Anomalous excess heat generated by the interaction between nano-structured Pd/Ni surface and D₂ gas

A new experimental setup based on Mizuno's work was introduced in our lab in order to investigate the anomalous heat generation phenomena. Following Mizuno's procedures, we fabricated nano-structured material composed of Pd and Ni by glow discharge on a heater located in the center of a vacuum chamber. The nano-structured Pd/Ni was prepared with D² before use. Then, we applied electrical power to the heater that was covered with the nano-structured Pd/Ni while evacuating the chamber, and we observed the heater temperature behavior. Next, we introduced D² gas at about 250 Pa to the chamber while maintaining the heater input. As a result, in three experiments, we observed that heater temperature increases compared to the reference experiment (with no nano-structured Pd/Ni). In particular, in experiments with 7 W input, we observed a123°C heater temperature increase compared to the reference experiment. It can be said that we replicated Mizuno's experiment successfully. Since the heater was covered with nano-structured material, there was a concern that a change in emissivity affected the heater temperature measurement. Numerical calculation was conducted to evaluate the effect of the change of the surface emissivity. It was concluded that even if the emissivity drop dramatically from 0.7 to 0.3 due to the coating of the nano-structured Pd/Ni, the temperature rise would be only 70°C at the most. The postulated emissivity change cannot explain the observed temperature increase of 123°C. These experimental and numerical results suggest that anomalous excess heat was generated by the interaction between nano-structured Pd/Ni surface and D² gas.