Thanks to David Nygren for posting here about the publication of a new patent application by Brillouin Energy. We’ve seen that Brillouin has been active of late talking to people about their technology, and this is another sign of activity.

The patent is titled “Control of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction Hydrides, and Autonomously Controlled Heat”, and here’s the abstract:

A treatment of a possibly powdered, sintered, or deposited lattice (e.g., nickel) for heat generating applications and a way to control low energy nuclear reactions (“LENR”) hosted in the lattice by controlling hydride formation. The method of control and treatment involves the use of the reaction lattice, enclosed by an inert cover gas such as argon that carries hydrogen as the reactive gas in a non-flammable mixture. Hydrogen ions in the lattice are transmuted to neutrons as discussed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0206715 (Godes_2007)). Hydrogen moving through the lattice interacts with the newly formed neutrons generating an exothermic reaction.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the application that caught my interest:

“Embodiments generate thermal energy by neutron generation, neutron capture, and subsequent transport of excess binding energy as useful heat for any application.”

“Transmutation of the lattice, which is undesirable as it degrades it over time, can be reduced and perhaps avoided if sufficiently high populations of dissolved hydrogen ions are constantly migrating in the lattice. These hydrogen ions interact in one of two ways: by electron capture or by neutron capture, with the newly formed neutrons forming deuterons, tritons, or H.sup.4. The neutrons are formed from protons that have captured electrons by absorption of sufficient energy for transmutation from separate proton and electron to neutron. When enough ions are present and in motion in the metal lattice, hydrogen ions will capture the newly formed neutrons with higher probability than will lattice nuclei or other elements present in the lattice. Embodiments of the present invention can thereby reduce and overcome capture by the metal lattice nuclei as well as avoid scenarios in which the reactions run away and melt down the reaction lattice or container holding the reactive material whether it is Ni or any other material that hosts the reaction discussed in Godes.sub.–2007, or Rossi.sub.–2011, or Piantelli.sub.–2011. ”

A text version of the patent is here.

It’s nice to see this from Brillouin, which shows that they remain active and serious. Mats Lewan has remarked that if history is anything to go by, when a new technological breakthrough is made there are usually manifestations of the same technology simultaneously from independent parties — and this looks to me like an example of that.