1 Prototype generations
The program iterates through four prototype generations. Each generation exists to close named design decisions, and every month's work below is tied to one of them.
| Generation | What it is | Active months | Decisions it closes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gen 0 | Material-screening cell: Parr-class loading vessels for in-house deuteriding, quartz screening cells, ultrasonic bath and horn excitation, rheology and charge-proxy readout, no full calorimetry | M3 to M5 | Hydride batch quality (D/M ratios), piezoelectric composition, particle size window, carrier shortlist |
| Gen 1 | Calorimeter cell: the 2 L stainless suspension cell inside the Seebeck-envelope calorimeter with the flow calorimeter as second instrument, full diagnostics chain, interleaved controls | M5 to M8 | Carrier choice, loading ramp protocol, duty cycle, drive frequency, power ceiling below cavitation onset |
| Gen 2 | Piezo-hydride reactor: sealed dry-bed reactor with powder cartridge, clamp-mounted piezo stack, pulsed-discharge drive, headspace helium sampling port, zirconia-bead blank calorimetry | M8 to M11 | Powder-bed drive physics, activation cycling, D2 versus H2 isotope pairs, detector exposure plan, design margins |
| Gen 3 | Integrated device prototype: Gen 2 reactor plus drive electronics, calorimetry, control and data acquisition (DAQ) in one cabinet, wall-plug total calorimetry, 24x7 operation | M11 to M12 | Integrated operation, wall-plug heat balance, month-13 parameter set and scale-up direction |
2 Operating targets carried from the reported record
These are the parameter targets the months below work against, drawn from prior-art/03-excess-heat-programs.md, prior-art/04-heated-hydrides-gas-loading.md, and materials/SPECS.md.
| Parameter | Target we carry | Source lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Loading, palladium | D/Pd 0.70 plus or minus 0.05 from gas loading in-house; push mobility-matched cells toward the D/Pd above 0.9 band that the SRI record ties to excess-heat episodes; resistance-ratio style loading monitor live in every hydride stage | SRI flow-calorimetry line: loading is a first-class instrumented parameter |
| Loading, titanium and zirconium | D/Ti toward 1.9 at 300 to 500 C, D/Zr toward 2.0 at 400 to 600 C, 1 to 10 bar D2 (estimate); the cheap deuteron density path | SPECS.md section 1 |
| Loading, palladium vessels | 1 to 5 bar D2 at 80 to 150 C, gravimetric mass-uptake confirmation of every batch | SPECS.md PdDx recipe |
| Bed operating window | 150 to 350 C for 100 g-class powder beds with oil mass-flow calorimetry at 23 plus or minus 0.1 C ambient and zirconia-bead blanks fixing heat recovery | Tohoku and Kobe (Technova) method |
| Saturation-first protocol | Documented chemical absorption first stage; post-saturation windows only are analyzed for excess | Kobe 2016 record: heat appears after metal-hydride absorption saturates |
| Activation windows | Budget 8 to 23 day-class activation times and multi-week activation cycling into run plans | SRI appearance times; Mizuno glow-discharge activation |
| Surface refresh | Specify oxidation state per lot; periodic re-oxidation-hydriding cycles to restore absorption energetics | Osaka record: re-oxidation restored hydride-formation energies of 1.5 to 2.3 eV per D |
| Drive, mechanical | 20 kHz horn drive primary (Hielscher UP400St, 24 kHz), 40 kHz distributed wall-drive comparison; power ceiling below cavitation onset | SPECS.md section 5 design lesson |
| Drive, electrical | Pulsed-discharge bank (10 mF film capacitors, 1.5 kV, about 11 kJ) for the dry bed; programmable perturbation cycles, small negative-then-positive input steps at unchanged average power | Brillouin pulse-drive architecture; Tohoku 2024 perturbation result, about 38 kJ per shown cycle |
| Burst channels | High-bandwidth pressure plus multipoint temperature logging in every cell, not only slow calorimetry | Tohoku replicated coincident pressure-plus-temperature bursts |
| Temperature scope | 1,100 C-class incandescent reactors (Parkhomov line) stay out of scope for the villa program; our windows are 80 to 600 C loading and 150 to 350 C operation | Cluster 04 record |
3 Month-by-month plan
M1 November 2026. Procurement, queue commissioning, hiring. (Gen 0 preparation)
- Build or modify: sign the villa fit-out contractor (gas-room ventilation, dedicated circuits, gas piping, interlock wiring, flare line to roof); place all long-lead purchase orders on day one, per the LAB-BOM lead-time notes: CAEN DT5730S digitizer, Hiden HPR-20 QIC mass spectrometer, Pfeiffer PrismaPlus residual gas analyzer, MBraun LABstar glovebox, Parr Series 4520 reactor, Ludlum helium-3 neutron counter, Carbolite Gero split tube furnace; stand up the Marbell queue head server plus three workers; hire the first five staff.
- Run: Marbell Scale A campaign, month 1 of the queue document: queue commissioning, density functional theory (DFT) foundations for PdD0.7, TiD2, ZrD2 and NiHx, screening and tunneling kernels v1, first ultrasonic horn eigenfrequency model.
- Measure: DFT anchor set against literature (face-centered-cubic palladium lattice constant near 3.89 angstrom, beta-PdD expansion of 3 to 4 percent on full loading, fluorite TiH2 and ZrH2 stability, bulk moduli); horn first resonance prediction; first accepted-job rows in the results database with provenance hashes.
- Decision closed: hydride shortlist order for stage 1 (TiD2 and ZrD2 primary platforms, PdDx mobility reference) and the horn geometry baseline.
M2 December 2026. Medium-lead orders, strain and phonon campaigns. (Gen 0 preparation)
- Build or modify: place medium-lead orders (pumps, gauges, Swagelok VCR manifold kit, Alicat mass-flow controllers, Bronkhorst Coriolis meter, Julabo circulator, Draeger transmitters); Gas Room fit-out continues first in the commissioning order; freeze the Gen 0 screening-cell drawings and the Parr-vessel loading recipes; hire the calorimetry lead and the materials engineer.
- Run: Marbell Scale A, month 2 campaign: strain scans and phonons around the hydride transitions (200 K4, 400 K3, 60 K1, 8,000 K0 on the Scale B basis, reduced per the Scale A adjustments of the queue document), machine-learned interatomic potential (MLIP) benchmark phase, screening-kernel fitting v1.
- Measure: temperature window per hydride from the quasi-harmonic expansion; thermal-expansion mismatch strain between hydride grain, piezoelectric grain and carrier; kernel benchmark against the measured metallic screening potentials of a few hundred electronvolts (Czerski 2001, Raiola 2004).
- Decision closed: loading temperature windows (Pd 80 to 150 C, Ti 300 to 500 C, Zr 400 to 600 C) and particle-coating and cell-fit mismatch tolerances.
M3 January 2027. Gas Room live, first powder in. (Gen 0 begins)
- Build or modify: place short-lead orders with the fit-out contractor on site (Omega sensors and controllers, NI modules, bench instruments, personal protective equipment); commission the Gas Room: leak-back check against 1e-7 mbar x L/s class sensitivity, PrismaPlus purity runs, flare and interlock walk-through; install and passivate the glovebox and the split tube furnace in the Workshop; receive first powder deliveries (titanium sponge and mesh powders, zirconium powder, palladium powder, barium titanate, PZT discs for crushing, fumed silica, deuterated carriers, isotope packs); hire the electrochemist and the acoustics and radio-frequency (RF) engineer.
- Run: Marbell steps to Scale B: month 3 campaign, transient molecular dynamics (MD) ensembles (300 K1), reactive-field Ti-H and Zr-H cells (100 K2), discrete element method (DEM) force-chain packing v1 (150 K11), FEniCSx piezo-grain kernel v1 (800 K10). In the lab: first Parr-vessel deuteriding runs on titanium sponge chunks and -100 mesh powder, 1 to 10 bar D2, 300 to 500 C ramp-and-soak programs.
- Measure: gravimetric D/Ti uptake per batch (target toward 1.9); sieved particle size distributions; rheology of first fumed-silica-in-polypropylene-glycol and deuterated-carrier suspensions (viscosity rise versus shear rate).
- Decision closed: drive amplitude ceiling and the 1 to 10 micrometer particle size window for suspensions.
M4 February 2027. Detector baselines, four-composition screening matrix. (Gen 0)
- Build or modify: assemble the Seebeck-envelope calorimeter in the Cell Room (400-junction thermopile winding, isothermal enclosure, lagging); fix the detector mounts on the 1.0 m and 2.0 m floor rings; begin the two-week detector background campaign, full geometry, excitation off, exactly as the run-time geometry; pole and qualify the first piezoelectric powder lots (corona or contact poling at 3 to 5 kV/mm near 120 to 150 C, Berlincourt d33 recorded per lot).
- Run: Gen 0 screening matrix in the quartz cells: four piezoelectric compositions (lead zirconate titanate PZT-5H and barium titanate as the active arms; zinc oxide and lithium niobate as the low-field comparison compositions) crossed with TiD2 and ZrD2 powders in deuterated oil shear-thickening fluid (STF), driven by the ultrasonic bath and the horn. Marbell Scale B, month 4: concept matrix scan (20,000 K0, 400 K9, 200 K11, 300 K3) over 4 hydrides x 4 piezoelectrics x carrier shortlist.
- Measure: background count baselines per detector channel at fixed geometry; charge-signal response of sheared piezo-hydride suspensions against the electronic floor; per-lot d33 values.
- Decision closed: piezoelectric composition ranking for Gen 1 and the carrier shortlist (dry bed versus deuterated oil versus heavy-water electrolyte).
M5 March 2027. Commissioning complete, carrier choice. (Gen 0 to Gen 1)
- Build or modify: complete the 90-day commissioning order of LAB-BUILD section 9: Joule calibration of the Seebeck envelope at six setpoints from 0.1 to 20 W with the precision shunt kit; flow-calorimeter calibration (Coriolis meter plus matched Pt100 pairs); pickup census with all excitations firing into a dummy load while detectors count; mount the first stainless suspension cell into the envelope; hire the nuclear instrumentation lead (headcount reaches 10).
- Run: first hydrogen-analog suspension runs end-to-end through every channel (calorimeters, neutron pair, charged-particle window, mass spectrometry), interleaved control mode exactly as the run cards prescribe. Marbell Scale B, month 5: carrier decision support (1,500 K10, 300 K9, 10,000 K0): field-survival arithmetic, Debye screening lengths, loaded acoustic models.
- Measure: envelope conductance U and heat capacity from the Joule fits; noise floor after 1000 s averaging (design target at or below 50 mW); pickup counts against the twice-quiet-room-baseline limit; gap-field survival budget per carrier against the 1e8 to 1e9 V/m design target.
- Decision closed: carrier choice. Expected outcome per the SPECS design lesson: deuterated oil or glycerol shear-thickening suspension first, heavy-water electrolyte cell as stage two driven by ultrasound and discharge transients.
M6 April 2027. Gen 1 first light with deuterium.
- Build or modify: Gen 1 calorimeter cell declared operational: stainless suspension cell with sonotrode dip tube, sapphire viewports, headspace line to the Hiden mass spectrometer, getters on the recirculation loop; run-card automation live in the DAQ; draft the first provisional patent filing on the drive scheme.
- Run: first deuterated Gen 1 matrix entries: gas-loaded PdDx powder (D/Pd 0.70 plus or minus 0.05, gravimetrically confirmed) and TiD2 powder in the chosen carrier, driven at partial duty cycle, each run bracketed within 48 hours by randomized hydrogen-analog, no-piezo, no-hydride and excitation-off controls, with the five-sigma analysis threshold pre-registered in the run file. Per the LAB-BUILD commissioning order, the first deuterated dry-bed run enters the calendar only after a clean hydrogen-analog cycle. Marbell Scale B, month 6: MLIP dataset generation and first training (60 K6, 20 K12), 2D phase-field fronts (400 K7).
- Measure: continuous 1 Hz heat balance from both calorimeters with input power measured at the cell feedthrough; loading monitor trace across the run; headspace mass spectra.
- Decision closed: loading ramp protocol adopted, and the resistance-ratio style loading monitor made mandatory in every hydride stage.
M7 May 2027. Duty cycle and phase fronts. (Gen 1)
- Build or modify: add the programmable perturbation-cycle feature to the drive electronics (small negative-then-positive input step at unchanged average power, per the Tohoku 2024 lesson); implement the saturation-first protocol in the run cards: every run logs a documented chemical absorption first stage before any post-saturation window is analyzed.
- Run: Gen 1 matrix campaign on deuterated-glycerol and deuterated-alkane STF platforms with TiD2, ZrD2 and PdDx plus PZT-5H; drive-on versus drive-off interleave across the duty-cycle ladder. Marbell Scale B, month 7: 3D phase field under oscillatory strain (100 K8), full-cell coupled finite element method (FEM) models (200 K9, 200 K7).
- Measure: heat balance per duty-cycle step; resonance drift versus temperature and suspension state from the network-analyzer impedance sweeps; phase-front timescales against the drive period from the 3D phase-field outputs.
- Decision closed: duty cycle choice and the resonance-tracking control band versus temperature.
M8 June 2027. Drive frequency locked; Gen 2 build starts.
- Build or modify: build the 40 kHz comparison path (distributed wall transducers of the cleaning-transducer class bolted to a test vessel) alongside the 20 to 24 kHz horn; tune the L/C matching network to a voltage standing-wave ratio (VSWR) below 1.5 with the Bode 100; start the Gen 2 dry-bed reactor build: quick-open clamp cells with powder cartridge baskets, clamp-mounted piezo stack, pulsed-discharge bank interlocks per LAB-BUILD 6.2 (door-interlocked dump, armed stack light, fiber-optic trigger).
- Run: frequency decision experiments: 20 kHz class horn versus 40 kHz distributed drive at equal absorbed power, with the camera watching sonoluminescence onset so the power ceiling is set below cavitation. Marbell Scale B, month 8: drive frequency and duty-cycle sweeps (500 K9, 80 K8, 200 K1).
- Measure: absorbed acoustic power versus reflected power per frequency; cavitation onset amplitude per configuration; calorimeter-balanced drive-on and drive-off windows.
- Decision closed: final drive frequency (20 versus 40 kHz class) and the input power ceiling below cavitation onset.
M9 July 2027. Gen 2 bring-up; compute steps to Scale C.
- Build or modify: complete the first dry-bed reactor: powder cartridge loaded in the glovebox (50 volume percent deuteride at 1 to 10 micrometers, 10 volume percent poled piezo powder, balance deuterated carrier or dry argon headspace), sealed, leak-checked, mounted with headspace getter loop and helium sampling line; add high-bandwidth pressure sensing plus multipoint temperature logging for the burst channels.
- Run: Gen 2 first runs with hydrogen analogs and zirconia-bead blank beds, copying the Kobe and Tohoku oil mass-flow calorimetry method: chamber ambient at 23 plus or minus 0.1 C, blanks fixing the heat-recovery rate before any active bed runs. Marbell steps to Scale C, month 9: as-built cell models from measured geometry (600 K9, 2,000 K10, 5,000 K0 on the Scale B row, raised per the Scale C adjustments), nightly assimilation lane begins ingesting lab diagnostics.
- Measure: as-built resonance against the Elmer prediction band; expected contact charge per drive amplitude; thermal balance of the blank bed; a deliberate perturbation cycle captured on the burst channels to prove the chain.
- Decision closed: as-built resonance correction and the dry-bed drive power window.
M10 August 2027. Gen 2 isotope pairs and activation cycling.
- Build or modify: second and third dry-bed cartridges (composition variants from the M4 ranking); re-oxidation-hydriding refresh station for powder lots per the Osaka lesson.
- Run: matched D2 versus H2 pairs for at least two bed compositions, each with its documented saturation-first stage; activation cycling programs (load, bake, gas dose, repeat) scheduled with the 8 to 23 day-class activation windows of the SRI record; helium headspace protocol exercised end-to-end: getter strip of D2, mass-4 accumulation against the mass-20 internal reference, calibrated helium dose into an identical empty cell.
- Run (compute): Marbell Scale C, month 10: signal-class kernels over the surviving matrix (30,000 K0, 50 K2, 20 K6): predicted proton line versus continuum spectra and minimum detectable yield targets.
- Measure: per-pair heat balance over identical windows; CR-39 (polyallyl diglycol carbonate) track densities, open versus masked foils; neutron time-of-flight (ToF) coincidences on the 2.0 m baseline; helium accumulation rates.
- Decision closed: detector exposure plan and the go-forward bed composition for Gen 3.
M11 September 2027. Design lock.
- Build or modify: integrate Gen 2 into the Gen 3 cabinet: reactor, ultrasonic and discharge drive electronics, both calorimeters, interlock chain, DAQ and control workstation in one package; wire wall-plug total calorimetry so input and output integrate from power-on to cool-down (the Mizuno 2019 air-flow method adapted to our envelope plus flow pair); file the second patent filing on cell geometry and the drive program.
- Run: Marbell Scale C, month 11: design-lock sensitivity sweeps over the 12 design parameters (60 K8, 300 K9, 200 K3, 20,000 K0 on the Scale B row, raised per Scale C) with SALib Sobol analysis over the coupled model chain; final Gen 2 confirmation runs on the frozen bed composition.
- Measure: Sobol sensitivity ranking and margin list against the measured Gen 2 dataset; full-parameter re-run of the winning composition.
- Decision closed: Gen 3 frozen design and parameter brief v1.0 published from the results database.
M12 October 2027. Gen 3 integrated device prototype campaign.
- Build or modify: only corrective changes: the assimilation lane and the weekly re-planning cycle drive a short list of as-built corrections; nothing new is designed inside month 12.
- Run: the Gen 3 integrated device prototype runs a continuous campaign of at least 300 hours (target): matched active and control reactors in the same thermal enclosure, wall-plug integration, programmable perturbation cycles on a fixed schedule, the full detector panel live throughout (moderated helium-3 counter, EJ-309 pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) pair on the ToF baseline, NaI(Tl) gamma channel behind the shadow bar, in-cell CR-39 pairs, silicon surface-barrier detector on the proton window, headspace helium mass spectrometry). Marbell Scale C, month 12: assimilation lane corrects the contact-stress and field models (1,000 K10, 200 K9, 10,000 K0) and feeds the next build cycle.
- Measure: integrated input and output energy from wall plug to heat balance at 1 Hz; output-over-input ratio against the matched control; per-channel nuclear-product counts against the pre-registered five-sigma thresholds; helium accumulation against the calibrated blank.
- Decision closed: the month-13 parameter set, the scale-up direction, and the program report to stakeholders with every result, either way, published with its full uncertainty budget.
4 Compute scale schedule
The queue runs on Marbell bare metal at the fixed rate of CHF 1500 per server-month (queue-document rate, carried here as a planning figure), 16 agent-plus-simulation slots per server, CHF 93.75 per slot-month by arithmetic. The plan steps the fleet with the program's phase: foundations on 4 servers while the villa is fitted out, the standard plan on 8 servers through the screening and carrier months, and the full 16-server fleet with the nightly assimilation lane from Gen 2 bring-up onward.
| Months | Scale | Servers | Slots | CHF per month | Campaign (queue document rows) | What the campaign narrows |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M1 to M2 | A | 4 | 64 | CHF 6,000 (estimate) | Commissioning; DFT foundations; screening kernels v1; horn model; strain and phonon scans; kernel benchmark | Hydride shortlist; DFT anchor set; temperature window; expansion-mismatch tolerances; kernel benchmark |
| M3 to M8 | B | 8 | 128 | CHF 12,000 (estimate) | Transient MD and DEM; concept matrix scan; carrier decision support; MLIP training; 3D phase field; frequency and duty sweeps | Drive amplitude ceiling; particle size window; piezoelectric composition and volume fraction (about 10 percent baseline); carrier choice; loading ramp; duty cycle; drive frequency; power ceiling |
| M9 to M12 | C | 16 | 256 | CHF 24,000 (estimate) | As-built cell models; signal-class predictions; design-lock sensitivity sweeps; nightly assimilation of lab data with weekly re-planning | As-built resonance and contact charge; detector exposure plan and minimum detectable yields; parameter brief v1.0; live model corrections from device data |
Program compute totals: 1,920 slot-months purchased, CHF 180,000 (estimate) for the 12 months (2 months at Scale A, 6 at Scale B, 4 at Scale C). For reference, a full year at any single scale costs CHF 72,000 at 4 servers, CHF 144,000 at 8 servers, CHF 288,000 at 16 servers (queue-document table). Monthly server cost equals server count times the fixed CHF 1500 rate; job-count figures quoted in the month plans are the queue document's Scale B rows, applied per its Scale A and Scale C adjustment rules (estimates).
Large language model (LLM) token spend for the 24x7 agents sits outside the server rate by the queue document's own assumption and is budgeted here: CHF 200 per slot-month planning figure (estimate), band CHF 100 to 350 (estimate), applied to the 1,920 slot-months, so about CHF 384,000 (estimate) for the program.
5 Laboratory commissioning order and ramp
The villa laboratory comes up in the fixed order of LAB-BUILD section 9, driven by the LAB-BOM lead-time tiers.
| Phase | Months | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Orders | M1 to M3 | Long-lead items ordered M1 (digitizer, mass spectrometers, glovebox, Parr reactor, helium-3 counter, furnace); medium-lead items M2 (pumps, gauges, VCR kit, flow controllers, Coriolis meter, circulator, gas transmitters); short-lead items M3 with the contractor on site (sensors, NI modules, bench instruments, protective equipment) |
| Fit-out | M1 to M3 | Gas Room first (ventilation, flare line, interlocks), then electrical and Cell Room structures, then Workshop (furnace, glovebox) |
| Commissioning | M3 to M5 | The 90-day sequence: gas-room leak-back and purity; calorimeter Joule calibration and noise floor; two-week detector background campaigns at run geometry; pickup census; first hydrogen-analog suspension runs end-to-end |
| First deuterium | M6 | First deuterated dry-bed run enters the calendar only after a clean hydrogen-analog cycle, per the commissioning order |
| Steady state | M7 to M12 | Weekly Joule calibrations, quarterly badge exchanges, annual inspections; two calorimeters and the full detector panel live for every run |
6 Budget
Planning currency is the Swiss franc. United States dollar figures from the wave 1 documents convert at a planning rate of 1 CHF = 1.10 USD (estimate, October 2026). Every value in every table of this section is an (estimate); wave 1 source figures are reused as stated and tagged for planning prudence.
Cost lines and their sources:
- Laboratory capital: the LAB-BOM grand total, USD 601,527 (estimate): equipment USD 546,843 (estimate) plus the 10 percent equipment contingency of USD 54,684 (estimate), which is CHF 546,843 (estimate) at the planning rate. Phased across M1 to M6 following the BOM lead-time tiers: 25 percent in M1, 20 percent in M2, 20 percent in M3, 15 percent in M4, 10 percent in M5, 10 percent in M6 (estimate).
- Consumables: from the materials first-campaign view: powders and carriers about USD 6,000 to 10,000, gases and plumbing about USD 2,000 to 4,000 (estimate), plus recurring isotope packs, CR-39 foils, bubble-detector refills, etchants and replacement powders of about USD 2,000 per month in run months (estimate). The materials file's excitation-electronics band (USD 20,000 to 35,000) and thermal-and-vessels band (USD 8,000 to 15,000) overlap LAB-BOM sections E and A and are therefore not added twice.
- Compute: section 4 schedule, CHF 180,000 (estimate).
- LLM tokens: section 4 assumption, CHF 384,000 (estimate).
- Salaries: section 7 ramp at fully loaded Swiss planning costs, CHF 1,487,000 (estimate).
- Contingency: 10 percent accrual on the operating lines (consumables, compute, tokens, salaries), since the laboratory capital already carries its own 10 percent inside the BOM grand total; CHF 208,380 (estimate). Patent counsel for the two filings, about CHF 40,000 (estimate), is drawn against this line.
- Outside this plan: villa ownership costs (utilities, insurance, property tax), about CHF 2,000 to 3,000 per month (estimate), are carried by Vantasner AG facilities, not by the program budget.
| Month | Lab capital | Consumables | Compute | Tokens | Salaries | Contingency accrual | Month total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M1 | 136,700 | 6,500 | 6,000 | 12,800 | 67,000 | 9,230 | 238,230 |
| M2 | 109,400 | 6,500 | 6,000 | 12,800 | 94,000 | 11,930 | 240,630 |
| M3 | 109,400 | 3,600 | 12,000 | 25,600 | 120,000 | 16,120 | 286,720 |
| M4 | 82,000 | 1,800 | 12,000 | 25,600 | 134,000 | 17,340 | 272,740 |
| M5 | 54,700 | 1,800 | 12,000 | 25,600 | 134,000 | 17,340 | 245,440 |
| M6 | 54,643 | 1,800 | 12,000 | 25,600 | 134,000 | 17,340 | 245,383 |
| M7 | 0 | 1,800 | 12,000 | 25,600 | 134,000 | 17,340 | 190,740 |
| M8 | 0 | 1,800 | 12,000 | 25,600 | 134,000 | 17,340 | 190,740 |
| M9 | 0 | 1,800 | 24,000 | 51,200 | 134,000 | 21,100 | 232,100 |
| M10 | 0 | 1,800 | 24,000 | 51,200 | 134,000 | 21,100 | 232,100 |
| M11 | 0 | 1,800 | 24,000 | 51,200 | 134,000 | 21,100 | 232,100 |
| M12 | 0 | 1,800 | 24,000 | 51,200 | 134,000 | 21,100 | 232,100 |
| Total | 546,843 | 32,800 | 180,000 | 384,000 | 1,487,000 | 208,380 | 2,839,023 |
All rows CHF (estimate). Total program cost: CHF 2,839,023 (estimate), about USD 3.12 million (estimate) at the planning rate.
Consumables detail by source band (estimate): M1 and M2 carry the first-campaign powder, carrier and gas orders that sit in the USD 8,000 to 14,000 first-campaign band of the materials file; M3 to M12 carry the recurring about USD 2,000 per month run consumables. Annual consumables total about USD 36,000 (estimate), inside and consistent with the materials file's view once its reusable excitation and vessel hardware lines are matched to the LAB-BOM.
7 Team
Ten full-time roles ramp over four months. Costs are fully loaded Swiss planning values, base salary plus about 25 percent employer contributions, rounded (estimate).
| Role | Start | Loaded cost, CHF per month | Owns |
|---|---|---|---|
| Principal investigator | M1 | 18,000 (estimate) | Physics targets, publication and filing decisions, stakeholder report |
| Program manager | M1 | 13,000 (estimate) | Budget, procurement, contractor, schedule, run-card governance |
| Simulation lead | M1 | 15,000 (estimate) | Marbell queue, campaign planning, parameter briefs |
| Automation and software engineer | M1 | 13,000 (estimate) | DAQ, queue glue, run-card automation, dashboards |
| Laboratory technician | M1 | 8,000 (estimate) | Cell assembly, powder handling, etching, cylinder logistics |
| Calorimetry lead | M2 | 14,000 (estimate) | Seebeck envelope, flow calorimeter, Joule calibration, uncertainty budget |
| Materials engineer | M2 | 13,000 (estimate) | Powders, sieving, coatings, poling, STF formulation |
| Electrochemist | M3 | 13,000 (estimate) | Loading protocols, electrolyte stage-two cell, loading monitors |
| Acoustics and RF engineer | M3 | 13,000 (estimate) | Horn and stack drive, matching networks, pulsed-discharge bank, perturbation programs |
| Nuclear instrumentation lead | M4 | 14,000 (estimate) | Neutron and gamma spectroscopy, CR-39, silicon detector, helium mass spectrometry, background campaigns |
Headcount ramp: M1: 5; M2: 7; M3: 9; M4 to M12: 10 (estimate). Salaries total: M1 CHF 67,000; M2 CHF 94,000; M3 CHF 120,000; M4 to M12 CHF 134,000 per month; program total CHF 1,487,000 (estimate). Two-person rules apply from day one for cylinder changes, bank arming, hydrogen recovery and discharge runs; the technician and program manager cover the second-person role until the full team is aboard.
8 Milestones
Each milestone is a dated statement of what exists or what an instrument reads (target dates).
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2026-11-30 | Seven long-lead purchase orders signed; Marbell Scale A queue running; the results database holds accepted DFT rows with the palladium lattice constant within 1 percent of 3.89 angstrom and the beta-PdD expansion inside the 3 to 4 percent reported band |
| 2026-12-31 | Screening kernel v1 reproduces the consolidated metallic enhancement curves of Huke 2008 within a factor of 2 across the 0.1 to 10 keV grid (tolerance is a program target); loading temperature windows fixed for all three hydrides |
| 2027-01-31 | Gas Room passes leak-back at or below the 1e-7 mbar x L/s class; first in-house TiD2 batch measured at D/Ti of at least 1.7 by gravimetric mass uptake; particle size window fixed at 1 to 10 micrometers |
| 2027-02-28 | Two-week detector background campaign complete with per-channel baselines recorded at run geometry; all four piezoelectric lots poled with per-lot Berlincourt d33 on file; charge response of sheared piezo-hydride suspensions measured above the electronic floor |
| 2027-03-31 | Seebeck envelope Joule-calibrated at six setpoints from 0.1 to 20 W with heat recovery at or above 99 percent (program target) and noise floor at or below 50 mW after 1000 s; pickup census at or below twice the quiet-room baseline; hydrogen-analog suspension cycle runs end-to-end through every channel |
| 2027-04-30 | First deuterated Gen 1 run logged end-to-end with its randomized control bracket in the same run file; loading monitor reads D/Pd 0.70 plus or minus 0.05 on the reference powder; carrier decision documented with the gap-field budget per carrier |
| 2027-05-31 | Duty cycle chosen from calorimeter-balanced drive-on and drive-off data; resonance-tracking band versus temperature documented from impedance sweeps |
| 2027-06-30 | Drive frequency locked with the 20 versus 40 kHz comparison on file, VSWR below 1.5 on the working network, and the power ceiling set below the optically observed cavitation onset |
| 2027-07-31 | First Gen 2 dry-bed reactor logging heat balance with zirconia-bead blanks fixing the recovery rate at 23 plus or minus 0.1 C ambient; as-built resonance inside the Elmer prediction band; burst channels proven on a captured perturbation cycle |
| 2027-08-31 | Matched D2 and H2 pairs complete for at least two bed compositions with documented saturation-first stages; detector exposure plan with minimum detectable yield targets filed from the signal-class kernels |
| 2027-09-30 | Parameter brief v1.0 with the sensitivity-ranked margin list over the 12 design parameters published from the results database; Gen 3 design frozen; second patent filing lodged |
| 2027-10-31 | Gen 3 integrated device prototype completes a continuous campaign of at least 300 hours with wall-plug heat balance at 1 Hz and the full detector panel live against its matched control; program report issued with results, uncertainty budgets and the month-13 parameter set |
Schedule buffers: two float weeks are reserved inside M10 and M11 for activation-cycle overruns, because the record shows 8 to 23 day-class and multi-week activation times; the Marbell fleet can step up one scale on one month's notice because servers are billed monthly; every long-lead laboratory item is ordered in M1 with the BOM's lead-time tier as the tracking baseline.
9 Commercial path
9.1 Intellectual property
- Filing 1, M6 to M7: provisional patent application on the drive scheme: force-chain excitation of metal hydride suspensions by combined ultrasound and pulsed discharge, including the duty-cycle and resonance-tracking control loop and the programmable perturbation-cycle program. Cost about CHF 15,000 to 25,000 with counsel (estimate).
- Filing 2, M11: patent application on cell geometries: the dry-bed powder cartridge with clamp-mounted piezo stack and headspace sampling, and the suspension cell with sonotrode dip tube integrated into the calorimeter envelope; Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) route within 12 months of the provisional. Cost about CHF 15,000 to 25,000 (estimate).
- Trade secrets: the suspension formulations stay internal and unpublished: shear-thickening base recipes, hydride and piezoelectric volume fractions, particle size ratios, surface coatings, poling programs and the re-oxidation refresh recipes. Lab-notebook discipline, need-to-know access and lot records make the secrets defensible; employees assign inventions to Vantasner AG.
- Freedom to operate: the program monitors third-party filings in ultrasonic processing and hydride storage; the research phase infringes nothing by relying on standard commercial instruments and open-source simulation codes.
9.2 Partners
- Isotope and gas suppliers: Cambridge Isotope Laboratories (deuterium packs, deuterated carriers), Linde (HiQ deuterium cylinders), Sigma-Aldrich (lecture bottles, heavy water). Confirmed in the materials supplier log of 2026-10-21.
- Ultrasonic and drive OEMs: Hielscher Ultrasonics, Sonics and Materials, Branson (Emerson) for processors; Electronics and Innovation for amplifiers; Advanced Energy (Trek) for piezo drivers; Behlke for fast high-voltage switching. Co-development targets for industrial-scale horns and drive modules.
- Materials vendors: American Elements, Thermo Scientific Chemicals (Alfa Aesar), Goodfellow, Strem Chemicals, Novamet, Blank Slate Innovation (reactive metal deuterides), APC International, Evonik (AEROSIL).
- National laboratories and universities: Paul Scherrer Institut (Switzerland) for neutron reference fields and detector calibration; the Tohoku University Clean Planet division and the Kobe University Technova line as the closest open experimental partners for sample exchange and method comparison; SRI International as an independent calorimetric test house with a track record of independent reactor testing; the academic groups behind the 2025 Nature and 2026 Nature Communications sub-keV screening papers as natural collaboration partners for cross-checking our nuclear-products channels.
- Authorities: the local radiation protection authority (area registration from day one, per LAB-BUILD 8.3) and the licensed waste-disposal contractor for etch solutions and powder residues.
9.3 Product forms
- Research calorimeter module: the Gen 1-class package (Seebeck envelope, flow calorimeter, Joule calibration kit, DAQ, run-card software) sold to laboratories that need trustworthy small-sample heat balance. Price band about CHF 60,000 to 120,000 per unit (estimate); natural first customers are the universities and national labs in section 9.2.
- Drive module: the perturbation-capable ultrasonic plus pulsed-discharge driver with logged run cards, sold or licensed to ultrasonic-processing and materials customers. Price band about CHF 20,000 to 50,000 per unit (estimate).
- Licensing: the drive-scheme and cell-geometry filings licensed to energy and industrial-ultrasonics companies once the Gen 3 campaign delivers its measured dataset.
- Co-development: formulation and scale-up partnerships with the ultrasonic OEMs and materials vendors, trading our suspension recipes and lot discipline against their manufacturing capacity.
- Measurement services: fee-for-service heat-balance and nuclear-products screening for third-party materials on the villa rig, starting after M6 once commissioning targets are met.
10 What the 12 months buy
At M12 the program owns: a commissioned laboratory with two calibrated calorimeters and an artifact-resistant five-channel diagnostics panel; a 24x7 agent-run simulation fleet with a results database that carries provenance for every parameter that reached the bench; four prototype generations with the design decisions of each written down and measured; two patent filings and a guarded formulation estate; and a measured dataset from the integrated device prototype campaign, published with its uncertainty budget either way, that sets the month-13 parameter set and the scale-up direction.