LENR, is it plausible? part II
http://greg-bno.blogspot.com/2011/09/lenr-is-it-plausible-part-ii.html
For our example,let us suppose that an initial concentration of lithium very near a suitable metallic hydride surface is employed to impose a substantial chemical potential difference across the hydride surface. In such a case, the existence of weak interaction produced surface neutrons allows for the following chain of reactions
63Li+n→73Li ,
73Li+n→83Li ,
83Li →84Be+ e−+¯νe ,
84Be →42He+42He . (30)
It appears that if the catalyst in Rossi's black box is lithium, then we may have a plausible scenario for energy production. This scenario ends up with the appearance of deuterium fusion, but is not. It provides a plausible scenario for the appearance of cold fusion, but would actually be LENR.
The amount of energy formed from this is not as large as lithium. Is there an advantage? I could look into that later. As for now, you can have more than one option for LENR. But I still don't think this explains Rossi's E-cat.
One possibility is that he does use vanadium, and that is his secret. Why? Could it explain other anomalies in the reporting of the E-cat? If helium is formed, the gas has to be vented. Perhaps Rossi doesn't want that to happen, as it may give up the game. If chromium is formed, it is a solid, and won't need to be vented. But it can be detected when examining the "ash". What if Rossi is hiding the real ash, and substituting fake ash so as to preserve his secret? If chromium is being produced by the E-cat, that could be a way to hide the secret.