UPDATED: Tomorrow on Wednesday the Greek company Defkalion will present products similar to Andrea Rossi’s 'E-cat', claiming that the technology is developed in-house. But Defkalion earlier told Ny Teknik that it has 'the formula of Rossi'.

(Swedish version here)

“Let’s say I have the formula of Rossi, but I’m not saying it officially. My scientists found a way to make it. They need three months.”

That is what Alexandros Xanthoulis, representative of Defkalion Green Technology’s owners, told Ny Teknik in a telephone conversation on August 5, 2011.

“I know what he’s got in the reactor, I know everything. It was a spectroscopy made by the University of Siena Padua. (...) They tried his reactor without him understanding what they did,” he continued.

UPDATED (Dec 1): Defkalion has clarified that it was the University of Padua, where an anaylis of used Nickel powder actually was performed, commissioned by Rossi./End update

Xanthoulis contacted Ny Teknik the day after Rossi unilaterally terminated his agreement with Defkalion. Among other things, the agreement gave Defkalion exclusive rights in Greece and the Balkans for production and distribution of the “E-cat” – Rossi’s invention that might produce heat through a hitherto unknown form of nuclear reaction.

At a press conference in June 2011 Defkalion presented sketches on a range of products – “Hyperion” – built around Rossi’s technology, with control and regulation systems, remote monitoring, heat exchangers and other peripherals developed by Defkalion.

When Rossi terminated the agreement in August, he stressed that no knowledge of the core technology had been transferred to Defkalion. The Hyperion products thus seemed to have no future.

During the telephone conversation with Ny Teknik, Xanthoulis expressed considerable uncertainty about Rossi’s intentions. However, he made clear that he was not going to use the knowledge of Rossi’s reactor and that he wanted "fair play".

He also explained that his researchers had found ways to improve the technology. According to Xanthoulis, Rossi could not run the reaction more than 24 hours, and when Defkalion required a 48 hour test it supposedly led to a conflict with Rossi.

“It’s very simple but they didn’t think about it. (...) We solved the problem. Because the problem is that he cannot spread the reaction all over the pipe, and all the heating is concentrated in the middle”, Xanthoulis told Ny Teknik.

A few days after the phone conversation, Defkalion announced that it continued the project, despite the breach of contract. Defkalion has also continued to offer licenses for the production of Hyperion products to EUR 40.5 million per factory.

Tomorrow on Wednesday November 30th, Defkalion has planned a presentation of its products, and has announced that the the technology will be certified and tested by an independent party.

In contrast to Xanthoulis’ information about Defkalion’s possessing ' the formula of Rossi', the company now states that its technology is developed in-house and that it is not based on Rossi’s technology.

Among other things, Defkalion posted in a forum on its website: “E-cats (or energy catalyzers) are E-cats and Hyperions are Hyperions. We can assure you that they are not the same ‘thing’ with just different names.”

On Ny Teknik's request we received the following comment to the conversation in August:

"So much has changed since August, many minor events and issues have taken place making it hard to tie the story together with a few words of Alex back then. Defkalion is working on exothermic reactions between Nickel and Hydrogen. Our products have completely different technologies (encompassing electronics, engineering, materials) than from Rossi, even [if] we have understood where Rossi has made his mistakes."

Ny Teknik also asked for a comment from Rossi who declined, stating that he would never have anything to do with Defkalion again, and that what the company said or did could only be a matter for his lawyers, in the case that would be necessary.

Since the breach of contract in August, Rossi has continued to work on his technology and has made a number of semi-public demonstrations to some criticism of Defkalion which stated that Rossi used some technology developed by the Greek company.

On October 28 a test of a heating plant with a nominal thermal power of one megawatt, consisting of about one hundred E-cat modules, was performed. The test was made by an anonymous customer, according to Rossi a military organization, which officially approved the plant and then bought it.

Thereafter, the same customer has, still according to Rossi, placed an order for a further twelve similar plants which now supposedly are under construction. And yesterday Rossi announced that a heat plant had been sold to a customer who will let "a qualified public" visit it.

Rossi has said he is now taking pre-orders for a consumer version of the E-cat at 10 kilowatts of thermal power, stating that when he reaches 10,000 pre-orders, the interested parties will be offered to accept or decline to purchase the product for 400 Euros per kilowatt nominal thermal output, which would set the prize for a model of 10 kilowatts to 4,000 Euros.

Many have called for an independent test of the E-cat, but Rossi has rejected this and said that he now only has time for customers. According to Rossi, another reason is avoiding that further details of the invention reach his competitors, as it is not yet patented.

In addition to Defkalion, at least a dozen researchers worldwide are actively working with phenomena related to the concept of cold fusion or Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, LENR. However, no one has so far come close to the output power levels Rossi seems to have reached.

Most notable is perhaps Rossi’s compatriot Prof. Francesco Piantelli who previously conducted research with Rossi’s scientific adviser Prof. Sergio Focardi. Among other researchers often mentioned are Americans Michael McKubre, George Miley, Peter Hagelstein, Brian Ahern and Italian Francesco Celani who attended Rossi’s first public trial in January 2011.

According to reliable sources to Ny Teknik, there are stakeholders who have tried to make commercial agreements with Rossi, and who are now actively seeking opportunities to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in this area.

The concept of cold fusion has generally been regarded as impossibility by the scientific community since the debate following a press conference on 23 March 1989 when researchers Fleischmann and Pons presented their results.

Despite this the phenomenon has since then been confirmed in hundreds of published scientific papers.

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UPDATED: Defkalion published a press release on Wednesday (30 November), plus technical specifications for the product Hyperion which is supposed hit the market in 2012. No finished product was shown and no verified tests were presented. According Defkalion several institutions have shown interest in doing independent tests of the technology. Read more here.

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READ MORE: Our complete coverage on Rossi's E-cat can be found here.