The exploration of Metal Hydrogen Energy took a leap forward with the announcement of Drs. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons in 1989 when they found anomalous excess heat energy generated from the hydrogen isotope deuterium during electrolysis with palladium.
Courtesy University of Utah Archives.
In the cold fusion reaction, two deuterium atoms were resulting in a helium atom, while providing 24MeV of energy in the form of heat, and not the expected deadly gamma photon, much to the confusion of physicists. (An eV stands for electron-Volt, the amount of work it takes to move an electron through a potential difference of one volt. The electronVolt is how atomic energies are often stated for single reactions.)
Compare the 24 million electron-Volts of heat energy generated with each helium atom in the cold fusion reaction to the chemical combustion of carbon in coal, for instance, which takes a carbon atom and an oxygen atom to make a carbon dioxide CO2 molecule and a meager 4 eV of energy.
SOLID STATE FUSION SPECTRUM
But this was only the first unusual reaction to be discovered in the solid state. When hydrogen is infused into the nano-spaces of different metals, it turns out that multiple reactions occur to make photons, particles, and heat. In fact, all the reactions of hot fusion, the kind of high-energy fusion found in high-temperature plasma like the Sun, can occur in solid state materials as a host. Solid state reactions involving deuterium are listed below, but reactions with light-hydrogen are occurring as well.
The idea of low energy nuclear reaction LENR channels began with Drs. Pamela Mosier-Boss and Lawrence Forsley, and was based on the codeposition work pioneered by Stanislaw Szpak and Pam Boss at the US Navy’s SPAWAR lab.
They found various treatments could initiate different outcomes during the codeposition process. Using an electric or magnetic field can initiate mostly particle generation, or more photon generation. Other configurations can generate more heat.
A report published by APL Energy titled Li–Pd–Rh-D2O electrochemistry experiments at elevated voltage [.pdf] was authored by a group of largely USNavy researchers, including Carl Gotzmer and Louis F DeChiaro and details some of the work currently attempting to determine the “trigger” for different channels. From the abstract:
“The experiments described here produced dense collections of tracks in solid-state nuclear track detectors, radio frequency (RF) emissions, and anomalous heat flux, which are indicative of potential nuclear, or unusual chemical, reactions…..Similar nuclear particle, thermal, and RF results have separately appeared in prior reports, but in this work, all three categories of anomalous behavior are reported.”
Taking a wider view at the decades of condensed matter nuclear research CMNS, the name for the field solid state fusion was born in, shows that some configurations of apparatus tune into some channels better than others. The deciding factors may still be unknown, however trial-and-error have determined that it depends on the metal host, on the hydrogen isotope used, on how the hydrogen is loaded into the metal, if energy is added to the system; all these elements will determine the channel accessed and the resulting observable product.
Solid state fusion is not like the high-temperature plasma fusion of the Sun. The cold fusion reaction is one of the channels of the solid state fusion spectrum, and a wholly new discovery, for this reaction hardly ever happens in a plasma like the Sun. The heat channel happens only in tiny nano-spaces, where quantum effects rule, and it’s this heat channel of the solid state fusion spectrum that is the hope of our future for a new energy technology.
QUANTUM HYDROGEN ENERGY
It’s taken decades, but researchers who’ve worked to vindicate the reality of experimental observations over the fog of theory have succeeded. Around the globe, commercial ventures are underway based on Metal Hydrogen Energy, even as the science is still being understood. Clean Planet, Inc, in collaboration with Tohoku University, is leading the way with the Ikaros QHe, a 2 kilowatt heat generator planned for mass production by 2030. At its core are nickel-copper thin-films infused with hydrogen.
Jirohta Kasagi et al. of the Research Center for Electron Photon Science at Tohoku University, in collaboration with Clean Planet, posted a paper [visit] and gave a talk [watch on Youtube] on “Photon radiation calorimetry for anomalous heat generation in NiCu multilayer thin film during hydrogen gas desorption” where he described the foil used for experiments: 6 nanometers of nickel, alternating with a 17.8 nanometers of copper, sputtered three times to make 6 layers on a nickel substrate 0.25cm x 0.25cm in area and 0.1 millimeter thick. The total package wafer is about 0.1 grams, and two of the foils are used in the reactor.
Two of these layered wafers are put parallel in a vacuum chamber with a thin wire ceramic heater between them, and left to absorb hydrogen gas overnight. In the morning, the heater is turned on, and the hydrogen is allowed to de-sorb and evacuate the chamber. This initiates a thermal generating reaction, with excess heat measured beyond chemical energies.
Kasagi reports the results from the team at Tohoku’s measurements of radiant thermal energy generated from the thin-films. Cameras are synced to pick up the photon emission mostly invisible to our eyes, but we can feel on our skin as heat. They detect light over a wide range of wavelengths, from 0.3 nanometers to 5.5 micrometers, corresponding to photon energies from 0.2 eV to 1.8 eV.
From the paper’s Abstract:
“Direct comparisons of photon radiation spectra with and without H2 easily showed sample-specific differences in excess heat power. The samples of the NiCu composite layer produced larger excess heat. By incorporating the measured radiant power into a heat flow model, the excess heat was deduced to be 4-6 W. The energy generated in 80 hours reached 520 +/-120 kJ: the generated energy per hydrogen was at least 460 +/- 108 keV/H atom. This is definitely not a chemical reaction, but produces energy at the level of nuclear reactions.”
The group is calling the energy generated Quantum Hydrogen Energy QHe, because it is not exactly chemical energy, and it’s not quite all the way nuclear-sized, though it is approaching. While chemical energy is on the order of eV per each reaction, and fusion energy is on the order of MeV for each reaction, Tohoku and Clean Planet are getting energy on the order of keV, or kilo-electronVolt, for each reaction.
Yasuhiro Iwamura, one of the Lead Scientists at Tohoku also gave a talk describing his team’s experimental results and reported similiar power outputs on the order of 10keV – 100keV per hydrogen reaction. His presentation at the recent ICCF25 [watch on Youtube] provides a full background on the new technology coming out of Japan based on metals and hydrogen.
The names may change, but the goal is the same; clean energy for our planet and all the species that live here. As the new nano-space quantum energy frontier is explored, Quantum Hydrogen Energy is just the first step to move us out of the chemical burning to a zero-carbon life-style, where the hydrogen in water is the fuel.
