Do it yourself experiment:
The Basic CFR replication
created on September 7, 2005 - JLN Labs - November 3, 2005
Toutes les informations et schémas sont publiés gratuitement ( OpenSource ) et sont destinés à un usage personnel et non commercial
All informations and diagrams are published free (OpenSource) and are intended for a private use and a non commercial use.

The CFR project is a High Temperature Plasma Electrolysis fully based on the Tadahiko Mizuno experiment from the university of Hokkaido in Japan. This is a very interesting experiment and its implication can be a real breakthrough in the field of New and Clean energy source....  

You will find below an explanation to replicate yourself the basic CFR experiment. In a next article, I shall explain you how to replicate an enhanced version of the CFR.

The CFR is composed of a borosilicate beaker filled with 600 mL to 800 mL of demineralized water and Potassium Carbonate ( K2CO3 ). The electrolyte solution commonly used is 0.5 molar ( 0.5 M ).

For the Potassium Carbonate ( K2CO3 ) :
The weight of 1 Mole is 138.2 g. If you want to have a 0.5 molar solution ( 0.5 M or 0.5 mol/L ) :
for 1 liter, you need to add : 0.5 * 138.2 * 1 = 69.1 g of K2CO3
i.e : for 800 mL of demineralized water, you need to add : 0.5 * 138.2 * 0.8 = 55.3 g of K2CO3

The Cathode used is a tungsten rod. The tungsten rod can be a pure tungsten rod or a Th-loaded tungsten TIG electrode (WT20) (with thorium oxide ThO2: 1.70% to 2.20% ) commonly used for plasma welding. The use of a Th-loaded rod increases the life of your cathod. The sputtering effect produced by the thermionic emission is lower with a Th-loaded rod than with a pure tungsten rod.

The rod diameter can be between 3 mm and 6 mm diameter with 150 mm length. The anode used is composed of stainless steel mesh ( a grid ) maintained with stainless steel  rods. If you have planned to conduct some chemical analysis, I recommend you to use a grid made with platinum or nickel . All the wires connections are made with a 1.5 mm2 copper flexible wire gained with silicon.

I recommend strongly to use a high temperature ceramic insulator (ie: alumina) around the cathod. You may use a common ceramic fuse (ie: a 25A/220V fuse) maintained by a silicon tube as shown below :

I also recommend you to put anti-strips disks below the reactor, this will avoid that the reactor moves (!!!) on your test bench due to the strong vibrations produced during the plasma ignition sequence.

To avoid projections of some drops of the electrolyte solution from the CFR during the plasma ignition sequence, I recommend you to put floating balls on the surface of the liquid (hollow floating balls; pp, 20mm, 2000 PK from Cole Parmer Instrument ).

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Use a DC Power Supply which is able to give about 200 V DC at 10 A ( don't use AC voltage ). Below, you will find a diagram of a simple power supply that you can use :

Disclaimer : The author assumes no liability for any incidental, consequential or other liability from the use of this information. All risks and damages, incidental or otherwise, arising from the use or misuse of the information contained herein are entirely the responsibility of the user. Although careful precaution has been taken in the preparation of this material. Be Carefull, you must conduct this test in a well ventiled room or better in open air, you must not smoke during the test. This experiment is not intended for the inexperienced. User of this document should be very carefull to try anything out ! If you do it, the risk of any results is just yours. I take no responsibility of anything that might happen, let it be of a wrong information or anything else.

Safety :

Test procedure :

  1. Switch on the fume hood,
  2. Set the autotransformer to 0 Volt and switch on the power supply,
  3. The voltmeter (set on DC) is connected at the input of the CFR cell and the DC current clamp is connected on the positive wire,
  4. Turn the knob of the autotransformer so as to get 30V DC on the CFR cell,
  5. Let the electrolysis warm up the cell up to 50°C,
  6. At 50°C drop the voltage to 0 Volt and switch off the main power supply,
  7. Disconnect all the wires from the power supply and disconnect the thermometer,
  8. Wait 30 sec to exhaust the mixture of hydrogen/oxygen,
  9. Weigh the cell ( M1 ),
  10. Connect the CFR wires to the power supply and connect the thermometer,
  11. Measure the temperature ( T1 ) of the electrolyte then, immediatly, switch on the power supply,
  12. Slowly, turn the autotransformer knob so as to get 200 VDC across the cell,
  13. Note the Voltage and Current values at the permanent regime (pink glow discharge),
  14. End the run after ~3 minutes. ( set the voltage to 0 Volt and switch off the power supply ),
  15. Measure the temperature ( T2 ) of the electrolyte,
  16. Disconnect the CFR wires from the power supply and disconnect the thermometer
  17. Weigh the cell ( M2 ).

Energy Input : DC Voltage * DC Current * duration (sec)

Energy Output : Eout = [ ( M1-M2 ) * 2260 ] + [ 4.18 * V * (T2-T1) ]

COP (Coefficient Of Performance) = Energy Output / Energy Input

Important note : With such a design, a COP of 1.2 can be obtained. If you conduct yourself the experiment, you will notice that the value of the COP will increase with the number of test runs. When the tungsten rod is brand new, the COP is always less than 1 but becomes greater than 1 when the tip of the tungsten rod becomes thinner with some small longitudinal cracks visible on it (see the photo below).

I wish you a good CFR replication experiment and a great COP,
I shall be glad if you could sent me some photos of your working Cold Fusion Reactor....

For more informations, please contact Jean-Louis Naudin : JNaudin509@aol.com

I recommend you to see this :


Do It Yourself : An Asymmetrical Plasma Electrolysis (APE)


Do It Yourself : The Enhanced CFR experiment

Documents and references :

return to the CFR experimenters page


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