

July 13, 2016 – By Steven B. Krivit –

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries continues to make progress in its efforts to commercialize low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research, according to a December 2015 company technical review. The company is developing a LENR-based nuclear transmutation method that uses nanostructured multi-layer thin films.

Although Mitsubishi researchers have published their LENR research for two decades, this appears to be the first time in a decade that the company has issued a corporate document discussing the research. Furthermore, the Mitsubishi review reports that its researchers obtained significantly larger results between 2010 and 2012.

“So far,” the review says, “transmutation from cesium (Cs) to praseodymium (Pr), from barium (Ba) to samarium (Sm), from strontium (Sr) to molybdenum (Mo), etc., has been observed. If this technology is established, it is expected to contribute to society in the field of detoxification treatment of radioactive waste, including the transmutation of radioactive cesium into a harmless nonradioactive element in the future.”

Mitsubishi’s LENR method was developed by Yasuhiro Iwamura, who now leads a LENR research group at Tohoku University, in Sendai, Japan. In the early 1990s, Iwamura developed this multilayer thin-film methods using electrolysis. In 2000, Iwamura switched to the gas-permeation method with thin films in order to reduce questions of potential contamination from electrolysis.

Although the gas-permeation method succeeded in convincing many more scientists about the credibility of the results, the gas method had a downside: It did not allow researchers to pump as much deuterium through the samples, which resulted in lower transmutation yields.

In October 2010, the Mitsubishi researchers switched back to the electrolytic method and increased the magnitude of their transmutation yields, on average, by a factor of 100.

The Mitsubishi review identifies the staff members who are continuing research. They are the following: Shigenori Tsuruga and Kenji Muta, chief staff managers in the Electricity and Applied Physics Research Department of the Research and Innovation Center at the Technology and Innovation Headquarters; Yutaka Tanaka, chief staff manager at the Research and Innovation Center; Tadashi Shimazu, manager in the Advanced Nuclear Plant Designing and Fuel Cycle Engineering Department in the Nuclear Energy Systems Division, Energy and Environment; Koji Fujimori, manager in the Nuclear Project Department in the Nuclear Energy Systems Division, Energy & Environment; and Takehiko Nishida, director in the Electricity and Applied Physics Research Department of the Research and Innovation Center.

News of the Mitsubishi technical review was first published on Slideshare by LENR theorist Lewis Larsen.

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