Fusion Programme - ENEA - Fusione

14. Miscellaneous2007 Progress Reportproduction in one experiment.This objective was achievedduring the first working year[14.10]. In one experiment anextraordinary power gain closeto 7000% was achieved, even ifit lasted just for a few minutes.Six hours and twenty minutesfrom the beginning ofelectrolysis, with a deuteriumconcentration around 0.9 inatomic fraction, a sharpincrease in the electrolytetemperature was observed inthe experiment L–30. Theincrease was 7°C, despitecooling of the flow calorimeter,and the effect survived for 600 s(fig. 14.4). The input power was120 mW at a dc current of 40mA. A power output of 800 mWduring the 600–s transient wasmeasured. Both the increase intemperature of the electrolyteand the transient response ofthe calorimeter were consistentwith an excess powerproduction of 7000 mW. Adetailed calculation performedwith transient finite elementmodelling confirmed theestimated excess of powercalculated with the timeconstant of the instrument.Figure 14.5 shows the evolutionof the excess power.T-cell (°C)Pin & pout (mW)323028260800600400200P in10000 20000 30000 40000 50000Time (s)Fig. 14.4 - Electrolyte temperature evolution010000 20000 30000Time (s)40000 50000The excess short life is ascribedto the strong temperatureFig. 14.5 - Evolution of the input and output powerincrease, which produced deloadingof the deuterium fromthe palladium cathode. The observed deuterium concentration decrease was from 0.9 to below 0.7(atomic fraction). The power density achieved was not less than 500 W/cc. A signal having a similaramplitude was observed by Energetics Technology with a cathode prepared in Frascati. The Energeticsexperiment gave an energy gain of the order of 6 MJ (the cathode was 0.36 gr Pd).P out[14.9] A. Frattollillo et al., The compact, four barrel highspeed pellet injector for the Ignitor experiment,Presented at the 22 nd Symposium on FusionEnigineering, (Albuquerque 2007)[14.10] 2006 Progress Report, ENEA - Nuclear Fusion andFission, and Related Technologies Department(2006)This type of result indicates that, although a signalwith such an amplitude is unusual, it should be clearthat this phenomenon may give a signal with largepower gains.187