A group of Italian and Swedish scientists from Bologna and Uppsala have just published their report on two tests lasting 96 and 116 hours, confirming an anomalous heat production in the energy device known as the E-Cat, developed by the Italian inventor Andrea Rossi.

The report is available for download here and on Arxiv.org.

I have earlier reported extensively on the E-Cat in the Swedish technology magazine Ny Teknik, but since more than a year very little new verified information have been available. This looks different.

The conclusion of the report is that the heat production is orders of magnitude beyond any conventional chemical energy source, beaten only by nuclear based power sources. Yet the scientists have systematically made conservative assumptions in order to base the result on a worst case scenario.

“Even by the most conservative assumptions as to errors in the measurements, the result is still one order of magnitude greater than conventional energy sources.”

In the tests, about 5.6 and 2.6 times the input energy was produced respectively (COP). An hypothesis for the lower value in the second test is that it might be explained by a lower working temperature , on average 302 °C against 438 °C in the first run.

In the second test an identical dummy reactor without fuel charge was run with the same experimental set-up and found to produce no excess heat.

In their report the scientists also describes a third test when the reaction went out of control and destroyed the reactor. Through the reactor tube made of ceramics and steel they could observe two red heat sources where the fuel charges supposedly were located (see picture above). The heat was so intense that the coils of a number of electric resistances that were being used to start the reaction could be seen as shadows against the glowing red light.

Another observation regards the shape of the rising and falling temperature curve, clearly indicating an active heat source which doesn’t behave as an electric heat source, but instead as an accelerating reaction.

Throughout the tests no significant radiation above ambient background could be detected.

The reactor used in the test was called the E-Cat HT, where HT stands for High Temperature. It’s also known as the Hot Cat and is a development of an earlier model that reached about a 100 degrees Celsius. In both models the fuel charge consists of a small amount of hydrogen loaded nickel powder plus some unknown additives.

The tests were performed in Andrea Rossi’s premises in Ferrara, Italy, in December 2012 and March 2013.

The authors of the report are Giuseppe Levi, physicist, Bologna University, Evelyn Foschi, Bologna, Torbjörn Hartman, Radiation protection responsible at the Svedberg Laboratory, Bo Höistad, professor of nuclear physics, Roland Pettersson, Lecturer in Physical and Analytical Chemistry and Lars Tegnér, physical chemist and former development director at the Swedish Energy Agency, all representing Uppsala University, and Hanno Essén, assistant professor and theoretical physicist at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

A longer test of the same device lasting for about six months is planned to be made later this year.

We plan to publish a follow-up report with comments in Ny Teknik soon.

Update: Here’s our report in Ny Teknik with comments from Professor Bo Höistad (in Swedish only).