Herb Gills, a frequent poster to Andrea Rossi’s blog Journal of Nuclear Physics, recently asked Rossi about the amount of fuel used up by the reactions of the E-Cats when they have been running for quite some time. Gills stated:
“If the reaction is nuclear then a small amount of the fuel mass is converted into the excess energy. If a reactor were run for a long enough period of time, it should be possible to measure the mass loss by direct weighing (of a closed system).”
Rossi’s response was that there are many factors at work in trying to determine how much fuel has been expended. Keep in mind that the nickel/hydrogen mix creates copper, which is more light-weight than nickel, forming the basis of the release of energy for which the E-Cat is known. However, the E-Cat is so economical in its functioning, that very little of the nickel is actually consumed. Rossi said:
“1 g of mass is equivalent to 23 000 MWh. In 6 months we got about 18 MWh, which, in terms of mass, are equivalent to 0.00078 g.”
He also said that there are many factors that can affect the mass difference or weight, making it impossible to measure.
Mark Moeller
October 30, 2012
OK, but you don’t have to directly weigh it directly before and after. You digest a sample of the starting material and a sample of the end product and analyze them by ICP/MS. Simple to do. You could lean how much Nickel is used and how much copper is produced and what atomic weight the copper that is produced is.