Prior Art: Electrochemical Excess-Heat Programs

Cluster 03 of the Vantasner AG prior-art review: the electrochemical excess-heat programs, from the 1989 Fleischmann-Pons announcement through the SRI International loading studies, the Hokkaido plasma-electrolysis line, the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Tohoku University permeation transmutation programs, the Brillouin Energy pulse-drive line, and the 2019 Google-funded re-examination. Every record below is stated neutrally: who ran it, when, where it was published, what was built, what was measured, and the design lesson we carry into the Vantasner device program. Search dates for this file: 2026-10-21.

Record table

Who	When	Venue / DOI	Setup	Materials	Loading	Excitation	Conditions	Reported outputs
M. Fleischmann, S. Pons, M. Hawkins (University of Southampton, University of Utah)	1989	J. Electroanal. Chem. 261, 301-308; DOI 10.1016/0022-0728(89)80006-3; correction note in 263, 187-188; DOI 10.1016/0022-0728(89)80141-x	Open Dewar (isoperibolic) calorimetry inside a 300 K water bath, Newton-law cooling calibration by heater curves and hot D2O addition; gamma and neutron monitoring outside the bath; liquid scintillation tritium assay	Pd rod, sheet and cube cathodes (1 to 4 mm diameter rods x 10 cm; 2 x 8 x 8 cm sheet; 1 cm cube) against Pt anodes; 0.1 M LiOD in 99.5 percent D2O	Not measured in the paper; the authors state the electrochemical cell compresses deuterium into the Pd lattice to chemical potentials up to about 0.8 eV	Direct-current electrolysis, 1.6 to 512 mA/cm2, run times above 120 h	Ambient pressure, 300 K bath, single cells without light-water controls in this paper	Excess specific heating up to 21.4 W/cm3 of electrode volume (rescaled values); above 10 W/cm3 held over 120 h; total excess enthalpy above 4 MJ/cm3 of electrode reported; neutron flux of order 4e4/s reported for one rod, tritium accumulation 1e4 to 2e4 atoms/s; one cube-electrode run destroyed the cell and part of the fume hood
M.C.H. McKubre, S. Crouch-Baker, R. Rocha-Filho, S. Smedley, F.L. Tanzella, T. Passell, J. Santucci (SRI International, formerly Stanford Research Institute; with EPRI)	1994	J. Electroanal. Chem. 368, 55-66; DOI 10.1016/0022-0728(93)03070-6	Isothermal flow calorimetry calibrated from first principles (> 98 percent heat recovery, absolute accuracy below 0.4 percent), paired D and H cells run in electrical series, on-line in-situ loading monitor via cathode resistance ratio R/R0	Engelhard, Johnson Matthey and IMRA Pd rods (about 3 cm length x 3 mm diameter in the characterized set) and large-area Pd foil; 1 M LiOD or LiOH, with Al, Si or B additives	D/Pd tracked continuously by R/R0; the SRI summary of the program states excess-heat episodes appear only above D/Pd about 0.9, with appearance times of 8 to 23 days; their 2003 review of 51 reported experiments shows excess power in 17 percent of runs below D/Pd 0.90 and in all runs above 1.00	Direct-current ramps from 33 mA/cm2 upward, held for weeks to years	30 C electrolyte, ambient pressure, long-duration operation	Repeated excess-power episodes across the program (the 1995 SRI overview counts more than 40 episodes); magnitude correlated with loading, current density and time; program total above 100 experiments in four to five calorimetric modes per the SRI summary
T. Mizuno, T. Ohmori, T. Akimoto, A. Takahashi (Hokkaido University, Osaka University)	2000	Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 39, 6055-6061; DOI 10.1143/JJAP.39.6055	Glow-discharge (plasma) electrolysis in liquid with a purpose-built real-time heat calibration system combining flow and isoperibolic calorimetry plus captured-gas accounting	Metal cathodes in aqueous electrolyte with Pt anode; quartz gas collector over the cathode	Solution-phase system; no lattice loading ratio stated	High-voltage direct-current electrolysis; plasma forms at about 120 to 140 V across the cell	Atmospheric pressure cell, runs of hours; heat measured from plasma onset onward	Measured heat substantially above input power, up to 200 percent of input in some runs; no excess at plasma start, excess grew after extended plasma electrolysis; the same group reported non-Faradaic hydrogen generation up to 80 times Faraday law in the follow-up line (Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 44, 396, 2005; DOI 10.1143/JJAP.44.396)
T. Mizuno (Hydrogen Engineering Application and Development Company, Sapporo)	2017	J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 25, 1-25; DOI 10.70923/001c.72456	Vacuum chamber with ceramic heater, Pd rod and Pd-wire electrodes, grounded Ni mesh; glow-discharge sputtering builds nano-structured Pd/Ni on the heater; deuterium gas dosing; whole-reactor calorimetry	Pd electrodes sputtered onto Ni mesh reactant; D2 gas	Gas-phase loading of the nano-structured Pd/Ni surface; no ratio stated	Deuterium gas introduction at 100 to 300 Pa onto the heated reactant, following bake-out	About 200 C chamber wall, 50 to 300 Pa D2	Excess heat reported up to about 78 W, close to the input power, in the configuration later replicated at Tohoku University (see next rows)
T. Mizuno, J. Rothwell (HEAD Company, LENR-CANR.org)	2019	J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 29, 21-33; DOI 10.70923/001c.72489	Air-flow calorimetry of paired active and control reactors inside an insulated box with reflective liner; input and output integrated from power-on to cool-down; blower and heat-recovery corrections measured directly	Pd deposited on Ni mesh (50 to 100 g) in 20 to 50 kg steel reactors; D2 gas at 5 to 4300 Pa	Gas-phase loading of Pd-coated Ni surface; no ratio stated	Glow-discharge sputtering activation for weeks (old method); direct Pd application by rubbing or electroless plating (new method); deuterium absorption and desorption cycling	100 to 400 W electrical input; reactor walls 200 to 300 C	Old method: peak output 480 W against 248 W input (232 W excess, close to 2 times input), after weeks to months of activation; new method: 10 to 30 W excess, up to 40 W in one run, about 5 to 20 percent above input, activatable in about one day
Y. Iwamura, M. Sakano, T. Itoh (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries)	2002	Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 41 (7R), 4642-4650; DOI 10.1143/JJAP.41.4642	Deuterium gas permeation through a Pd complex (thin Pd surface layer, alternating CaO and Pd nanolayers on bulk Pd) inside a vacuum chamber fitted with an X-ray photoelectron spectrometer; surface element analysis before and after permeation	Pd/CaO multilayer on Pd substrate; Cs or Sr deposited on the surface as target element	Deuterium flux through the foil by a 1 atm D2 versus vacuum gradient; no atomic ratio stated	Deuterium permeation diffusion driven by the gas-pressure gradient	343 K, 1 atm D2, about one week for Cs, about two weeks for Sr	Cs decreased and Pr appeared; Sr decreased and Mo appeared; the detected Mo isotopic abundance tracked Sr rather than natural Mo; the authors state all phenomena were reproduced qualitatively; the companion line reports D2-Pd excess heat and radiation signatures (Fusion Technology 33 (1998) 476-492; venue and year only)
Y. Iwamura, T. Itoh, J. Kasagi, H. Shishido (Tohoku University, Clean Planet Inc.) and the Tohoku/Clean Planet Condensed Matter Nuclear Reaction division	2016 to 2024	J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 19 (2016) 119-126, DOI 10.70923/001c.72380; 24 (2017) 179-190, DOI 10.70923/001c.72444; 29 (2019) 119-128, DOI 10.70923/001c.72496; 33 (2020) 1-13, DOI 10.70923/001c.72546; Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 63 (2024) 037001, DOI 10.35848/1347-4065/ad2622	Three integrated platforms: (a) replication of the Mizuno glow-discharge Pd/Ni + D2 setup with heater-temperature and emissivity analysis; (b) six-organization NEDO collaborative oil mass-flow calorimetry on nano-composite powders, replicated between Kobe and Tohoku with identical samples; (c) nano-sized Cu/Ni/CaO multilayer films on bulk Ni, hydrogen loading then vacuum evacuation with rapid heating	Glow-discharge Pd/Ni; PdNi7Zr15-Ox, CuNi7Zr15-Ox, CuNi10/SiO2 nano-composites; sputtered Cu-Ni multilayers with CaO or Y2O3 interlayers on annealed Ni plate	Gas absorption measured by chamber pressure change; multilayer line intentionally programs hydrogen flux through the film by load-then-heat cycles	D2 or H2 gas introduction at 150 to 350 C (powders); H2 loading at 250 C then evacuation plus rapid heating to 500 to 900 C (multilayers); small input-power perturbations to induce heat bursts (2024)	1 to 8 h loading phases, runs of 1e5 s; chamber pressures 150 to 300 Pa	Pd/Ni line: 123 C heater-temperature rise at 7 W input, excess up to 5.5 W (about 80 percent of input); total energies 19,800 to 38,880 J against a 47 J chemical bound. Nano-composite line: 1.4 to 200 MJ per mol H(D), 15 eV/D up to 2.1 keV/D, coincident chamber pressure and gas-temperature burst events, Kobe and Tohoku results agree. Multilayer line: total excess up to 1.1 MJ, average 16 keV/H. JJAP 2024: above 10 keV/H, heat bursts inducible on demand by input-power perturbation (plus about 38 kJ in the shown cycle), no gamma or neutron signal recorded
R. Godes, R. George, F. Tanzella, M. McKubre (Brillouin Energy Corporation, Berkeley; SRI International and Energy Research Center LLC as independent testers)	2014, 2020, 2025	J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 13 (2014) 127-137, DOI 10.70923/001c.72246; 33 (2020) 33-45, DOI 10.70923/001c.72547; 39 (2025) 84-90, DOI 10.70923/001c.133965	Nickel and ceramic alternating coatings on a ceramic tube with inner copper layer (the catalyst), inside an isoperibolic calorimeter with water-cooled outer block; pulses applied between coatings so skin-effect current concentrates at the metal-ceramic interface; independent operation at SRI and ERC, then wall-plug total calorimetry	Ni-based metal/ceramic/Cu multilayer catalyst tubes; hydrogen gas up to 15 bar	Hydrogen absorbed in the Ni surface layers; no atomic ratio stated; Hi-Pot screening rejects leaky catalysts before runs	Q-pulse electrical stimulation: several hundred volts, about 30 to 10,000 ns width, below 1 percent duty cycle, repetition rate auto-adjusted, described by the team as tuned to palladium and nickel hydride resonances; low-voltage long pulses of equal power as matched blanks	100 to 600 C catalyst temperature; 200 to 350 C in the 2020 series; multi-day calibrations	2014: over 150 experiments in two cell/calorimeter designs with excess power always present under resonant Q-pulses and excess energies up to 100 percent of input; 2020: coefficient of performance 1.26 to 1.5 against matched blanks across about 65 mass-flow calculations and more than 600 runs on over 100 catalysts, output to about 30 W; 2025: total (from-the-wall) calorimetry reporting
C.P. Berlinguette, Y.-M. Chiang, J.N. Munday, T. Schenkel, D.K. Fork, R. Koningstein, M.D. Trevithick (University of British Columbia, MIT, University of Maryland, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Google LLC)	2019	Nature 570, 45-51; DOI 10.1038/s41586-019-1256-6 (Perspective)	Three-year multi-institution program built for measurement discipline: written standard operating protocols, automated long-duration experiments, matched electrochemical and gas-loading cells with light-water and blank controls, system-identification calorimetry developed for the program (Rev. Sci. Instrum. 88, 084101, 2017, DOI 10.1063/1.4999361; J. Therm. Anal. Calorim. 138, 3139, 2019, DOI 10.1007/s10973-019-08271-z)	Pd cathodes and Pd films in LiOD/D2O and H analogs; highly hydrided metal films; pulsed plasma apparatus	Explicit tracking of the loading parameter via the palladium pressure-composition-temperature phase diagram	Electrochemical loading, gas loading, pulsed plasma excitation, all under automated protocols	Multi-week runs, quantified calorimetric uncertainty budgets	The authors state their experiments found no evidence of the effect at their sensitivity thresholds, while the program produced new measurement tools and insights into highly hydrided metals and identified a parameter space for further study; the successor beam experiment reports that electrochemical loading raises deuterium-deuteron fusion yields in a metal target (K.-Y. Chen et al., Nature 644, 640-645, 2025; DOI 10.1038/s41586-025-09042-7)

Short narrative

The electrochemical line began in March 1989 when Fleischmann and Pons announced excess heat from palladium cathodes electrolyzed in LiOD heavy-water solution. The 1989 paper reports excess specific heating above 10 W/cm3 of electrode volume sustained for days. Its design used open Dewar cells, single-cell operation and no light-water control cells; those specific design choices are the gaps that later programs filled, and the authors issued a correction note the same year. The lesson Vantasner takes is not the headline number but the experiment design: in their data, heat output scales with electrode volume and current density, so a credible program needs calorimetry, controls and loading measurement on day one.

SRI International built exactly that. Under McKubre, the SRI program paired isothermal flow calorimetry (> 98 percent heat recovery, accuracy below 0.4 percent) with a continuous resistance-ratio loading monitor and matched D and H cells, and ran more than 100 experiments across four to five calorimetric modes. The SRI dataset ties excess-power episodes to a loading condition: their own summary lists D/Pd above about 0.9 among the conditions characteristic of excess-heat cells, with 8 to 23 day appearance times, and the 2003 review of 51 reported experiments shows the fraction of runs with excess power rising from 17 percent below D/Pd 0.90 to all runs above 1.00. The 1998 SRI materials study adds the engineering constraint that high loading must survive at high current density for hundreds of hours, and that cathodes fail mechanically when internal deuterium pressure cracks the lattice. Loading, current density, flux and time are the four knobs of the field.

Two Japanese lines then changed the materials economics. Mizuno's Hokkaido group moved from plasma electrolysis in liquid (heat up to 200 percent of input in the 2000 Japanese Journal of Applied Physics paper) to gas-phase systems: glow-discharge sputtered Pd on Ni mesh, activated in deuterium, with the 2019 report reaching 232 W excess (about 2 times input) after weeks of activation, and a faster one-day activation path reaching 10 to 40 W excess. Iwamura's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries group reported deuterium permeation transmutation through Pd/CaO multilayers: deposited Cs turned toward Pr and Sr toward Mo, with the produced Mo carrying Sr-like isotopic abundance, at 343 K and 1 atm over one to two weeks. The group then moved to Tohoku University with Clean Planet Inc. funding, replicated Mizuno's gas-loaded Pd/Ni system at 80 percent of input power as excess heat at 7 W input, ran a six-organization NEDO project on Ni-based nano-composite powders with results replicated between Kobe and Tohoku (15 eV to 2.1 keV per absorbed D or H atom), and by 2024 reported above 10 keV per hydrogen atom in sputtered Cu-Ni-CaO multilayers, with heat bursts triggered on demand by small input-power perturbations and no gamma or neutron signal.

Brillouin Energy Corporation productized a pulse-drive architecture: nanosecond Q-pulses concentrated by skin effect at the metal-ceramic interface of Ni-based catalyst tubes in hydrogen at up to 15 bar, with SRI International and the Energy Research Center operating the calorimetry independently. The 2014 paper reports over 150 experiments with excess energy up to 100 percent of input; the 2020 paper reports coefficients of performance of 1.26 to 1.5 against matched low-voltage-pulse blanks across more than 600 runs, and the 2025 paper moves to total wall-plug calorimetry. Finally, the 2019 Google-funded program led by Berlinguette re-ran the question with modern discipline: standard operating protocols, automated multi-week experiments, matched controls, and system-identification calorimetry that has since been adopted by Brillouin. Their own experiments found no excess heat above their thresholds, and the 2025 successor paper reports that electrochemical loading raises deuterium-deuteron fusion rates in a metal target under beam conditions, which keeps the loading parameter at the center of the field.

Carry into device

Loading is a first-class instrumented parameter: carry a resistance-ratio (or equivalent) monitor in every hydride stage, and treat D/Pd above 0.9 (SRI condition) as the operating band before any excitation is judged. The loading monitor is cheap; run it always.
Calorimetry decides everything: use flow or air-flow calorimetry calibrated from first principles to better than 1 percent recovery error, run active and control reactors side by side in the same insulated enclosure, and integrate input and output from power-on to cool-down (Mizuno 2019 method).
Run matched isotope and blank controls in parallel: D versus H cells at SRI, active versus control reactors at Mizuno and Tohoku, high-voltage versus equal-power low-voltage pulses at Brillouin. Build the pairing into the rig, not the analysis.
Expect an activation time constant: excess-heat episodes appeared after 8 to 23 days in the SRI cells and after weeks of glow-discharge activation in the Mizuno line. Budget activation cycles (load, bake, gas-dose, repeat) into the 12-month schedule rather than single-shot runs.
Surface and bulk condition both matter: SRI's materials study shows only cathodes sound in both surface chemistry and bulk mechanics hold high loading at high current density; anneal, clean and pre-plate every hydride element, and reject parts that fail a leak or breakdown screen the way Brillouin Hi-Pot tests every catalyst.
Nano-structure and multilayer geometry raise the reported yields: sputtered nano-particles (Mizuno, Tohoku powders) and nanolayer stacks with oxide interlayers (Pd/CaO, Cu/Ni/CaO) dominate the post-2000 record. Our piezo-driven shear-thickening hydride suspensions are mechanically generated nano-contacts; the record says the effect, if real, lives at such surfaces.
Hydrogen (or deuterium) flux through the active layer is a programmable drive: the Tohoku multilayer line induces heat by loading at 250 C then evacuating while rapidly heating, an explicit hydrogen-flux trigger. A piezoelectric pressure wave in a hydride suspension is the same variable, mechanical instead of thermal.
Power perturbation triggers bursts: the 2024 JJAP paper shows a small negative-then-positive input step increases integrated output (about 38 kJ per shown cycle) at unchanged average power. Design the drive electronics for controlled perturbation cycles, not steady state only.
Pulse parameters are operating points: Brillouin maps excess power against pulse voltage, width (tens of nanoseconds to microseconds), duty cycle and gas pressure. Sweep that matrix explicitly; record every parameter at 10 s cadence as the SRI and Brillouin rigs do.
Keep the nuclear-products panel on from day one: gamma and neutron counters ran throughout the Tohoku and Brillouin campaigns. Our design adds neutron time-of-flight and CR-39 (polyallyl diglycol carbonate) tracks so that any heat claim can be checked against particle products in the same run.
Adopt the Google-program process stack: written standard operating protocols, automation with continuous logging, quantified calorimetric uncertainty budgets, and publication of the result either way. This is the fastest route to a defensible result inside 12 months.

Sources

M. Fleischmann, S. Pons, M. Hawkins, "Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium", J. Electroanal. Chem. 261 (1989) 301-308, DOI 10.1016/0022-0728(89)80006-3; correction note, J. Electroanal. Chem. 263 (1989) 187-188, DOI 10.1016/0022-0728(89)80141-x.
M.C.H. McKubre, S. Crouch-Baker, R. Rocha-Filho, S. Smedley, F.L. Tanzella, T. Passell, J. Santucci, "Isothermal flow calorimetric investigations of the D/Pd and H/Pd systems", J. Electroanal. Chem. 368 (1994) 55-66, DOI 10.1016/0022-0728(93)03070-6.
M.C.H. McKubre, F.L. Tanzella, "Materials issues of loading deuterium into palladium and the association with excess heat production", Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF7, Vancouver, 1998), p. 230 (venue and year only).
SRI International overview, "An overview of excess heat production in the D/Pd system at SRI" (1995), INIS record (venue and year only); M.C.H. McKubre ICCF-10 short course review (2003) for the 51-experiment loading split.
T. Mizuno, T. Ohmori, T. Akimoto, A. Takahashi, "Production of heat during plasma electrolysis in liquid", Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 39 (2000) 6055-6061, DOI 10.1143/JJAP.39.6055; T. Mizuno et al., "Hydrogen evolution by plasma electrolysis in aqueous solution", Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 44 (2005) 396-401, DOI 10.1143/JJAP.44.396.
T. Mizuno, "Observation of excess heat by activated metal and deuterium gas", J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 25 (2017) 1-25, DOI 10.70923/001c.72456.
T. Mizuno, J. Rothwell, "Excess heat from palladium deposited on nickel", J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 29 (2019) 21-33, DOI 10.70923/001c.72489.
Y. Iwamura, M. Sakano, T. Itoh, "Elemental analysis of Pd complexes: effects of D2 gas permeation", Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 41 (2002) 4642-4650, DOI 10.1143/JJAP.41.4642; companion line: Y. Iwamura, T. Itoh, N. Gotoh, I. Toyoda, Fusion Technology 33 (1998) 476-492 (venue and year only); Toyota replication: T. Hioki et al., Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 52 (2013) 107301, DOI 10.7567/JJAP.52.107301; Iwamura group review in Current Science 108 (2015) 628-632 (venue and year only).
Y. Iwamura, J. Kasagi, H. Kikunaga, "The launch of a new plan on condensed matter nuclear science at Tohoku University", J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 19 (2016) 119-126, DOI 10.70923/001c.72380; T. Itoh, Y. Iwamura, J. Kasagi, H. Shishido, J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 24 (2017) 179-190, DOI 10.70923/001c.72444; Y. Iwamura et al., J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 29 (2019) 119-128, DOI 10.70923/001c.72496; supporting: A. Kitamura et al., Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 43 (2018) 16187-16200 (venue and year only); Y. Iwamura, T. Itoh, J. Kasagi, S. Murakami, M. Saito, J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 33 (2020) 1-13, DOI 10.70923/001c.72546; T. Takahashi, M. Saito, Y. Shibasaki, S. Murakami, "Progress in energy generation research using nano-metal with hydrogen/deuterium gas", J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 36 (2022) (venue and year only); Y. Iwamura, T. Itoh, S. Yamauchi, T. Takahashi, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 63 (2024) 037001, DOI 10.35848/1347-4065/ad2622.
R. Godes, R. George, F. Tanzella, M. McKubre, "Controlled electron capture and the path toward commercialization", J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 13 (2014) 127-137, DOI 10.70923/001c.72246; F. Tanzella, R. Godes, J. Liu, R. George, "Mass and heat flow calorimetry in Brillouin's reactor", J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 33 (2020) 33-45, DOI 10.70923/001c.72547; F. Tanzella, R. Godes, J. Liu, R. George, "Total calorimetry (from the wall) in a Brillouin reactor", J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 39 (2025) 84-90, DOI 10.70923/001c.133965.
C.P. Berlinguette, Y.-M. Chiang, J.N. Munday, T. Schenkel, D.K. Fork, R. Koningstein, M.D. Trevithick, "Revisiting the cold case of cold fusion", Nature 570 (2019) 45-51, DOI 10.1038/s41586-019-1256-6; B.P. MacLeod et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 88 (2017) 084101, DOI 10.1063/1.4999361; B.P. MacLeod et al., J. Therm. Anal. Calorim. 138 (2019) 3139, DOI 10.1007/s10973-019-08271-z; K.-Y. Chen et al., "Electrochemical loading enhances deuterium fusion rates in a metal target", Nature 644 (2025) 640-645, DOI 10.1038/s41586-025-09042-7.