Excess heat during diffusion of deuterium through palladium”, ICCF13 proceedings

We have developed a mass flow calorimeter enabling us to measure accurately excess heat production during deuterium diffusion through the walls of palladium tubes. The experiment consists usually of a palladium tube 10 cm long, 2mm outer diameter with 200 µm thick walls, and closed at one end. Deuterium gas is introduced in the tube at various pressures, and temperatures and diffuses out through the walls of the tube. The tube, heated by a resistor, is positioned inside a reactor cell which is a small vacuum chamber. The reactor cell is positioned inside a second vacuum chamber. The outer walls of the vacuum chamber are water cooled. Thermal energy is determined by measuring inlet and outlet temperatures and water mass flow. The energy yield of this calorimeter is 95-98 % depending on input power. We study the influence of deuterium pressure, tube temperature, various metal powders placed inside the tube, and metal deposited on the external surface of the tube. Our best result so far is an excess heat of 3 Watts with an input power of 47 Watts using an oxidized palladium tube filled with palladium powder. We propose a model involving reactions between D+ and D to explain our experimental results. 1