounds, expected thermal
decomposition products, various ionized species, and many mutually competing chemical reaction pathways
Positive thermal (heat) feedback loop: the hotter a given region gets, the faster local chemical reactions
accelerate therein and the more widely the conflagration spreads into previously unaffected regions of a given
battery cell (this is causative root of “thermal runaway” effect and “thermal fratricide” between cells)
Evolution of such complex chemical systems is very rapid and incompletely understood - quite unpredictable
with respect to final results: outcomes can range from minor thermal damage to single cell; to combustion of
flammable electrolytes and charring of materials inside case and outside via venting; and at worst, to complete
combustion of all materials located inside of and including cell casings --- even all contents of surrounding
multi-cell enclosures; worst-case Armageddon scenarios involve thermite-like, violent pyrotechnic processes
Causative agent that can
trigger thermal runaways
Regime or
requirements
Physical dimensions Key
details
Temperature
range in o C
Comments
Electric discharges: that is,
arcs or sparks; alternative names
for internal electrical short circuits
that can occur inside battery cells
Outer edges of tubular
arc plasma sheath
Arc lengths can range in
length from 2 nm between
metallic nanoparticles all
the way up to as long as
several centimeters (cm)
between larger structures
Chemical
and nuclear
reactions
can occur
within; dep.
on current
~2,727 up to ~4,727
Heat radiation is mainly
created via Joule heating by
electrons and ions found in
arc discharge plasma; very
damaging to materials; can
even breach battery cell case
Innermost core of arc
plasma’s tubular
sheath-like structure
~9,726 up to ~19,726
LENR-active hotspots: can occur
on metallic surfaces or at oxide-
metal interfaces anywhere inside
battery where be: e-, p+ and metals
Require local presence
of hydrogen (protons),
metals, and surface
plasmon or π electrons
2 nanometers (nm) to as
large as ~100+ microns (μ)
in diameter; roughly
circular in shape
MeV-energy
nuclear
reactions
occur within
~3,700 up to ~5,700
Directly radiate infrared heat
photon energy; ionizes nearby
molecules, materials, destroys
μ-scale nanostructures
1.. As far as known, the term “witches’ brew” was first used in this context by Prof. Michel Armand (Univ. Picardie, Paris, France)
34. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Heating accelerates chemical reactions and drives complex networks
If electric arc plasmas and/or micron-scale LENR-active hotspots happen to occur on or near battery
materials or structures containing Oxygen, e.g., such as a battery cathode (LixCoO2); electrolytes such as
Diethyl carbonate (C5H10O3) or Dimethoxyethane (C4H10O2); or whatever may contain Oxygen, these
compounds can be thermally decomposed which can in turn rapidly release reactive gaseous Oxygen to
support combustion. If local heat-pulse from a given arc or LENR-hotspot is large relative to rate at which
thermal energy can be transported away from an affected area, can potentially create an aggressive self-
propagating flame-front that creates own Oxygen supply as it consumes materials (would burn in a vacuum)
Huge phase-change volume expansion of many metals when flash-vaporized: expansion factor for common
transition metals on order of >50,000x; though volumes involved may be tiny, can damage nearby materials
Dangerous nano-thermites (see Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano-thermite) can potentially form
in super-heated regions of failing battery, e.g., Aluminum-copper(II) oxide; Aluminum-iron(II,III) oxide, etc.
Causative agent that can
trigger thermal runaways
Regime or
requirements
Physical dimensions Key
details
Temperature
range in o C
Comments
Electric discharges: that is,
arcs or sparks; alternative names
for internal electrical short circuits
that can occur inside battery cells
Outer edges of tubular
arc plasma sheath
Arc lengths can range in
length from 2 nm between
metallic nanoparticles all
the way up to as long as
several centimeters (cm)
between larger structures
Chemical
and nuclear
reactions
can occur
within; dep.
on current
~2,727 up to ~4,727
Heat radiation is mainly
created via Joule heating by
electrons and ions found in
arc discharge plasma; very
damaging to materials; can
even breach battery cell case
Innermost core of arc
plasma’s tubular
sheath-like structure
~9,726 up to ~19,726
LENR-active hotspots: can occur
on metallic surfaces or at oxide-
metal interfaces anywhere inside
battery where be: e-, p+ and metals
Require local presence
of hydrogen (protons),
metals, and surface
plasmon or π electrons
2 nanometers (nm) to as
large as ~100+ microns (μ)
in diameter; roughly
circular in shape
MeV-energy
nuclear
reactions
occur within
~3,700 up to ~5,700
Directly radiate infrared heat
photon energy; ionizes nearby
molecules, materials, destroys
μ-scale nanostructures
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Electrolytes are readily ignited by these two types of energetic processes
Causative agent that can
trigger thermal runaways
Regime or
requirements
Physical dimensions Key
details
Temperature
range in o C
Comments
Electric discharges: that is,
arcs or sparks; alternative names
for internal electrical short circuits
that can occur inside battery cells
Outer edges of tubular
arc plasma sheath
Arc lengths can range in
length from 2 nm between
metallic nanoparticles all
the way up to as long as
several centimeters (cm)
between larger structures
Chemical
and nuclear
reactions
can occur
within; dep.
on current
~2,727 up to ~4,727
Heat radiation is mainly
created via Joule heating by
electrons and ions found in
arc discharge plasma; very
damaging to materials; can
even breach battery cell case
Innermost core of arc
plasma’s tubular
sheath-like structure
~9,726 up to ~19,726
LENR-active hotspots: can occur
on metallic surfaces or at oxide-
metal interfaces anywhere inside
battery where be: e-, p+ and metals
Require local presence
of hydrogen (protons),
metals, and surface
plasmon or π electrons
2 nanometers (nm) to as
large as ~100+ microns (μ)
in diameter; roughly
circular in shape
MeV-energy
nuclear
reactions
occur within
~3,700 up to ~5,700
Directly radiate infrared heat
photon energy; ionizes nearby
molecules, materials, destroys
μ-scale nanostructures
GS Yuasa 878 Dreamliner battery: it is unspecified by either Yuasa or the NTSB; could
possibly be either diethyl carbonate or perhaps dimethoxyethane
Diethyl carbonate C5H10O3
In either, LENR-active hotspots and/or electric discharge arcs can trigger at least local combustion of electrolyte
Melting point: - 43o C
Boiling point: 126 - 128o C
Flash point: 25 - 33o C
Auto-ignition: 458o C
Comment: readily forms explosive mixtures at >25o C when
exposed to air; combusted: forms carbon monoxide/dioxide
Melting point: - 58o C
Boiling point: 85o C
Flash point: - 2o C
Auto-ignition: 202o C
Comment: ignitable under most ambient temperature
conditions; can serve as alternative fuel for gas turbines
Dimethoxyethane C4H10O2
0
0 0
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Lithium salt in electrolyte readily undergoes thermal decomposition
Causative agent that can
trigger thermal runaways
Regime or
requirements
Physical dimensions Key
details
Temperature
range in o C
Comments
Electric discharges: that is,
arcs or sparks; alternative names
for internal electrical short circuits
that can occur inside battery cells
Outer edges of tubular
arc plasma sheath
Arc lengths can range in
length from 2 nm between
metallic nanoparticles all
the way up to as long as
several centimeters (cm)
between larger structures
Chemical
and nuclear
reactions
can occur
within; dep.
on current
~2,727 up to ~4,727
Heat radiation is mainly
created via Joule heating by
electrons and ions found in
arc discharge plasma; very
damaging to materials; can
even breach battery cell case
Innermost core of arc
plasma’s tubular
sheath-like structure
~9,726 up to ~19,726
LENR-active hotspots: can occur
on metallic surfaces or at oxide-
metal interfaces anywhere inside
battery where be: e-, p+ and metals
Require local presence
of hydrogen (protons),
metals, and surface
plasmon or π electrons
2 nanometers (nm) to as
large as ~100+ microns (μ)
in diameter; roughly
circular in shape
MeV-energy
nuclear
reactions
occur within
~3,700 up to ~5,700
Directly radiate infrared heat
photon energy; ionizes nearby
molecules, materials, destroys
μ-scale nanostructures
B787 GS Yuasa = LiPF6 Lithium hexafluorophosphate:
Identified in NTSB report as being detected during post-Logan
incident materials analysis; right: ionic molecular structure
Chosen for ferrying Li+ ions between anode and cathode
because highly soluble in non-aqueous, nonpolar electrolyte
solvents such as diethyl carbonate and dimethoxyethane
Melts at ~194o C; thermal decomposition begins 262- 284o C
then decomposes into LiF and PF5 - see comment to right
Formation of LiF releases one of the
highest known energy per mass of
reactants, only second to that of BeO
37. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Formation of LiF from thermal decomposition of LiPF6 battery salt
This process produces lots of heat and a strongly reactive Lewis acid, PF5
Source: “Chemical Principles” S. Zumdahl, pp. 608 in 6th edition, Houghton Mifflin (2009)
Figure 13.9 in Zumdahl
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
PF5 then attacks battery cell electrolytes, releasing copious CO2 gas
Voluminous production of Carbon dioxide can force venting of electrolytes
Source: “How electrolytes influence battery safety,” E. Roth and C. Orendorff, The Electrochemical Society Interface pp. 45 -
49 (2012) http://www.electrochem.org/dl/interface/sum/sum12/sum12_p045_049.pdf
“The main effect on safety is that the large and sudden generation of [CO2] gas causes the cell to vent and
release gas and flammable electrolyte solvent vapor, possibly generating an explosive fuel-air mixture [inside
the enclosure for the battery cells]. Ignition of these vapors can then result in damage and rupture of other
cells [depending on their proximity] as well as ignition of other materials in the battery. In the worst case
outcome, this can result in a cascading failure of cells leading to a much larger release of energy.”
“Gas generation will result whenever the cell reaches the solvent decomposition temperature, whether from
internal or external sources. Even the safest cathode chemistries will not prevent this release of flammable
vapors. The volume of gas released from a cell in full thermal runaway is more than can be contained by any
standard cell fixture, either pouch or laser-welded can. Many cell designs purposely allow gases to be
released through a designed vent. Measurements … have shown that volumes of gas released at the end of
the thermal runaway peak [they specifically state that it is, “…typically 350o C”] were all nearly equal
(normalizing for cell capacities) … volume of electrolyte used in cell construction is a main factor in
predicting gas generation volume and vent response.”
“The energy released by electrolyte combustion is several times larger than the electrical energy stored in a
battery. However, the amount of oxygen released by even some of the most reactive cathodes is not nearly
sufficient to cause complete combustion of the cell electrolyte … [they state it is only 5 - 15% in case of Li-Ni-
Mn-Co oxide] … largest source of oxidizable material is the vented solvents which, if burned in air, have an
energy release several times that of the self-contained reaction enthalpies of the electrode materials.”
39. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
If arcs/LENRs are trigger, can release much more Oxygen from materials
In local regions heated by arcs or LENRs, CO and even CO2 can decompose
Lattice comments re Roth & Orendorff:
Temperatures inside catastrophically failing Li-ion
batteries rapidly become very heterogeneous:
large regions may be at hundreds of oC while tiny
localized volumes can be at thousands of degrees
They seem to imply that ~450o C is maximum “full
thermal runaway” temperature peak; au contraire,
in much rarer cases where arcs or LENRs happen
to be causative triggers, worst-case Armageddon
peak temps in large regions of battery cells or
enclosures might reach thousands of degrees C
As shown herein, stainless steel microspheres
created during Logan runaway event prove that
temperatures in at least some small regions of
cell #5 reached values >3,000 degrees Centigrade
At ~1,626o C: large proportion of CO2 will
thermally decompose into CO and O2: Y.
Nigara and B. Cales, “Production of carbon
monoxide by direct thermal splitting of
carbon dioxide at high temperature,” Bull.
Chem. Soc. Jpn. 59 pp. 1997 - 2002 (1986)
At ~400 - 600o C: in the presence of
catalytic Iron oxide nanoparticles (likely
present near superheated Fe alloy battery
case) CO will thermally decompose into
pure Carbon (forms nanotubes under
certain conditions) and CO2: O. Prilutskiy
et al., “Synthesis of carbon nanomaterials
by a catalytic disproportionation of Carbon
monoxide,” Fullerenes, Nanotubes, and
Carbon Nanostructures 13 pp. 1 - 15 (2005)
Note: might be very interesting to see
whether carbon nanotubes of some sort
can be detected in post-failure analysis of
battery debris after thermal runaway
events, presuming that they’re not present
anywhere in Carbon anode to begin with
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Thermal decomposition and combustion of cathode material: LiCoO2
“You don’t believe, we’re on the eve of destruction”2.
Hot LENR-active patches situated in close proximity to both cathode material and plastic
separator can locally melt separator and thus trigger electrical short arc discharges at
such locations [polyethylene M.P. ~125o C; polypropylene ~155o C]
“Thermal decomposition of Li0.5CoO2 by accelerated rate calorimetry (ARC) and X-ray
diffraction (XRD) has been reported which states that the oxygen loss from the cathode
remains above 200° C. However, the reaction of Li0.5CoO2 with ethylene carbonate:
diethyl carbonate (EC: DEC) solvents starts at a temperature as low as 130° C which is
much lower than decomposition temperature of Li0.5CoO2.” [decomposes at ~170o C]
“From DSC measurements for reaction of Li0.49CoO2 with electrolyte the authors reported
two peaks, one at 190° C, due mainly to the decomposition of the solvent with the active
cathode surface and the other at 230° C caused by oxygen release from Li0.49CoO2.”
“In (Maleki et al., 1999), the thermal stability study of fully charged 550 mAh prismatic
lithium ion cell and the components inside the cell showed that the self-heating
exothermic reactions start at 123° C and thermal runaway at 167° C.”
Source of above quotes: Doh & Veluchamy (2010)
2. Lyric from popular Vietnam war protest song written by P. F. Sloan and recorded by Barry McGuire titled “Eve of Destruction”, Dunhill Records (1965)
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Thermal decomposition and combustion of cathode material: LiCoO2
“You don’t believe, we’re on the eve of destruction”
Source of above quotes: Doh & Veluchamy (2010)
“Reports state that an internal short is more dangerous than an external short, because
the former (soft-nail test) induces an enormous heat instantaneously and locally to
cause thermal runaway of the electrolyte and electrode materials.”
“Decomposition temperature decreases for LixCoO2 as the x value decreases. The
decline in the thermal stability of the cell on overcharge is also due to both
removal of lithium ions from the cathode and deposition over anode surface.”
Meltdown of the separator and combustion of the organic electrolyte with the released
oxygen would have been instantaneous to cause volume expansion and violent
explosion … maximum dc power … is ~39W … cell surface temperature reaches 300°C.”
“At the instant the experiment is started, the voltage falls to zero and the surface
temperature of the cell shoots up to 420°C which could only be attributed to a high surge
of discharge current resulting in a high joule heat followed by separator meltdown and
contact of the anode and cathode.”
GS Yuasa’s MSDS document dated 2009 simply states that M.P. of LiCoO2 > 1,000o C
42. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Thermal decomposition and combustion of anode material: Carbon
When heated-up hot enough with Oxygen present a battery anode can burn
Simple carbon arc lamp:
Photo credit: Conorod (UK - 2009) using a
FujiFilm FinePix S5700 S700 digital camera;
Exposure details: exposure time : 1/2 sec; F
number : f 3.5; ISO speed rating : 100
Pure Carbon vaporizes and burns
at a temperature of ~3,642o C
Persistent, compositionally complex solid-electrolyte-interphase (SEI) layer
forms on Carbon anode during 1st recharging cycle (unstable at >90o - 120o C)
Once formed, SEI layer (which does not conduct electrons) chemically
stabilizes and protects anode by shielding it from direct contact and further
reaction with electrolyte molecules; yet Lithium+ ions can readily shuttle
back-and-forth through it to intercalate with anode’s carbon (graphite)
“The battery becomes hazardous when there arises flow of surge current into
or out of the charged cell to cause SEI film break down resulting in direct
contact of the electrolyte with the electrode materials initiating exothermic
chemical reactions ultimately leading to failure, bursting or bulging of the
battery (Doh et al., 2008). The authors in (Richard & Dahn, 1999) point out that
at elevated temperatures, the SEI film is not stable which is why a
rechargeable lithium battery with a lithium metal anode is unsafe.” (source of
quote: Doh & Veluchamy, 2010)
Local thermal damage to SEI layer by hot arcs or LENRs can destabilize an
anode and potentially trigger a thermal runaway event within a battery cell
LENR patch or arc occurring on surface of Carbon anode in the presence of
adequate amounts of Oxygen can potentially trigger rapid, irreversible
combustion of the anode at very high temperatures, thus superheating cell
43. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Bottom line: almost nothing stable at temps created by arcs and LENRs
Rise of autocatalytic “witches’ brews” in locally superheated battery regions
“Burn ‘em all --- let God sort ‘em out.”3.
“You can run, but you can’t hide.”4.
3. Underlying motto unofficially adopted by various military groups; originally, was modernized from Latin, "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui
sunt eius" which literally translated means “Kill them all. God will recognize His own." Quote attributed to Arnaud, Abbot of Citeaux, in reply to
question asking how one might tell Cathar heretics from orthodox Catholics during siege of Beziers in Albigensian Crusade (July, 1209)
4. Threat made to Mad Max by a murderous character named “Wez” in Mel Gibson‘s cult-classic film, “The Road Warrior” (1981)
Adapted from U.S. military motto:
Popularized by U.S. special operations
forces during the 1960s Vietnam war
Batteries cannot withstand star-like local temperatures created by
electric arc discharges or LENRS and remain stable; LENR-based
power systems can be designed to handle this, e.g. dusty plasmas
Creation of nightmarish local “witches’ brew” cauldrons of inter-
reacting compounds and ions in some regions of failing batteries;
very fast, hyper-accelerated reaction rates in superheated zones
Witches’ cauldrons can generate their own supplies of Oxygen to
support combustion processes that propagate spatially within and
between battery cells via fast-moving, autocatalytic flame-fronts
coupled with intense emission of thermal infrared and UV radiation
Arc- and/or LENR-heated regions’ behavior is almost more akin to
chemistry of stellar atmospheres than everyday electrochemistry
44. Lattice Energy LLC
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Bottom line: worst-case Armageddon scenario very rare but happens
Speculation: extreme events involve thermite-like pyrotechnic metal reactions
Curse of the pyrotechnics and thermites
Note: many thanks to J. Bruce Popp of FedEx for sending Lattice down this fruitful line of inquiry
Note: Al, Fe, Cu, and O are all available
somewhere inside many types of batteries;
potential to form various energetic materials
in or near witches’ brew cauldron areas
Can potentially synthesize explosive nano
pyrotechnic mixtures in localized regions
Examples of two classic very exothermic thermite reactions:
Fe2O3 + 2 Al g 2 Fe + Al2O3
3 CuO + 2 Al g 3 Cu + Al2O3
Please recall that LiF can be formed in some battery cells; when it
is heated enough beyond its B.P. (1,681o C) in witches’ cauldrons it
can decompose to form HF, which can then enable the following:
2 Al(s) + 6 HF(g) 2 AlF3(s) + 3 H2(g)
Highest-temperature regions in and around localized witches’
cauldrons (almost star-like in many ways) can be hot enough to
liberate metal ions which can then react with Oxygen to effectively
create burning metals, which is often a high-temperature process:
Cobalt metal burns in air at ~2,760o C; Aluminum at ~3,827o C; Iron
at ~870o C; etc. --- bottom line: burning metals spells big trouble
400 - 600oC
AlF3 rf Ho (solid) = - 1510.4 kJ/mol.
Al2O3 rf Ho (solid) = - 780 kJ/mol.
Al + HF is
2x CuO + Al
and ~6x TNT
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Bottom line: worst-case Armageddon scenario very rare but happens
Speculation: extreme events involve thermite-like pyrotechnic metal reactions
Vivid examples of burning thermite reactions
Thermal runaway
+ feedback loop
Curse of the pyrotechnics and thermites
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Arcs or LENRs trigger very exothermic chemical reactions
Bottom line: Armageddon scenario did not occur in Logan runaway
Conclusion: not worst case event - more extreme things might have happened
“Don’t plan the future to win the last war”
Maginot Line (France pre-WWII):
Ineffectual defensive system of fixed
fortifications France constructed along
German and Italian borders based on
combat experience gained in World War I
Recent photo of Maginot Line GFM cloche
for a machine gun nest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line
Cloche is French term meaning bell due to
its shape: all GFM cloches constructed of
steel alloy and had non-retractable turrets;
there were 1,118 GFMs in Maginot Line --
most common type of defensive fortification
First-responder at Logan incident reported seeing 3” blue flames coming from
edges of two connectors at front of battery enclosure; according to Prof. Michel
Armand5., this data indicates temperatures at that particular location at that time
had to be > 800o C just inside blue box (but obviously below M.P. of Aluminum)
Above observation is consistent with data from first-responder’s thermal imaging
camera which revealed a hot, irregularly-shaped blob of material located inside at
front of enclosure; noted blob was unexpectedly not rectangular- shaped (likely
composed of combustible or combusting gases or plasmas of some sort)
Damage observed to materials located inside Logan battery enclosure were
consistent with main destructive processes being venting and partial combustion
of flammable electrolyte liquids; measured weight loss of ~6 lbs. vs. exemplar
battery is consistent with this hypothesis; no large-scale evidence for occurrence
of thermite-like pyrotechnic reactions; if so, would have had vastly worse damage
While causing thermal damage, cell #5’s short-circuit electric arc discharges may
have been a blessing in disguise: arcs transported electrical energy that would
have otherwise further heated-up battery materials, first to outer Al enclosure and
then out through mounting bolts to dissipate in aircraft structures; if there had
been no arcing, temperatures might have risen much higher during Logan event
Conclusion: Logan battery runaway was not a worst-case Armageddon scenario
5. Private communication (2013)
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Managing battery risks: very exothermic chemical reactions
WWII: Germany outflanked Maginot Line - attacked to weaker North
Maginot Line safety thinking = assume Logan runaway is true worst-case
Mitigating real Armageddon scenarios g different engineering strategies
Positions of key military units
May 16,1940
France assumed: that military
tactics were static and that
Maginot Line was effectively
impregnable in most heavily
fortified stretches; Ardennes
forest in southern Belgium
was thought impassable by
German mechanized armored
columns; thus invading
forces would be forced to
pass thru northern Belgium,
giving French army time to
re-deploy and counterstrike.
Key French assumptions
were wrong: Germany
invented new offensive
tactic called a Blitzkrieg
attack which combined fast-
moving tank units with infantry,
mobile artillery, and close air-
support; cleverly managed to
create rapid passage through Ardennes
forest for multiple armored divisions;
German forces successfully breached
nearly undefended, sparsely fortified
northern segments of Maginot Line on May
14-16, 1940, effectively outflanking it, thus
mitigating a French defensive strategy that
simply presumed a repeat of World War I.
French
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“Thermo-chemical process associated with lithium cobalt
oxide cathode in lithium ion batteries”
C. Doh and A. Veluchamy
Chapter 2 in book Lithium-ion Batteries, Chong Rae Park, ed.
ISBN 978-953-307-058-2 open access content
Published by InTech (Shanghai, China) under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license
DOI: 10.5772/9116 (2010)
http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/10407/InTech-
Thermo_chemical_process_associated_with_lithium_cobalt_oxide_cathode
_in_lithium_ion_batteries.pdf
Highly recommended reference paper:
Summary of two additional causative mechanisms for thermal runaways in batteries:
Causative agent that can
trigger thermal runaways
Regime or
requirements
Physical dimensions Key
details
Temperature
range in o C
Comments
Electric discharges: that is,
arcs or sparks; alternative names
for internal electrical short circuits
that can occur inside battery cells
Outer edges of tubular
arc plasma sheath
Arc lengths can range in
length from 2 nm between
metallic nanoparticles all
the way up to as long as
several centimeters (cm)
between larger structures
Chemical
and nuclear
reactions
can occur
within; dep.
on current
~2,727 up to ~4,727
Heat radiation is mainly
created via Joule heating by
electrons and ions found in
arc discharge plasma; very
damaging to materials; can
even breach battery cell case
Innermost core of arc
plasma’s tubular
sheath-like structure
~9,726 up to ~19,726
LENR-active hotspots: can occur
on metallic surfaces or at oxide-
metal interfaces anywhere inside
battery where be: e-, p+ and metals
Require local presence
of hydrogen (protons),
metals, and surface
plasmon or π electrons
2 nanometers (nm) to as
large as ~100+ microns (μ)
in diameter; roughly
circular in shape
MeV-energy
nuclear
reactions
occur within
~3,700 up to ~5,700
Directly radiate infrared heat
photon energy; ionizes nearby
molecules, materials, destroys
μ-scale nanostructures
Thermal runaway
+ feedback loop
Thermal runaway
+ feedback loop
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With or without LENRs, arcs can trigger thermal runaways
LENR-triggered runaways may be rarest but possibly deadliest type
LENRs
Summary - roles of LENRs and electric arcs in runaway batteries:
Although there are differences, there is a degree of morphological similarity in SEM
images of post-experiment cathodic arc surfaces (e.g., crater-like structures and
related droplets) compared to those observed after LENR-related experiments
To the extent that such morphologies are highly indicative of very rapid heating and
quenching in small areas of cathode surfaces, it implies that temperatures reached in
electric arc and LENR-active hot spots or patches are briefly high enough to melt
and even boil and vaporize substrate metals, e.g., Palladium (Pd) boiling point =
2,970o C or other transition metals, including refractory ones and even Tungsten
Widom-Larsen theory predicts that if necessary preconditions are met, LENRs can
be triggered in high-local-current arcs and high-EM-field electrical phenomena that
include field emission and breakdown on surfaces, nanoparticles, and dendrite tips
Variety of different nuclear transmutation products observed by a large number of
LENR researchers in and around surface structures such as craters suggests that
LENRs probably occurred at non-negligible rates in and around such active regions
Micron-scale LENR-active sites that happen to be located close to a plastic battery
separator (with or without a ceramic layer) will vaporize and flash-ionize a local
region of separator which can in turn trigger an internal electrical short right there;
similarly, an LENR patch occurring on surface of a Lithium cobalt oxide cathode or
carbon anode can potentially trigger the irreversible combustion of an electrode
With or without the help of LENRs, electric arcs (internal shorts) are capable of
triggering catastrophic thermal runaways in batteries of many varied chemistries
Y. Toriabe et al.
Y. Toriabe et al.
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Lattice Energy LLC
Please note that as little as a single blazing hot LENR-active site measuring only 30 microns in
diameter --- if it happens to occur in vulnerable physical location deep inside a battery cell and
adjacent to the surface of a plastic separator only 25 microns thick --- can effectively vaporize a
tiny local region of the separator, almost instantly turning it into a dense, micron-sized ball of
highly conductive plasma. This would in turn create an electrical short between anode and
cathode at that location, triggering a large inrush of electrical arc current through the breach in
the separator dam. Intense local Joule heating would ensue from the arc current, further enlarging
the breach and spatially expanding the superheated region inside a given battery cell. Depending
on many complex, event-specific details, such a conflagration may or may not grow to engulf an
entire cell; thus rare LENR events do not inevitably cause catastrophic heat runaways.
Under exactly the right conditions, just a single microscopic LENR site can trigger a chain of
energetic electrical (Joule heating) and chemical (exothermic reactions) processes that together
can create spatially autocatalytic, very macroscopic thermal runaway events that destroy battery
cells billions of times larger than volumes of LENR site(s). In course of such runaways, 99.9+% of
the total energy released is non-nuclear; LENRs are merely a very effective triggering mechanism.
Also note that any internal electrical shorts --- whatever their cause --- can also trigger runaways.
That being the case, using SIMS it may be difficult to locate and detect tiny amounts of telltale
anomalous elements and isotopic shifts arising from a single LENR trigger site amidst all the vast
mountains of debris found in a thermally ruined battery cell. However, difficult does not mean
impossible. A similar issue arose back in 1930 when Wolfgang Pauli predicted the existence of
what is now called the neutrino particle. Hypothesizing correctly that neutrinos would barely
interact with normal matter, Pauli lamented, “I have done a terrible thing – I have postulated a
particle that cannot be detected.” Fortunately, it was: in 1934 Pauli’s particle was incorporated in
Enrico Fermi’s theory of beta decay, and was finally detected experimentally by Reines & Cowan,
who reported confirmation in 1956. Today, neutrinos are essential particles in the Standard Model.
“Comparison of electron and muon neutrino events,” This event occurred at 1998-04-04 08:35:22; false-color image was reconstructed as a muon with momentum of 603 MeV http://www.ps.uci.edu/~tomba/sk/tscan/compare_mu_e/
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Model Dendrites
Lattice Energy LLC
“For the truth of the conclusions of physical science,
observation is the supreme Court of Appeal.”
Sir Arthur Eddington
“The Philosophy of Physical Science” pp. 9 (1939)
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