Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Lithium ion battery hidden in E-cat to fool everybody?

A simple analysis is attempted here:
First, let's take a look at the weight of the E-cat before and after the Oct 6th test- from the pdf titled Test of Energy Catalyzer - referenced here before
Weight of E-cat before test: 98 kg after test: 99 kg
If a battery is inside of the E-cat device, it must be able to fit in there and weigh no more than 98 kg.  Is that possible with a Lithium ion battery?

Let's look at a couple of things in order to answer that question
  1. Specific power for li-on batteries range from 100-250 W-h per kg.  
  2. Energy density is between 250-620 W-h per kg.
How much energy did the E-cat produce in self sustain mode?   I refer to the post I made recently and estimated an amount as follows--
These are the readings from the chart
1. 2.7
2. 6.7
3. 6.5
4. 5.3
5. 7.1
6. 8.5
7. 7.1
8. 5.3
9. 4.9
10. 5.7
11. 4.1
12. 3.9
13. 4.1
14. 6.7
total 78.6
avg reading 5.61 kw
3.5 hrs x 5.61 equals 19.635 kwh produced or 19,635 Watt hours.

This is not a scientific accounting, but it is the best that I am going to do with what I've got available.

Now, based upon the two numbers mentioned above, how much should the supposed lithium ion battery weigh and how big should it be?

Using the most favorable performance data for a li-on battery, it should weigh 19,635 Wh/ 250 Wh/kg which gives the weight of   78.54 kg.  That takes up most of the available weight of the E-cat.  If the performance number 100 Wh /kg is used, it exceeds the weight of the E-cat altogether.  It doesn't appear likely that the lithium ion will fit on the basis of weight.

What about the size?  Again, using the numbers above  19,635 Wh/ 620 W/liter, which gives 31.669 liters.  Again, that would take up most ( if not all) of the available space of the E-cat.  If the performance is less than that, it will be too big to fit inside the device.  It looks implausible to fit a battery like that inside the E-cat.

Another issue is thermal runaway.  Lithium ion batteries need to be cooled down.   If they get too hot, they can explode.  One problem with that is if you were to put it inside the E-cat with a lot of boiling water around it, how does it keep cool?

Another question: how does all that heat affect the performance of the battery?  If it falters just a little, it becomes absolutely impossible for it to fit inside the available space.

All of this supposes also that the battery would not be detected when the E-cat was opened.  Or, everybody who is there is deaf, dumb, blind, or a liar.

But, what about putting the battery elsewhere?  But how do you account for the steam coming out of the E-cat?  No. It is either in the E-cat or it isn't.  You can't pull off this trick any other way that I can see.

But the trick is implausible unless the error is really large.  That is the only plausible fault that exists, in my opinion.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

A litium ion battery would explode because the temperature in the E-Cat will transform the litium ion battery into a bomb.

Anonymous said...

GRAMMAR CORRECTION:

A litium ion battery would explode because the temperature in the E-Cat would transform the litium ion battery into a bomb.

Anonymous said...

If it is a fraud, I`d rather think it would be done via energy transfer from a hidden transmitter. It is possible to tap a small amount of electrical energy from radiowaves in the air. If I were to make a scam that looks like cold fusion, I`d consider placing a narrow-beam radiowave transmitter in the floor, and place a receiver directly above it masquerading as a "reactor". However I do not have enough technical knowledge to determine whether such a setup would work.

Greg said...

With respect to the transmitter- that is an interesting hypothesis. However, I am not well versed in that subject, so I won't comment.

There are a couple things that I'd mention: 1) motivation for fraud- where's the motivation? Financial gain? In that case, he'd have to have a sucker lined up so he could make one big score. It would have to be a private scam. Being public like this complicates the scam, in my opinion. To put it another way, if the motivation for not doing it is as great as the motivation for doing it- the result is inertia.
2) need to believe- people seem to have a great need to believe. There are those on both sides of the issue who seem to have strong feelings on the matter. This drives people to construct implausible scenarios which support their point of view. Thus, people will continue to believe that it is a fraud even after all reasonable investigation has determined it not to be. And vice versa. An example? Look how many people who refuse to believe that the Apollo landings on the moon were fake. People can convince themselves of anything based upon a need to believe.

Greg said...

Correction: the apollo landings were NOT fake. That was a typo.

Anonymous said...

As readers already have noticed.. making a 'fake' eCat is a engineering challenge and should be judged on its own merits.

I don't say it works (I'm one of those who test drive a new car from factory before i buy it).

But this is very interesting.