FP's experiments discussion

J Fisher did some CR-39 studies that showed pits were directionally oriented as if the particles(alpha) that produced the pits came from a point source. He also showed evidence of a CR-39 particle source above a LENR electrolytic reaction rising out of that type of LENR cell. Fisher used this experimental insight to formulate his polyneutron theory. I attribute this observation to suggest that my exotic neutral particle of choice: hydrogen Rydberg matter can decouple from its point of creation and float in the air above the open LENR electrolytic reactor.

Quote from kirkshanahan

Instead they have utilized their hand-waving arguments, which I routinely refute, to avoid doing anything towards considering the CCS problem.

So sorry, please excuse me...what is the CCS problem?

Quote from kirkshanahan

And to oystia, why do you think people who refuse to understand my thesis have adequately tested it? They have not.

What are some simple ways to test your CCS conjecture?

Oystia, you are truly a CF groupie. Unfortunately, CF groupies keep getting important things messed up, and your recent post pointing to the debate between Ruer and Tsilin is another example. Those gentlemen are discussing crater formation, not excess heat. They both agree the energies under consideration for crater formation have no relevance to the amount of excess heat produced. My primary focus has always been on the excess heat, ergo their discussion is of no relevance to my theories, hypotheses, and/or suggestions. So no, no one has tested my proposal.

I was extremely enthused however to see the use of my ideas in Mechanism B (recombination). I wonder if those gentlemen know that Storms, McKubre, Hagelstein, et al, forcefully made the point that O2 bubbles can’t get to the cathode. That was their primary criticism of my whole effort. They said: O2 can’t get to the cathode, therefore there is no at-the-electrode recombination, therefore that can’t cause the CCS, so the CCS can’t exist. I eagerly await the firestorm of criticism the 10 authors will unleash on Ruer and Tsirlin! (ROFL – actually won’t happen I bet…)

(FYI –Quoting E. A. Storms, “Comment on papers by K. Shanahan…”, Thermochimica Acta, 441 (2006) 207:
"As anyone who has viewed a Fleischmann–Pons (F–P) electrolytic cell will testify, all D2 is generated at the cathode and all O2 is generated at the anode, with both gases rising rapidly to the surface as bubbles. Bubbles contain mainly only one of these gases. Consequently, significant heat from recombination cannot be produced, as Shanahan proposes, because very few bubbles reach the opposite electrode.

Quoting the 10 authors, “A new look at…: a response to Shanahan”, J. Env. Monitor. 12 (2010) 1765:
“Finally, this isn’t the first time Shanahan has raised these spurious arguments. He’s applied them twice before, in 2002(10) and 2005,(11) prompting a published response from Storms in 2005.(12) [actually 2006, see immediately above – KLS] In his response to Shanahan’s criticisms, Storms notes, ‘‘The assumptions used by Shanahan to explain anomalous heat claimed to result from cold fusion are shown to be inconsistent with experimental observation.’’ Shanahan’s assertions are no more true now than they were five and eight years ago.”

It’s worth noting that the 10 authors also failed to note my rebuttal to Storms 2006 publication, just like he did in his book of 2007. Maybe if they had read it they might not have said the above? … Nah, wouldn’t have made a difference to them.)

Unfortunately I believe those gentlemen missed a potentially important aspect of Mechanism B. To understand it we need to back up a bit. Ruer brings up SAVs and accepts their existence. So do I. So our electrode is not a solid electrode, but one with a lot of included bubbles of unknown size, filled with hydrogen. At least when the electrolysis is operating. Having the current on and flowing in the electrical circuit means that the double layer has been established at the electrode surfaces. It is this condition that allows the Pd to absorb H (or D) to the very high levels of H/Pd~1. Based on a pressure sensor tied to one of Arata’s double structure cathodes, I’d estimate that means the effective pressure in the electrode is about 10,000 psi, possibly higher. Now when a bubble of H2 forms, it nucleates and grows on the electrode surface until it breaks free and floats off into the electrolyte. While it is growing however, there is no electrolyte under it, so I question how much of the effective pressure is actually left under it. I think not much. When the double layer is messed up by a surface bubble, there will be a region under the bubble that thinks its overpressure has just been reduced, and it will start releasing hydrogen. This makes the bubble grow, expanding the effective low pressure area, causing more hydrogen to be released, expending the bubble, etc., until the bubble breaks free. That process is probably pretty smooth, not too dramatic, and probably wouldn’t cause a crater in most cases. We probably need a faster release of a ‘significant’ quantity of H2 to get Mechanism C’s result.

And Ruer misses a way to get that rapid release of gas. He’s correct that one way to get gas release from Pd hydride is to heat it quickly. But there is the other way, by dropping the overpressure. Remember those pesky O2 bubbles? What happens when one of them wanders over to the cathode? My proposal and what Ruer and Tsirlin assume, is that the O2 bubble somehow combines with the H2 bubble. R and T want to then do the recombination. I want to hold off for a split second and consider what an instantaneous doubling (more or less?) in bubble mass does to the PdHx under the newly expanded bubble. When that happens the Pd will immediately release H and try to establish a new equilibrium in the immediate area under the suddenly reduced effective overpressure. Instant release. It’s like a valve to a high pressure H2 cylinder had just been opened. So I’d say you get the rapid P increase needed for mechanism C, and it pushes out the Pd metal so it can equilibrate with the 14.7 psi outside. (This is also the basic plot line for steam or methane embrittlement.)

NOW, the O2 can react with this burst of H2 and generate heat. And the majority of the mass moving had been done by gas pressure, just like if you had overpressurized a vessel and popped it. So the real question becomes, ‘How much heat does it take to melt the _edges_ of the crater (vs. the whole ejected mass)?’ I’m guessing in some cases you might get enough to smooth off the roughness, and in others you won’t. It will depend on all the things R and T talk about plus others. It might actually depend more on local composition and not even need heat to get different forms in different cases. I think that would be a 20-yr. project to figure out. Good luck to them.

So oystia, R and T hand-wave a lot (sci guy talk for ‘make assumptions’), and so do I. But again, they haven’t tested the CCS-excess heat proposal, nor has anyone else. And no, I don’t accept their theories any more than my own without experimental proof, and I fully expect the hand-waving to need to be changed as experimental data rolls in.

P.S. I also like the fact that R and T recognize that explosions have associated shock waves…

Quote from Shane D.

From shortly after FPs announcement, calls of poor calorimetry became the rallying cry for mainstream to dismiss the initial claim, and all those since. Instead of taking the criticism personally, the CF community early on responded by reaching out to their colleagues to prove otherwise. This culminated in 1993 with Garwin/Lewis -representing the mainstream science hierarchy, experts themselves in calorimetry, accepted an invite to SRI to study their calorimetry used, and the positive results they were seeing. Described as a “two day exhaustive review”, they reported finding nothing wrong with the setup. McKubre had an airtight calorimeter accurate to 99.7%, and the mainstream agreed with him.

"nothing wrong with the setup." - And therein lies the problem...it's not the setup, it's the data analysis. This is the problem that strikes fear in the heart of all researchers when considering a SYSTEMATIC error. All of the experts miss it for awhile...everyone gets it wrong until the one guy finally keys in on the problem.

"What are some simple ways to test your CCS conjecture?"

Several possibilities:
Already mentioned. CF researchers should check their old data to see if a CCS fits or could be excluded in an otherwise acceptable experiment.

Redesign the cell – The CCS occurs because heat distribution changes. This seems to me to be due to the fact that in all cells used, the penetrations all come through the top. Design a cell with no penetrations through the top and see if you get CF signals.

Try to test for it with Joule heaters. The reason I did the whole study was that Storms also published several calibration constants for different calibration methods. In particular he reported a Joule heater calibration and a calibration via electrolysis power. The constants were slightly different, and I simply investigated if that was important. It was. So, using an unmodified cell design (i.e. penetrations through the top) use two Joule heaters (or maybe three) to simulate the electrolysis calibration, where I*V is the total power in and I*Vth is the maximum power to offer recombination. Test the system with a.) all power through the heater in the electrolyte, b.) I*(V-Vth) in that heater plus I*Vth in a heater in the gas space, and c) same as b) but have the second heater in the electrolyte (or make it a 3rd heater).

Recognizing the systematic behavior shown in the Storms data, try using the CCS idea to focus on how to prep the electrode surface to get the effect, instead of how to modify the behavior of the supposedly absorbed H. We are all pretty sure it’s a surface effect, not a bulk one, so assume it’s surface chemistry and conduct the research as that. If the whole CCS theory is right, you should be able to get control reasonably quickly and get to where the effect is reproducible quantitatively on demand.

The CCS theory does not address the need for hydrogen loading to be above .85 for the LENR reaction to become manifest. Why is high hydrogen loading important in Palladium LENR?

Why is co-disposition of palladium hydride a sure way to generate the LENR reaction in terms of CCS theory?

What is the maximum experimental error if the CCS conjecture is correct?

To what systems does the proposed CCS effect not apply? E.g., is it only proposed to affect electrolytic systems or does it also apply to gas loading systems and glow discharge systems?

Shanahan thinks recombination can explain excess heat, but miss the point that Mckubre introduced closed cells, and still got the same excess heat as F&P.

others used cells where O2 at anode physically could not reach the cathode, and still got Significant excess heat.

And this means recombination can not explain excess heat Events in F&P type CF research.

I often approach conjectures I find implausible by trying to understand them at a level to be able to accurately explain them to others. Hopefully, eventually, they will also be tested. Shanahan has an answer to the objection about closed cells having been used—namely, that cells with feedthroughs that pass through the lid of the cell may have different calorimetric characteristics with regard to recombination occurring in the gas phase and recombination occurring on the cathode. I.e., heat from recombination occurring on the cathode will be better captured than if it happens in the gas phase. Sounds like something that can be tested.

I don't seek to weigh the plausibility of Shanahan's CCS conjecture at this point; I only seek to understand its details and implications.

"The CCS theory does not address the need for hydrogen loading to be above .85 for the LENR reaction to become manifest."

That's because there is no such need. Do you recall what the anode and cathode were made of in the Storms experiments whose data I reanalyzed for my 2002 publication? They were BOTH platinum. No palladium in the cell at all. Yet there was CF if you believe Storms, or the FPHE if you believe me. The metal hydride community has tried very hard to make Pt absorb H, including using diamond anvil experiments, with no success. Pt does not hydride. That means there is no bulk H, and thus the H/Pt ratio is 0. The effect is proven to be a surface effect with Storms' experiments. The mechanism I postulated that would bring about the CCS is a surface chemistry-based one.

"Why is high hydrogen loading important in Palladium LENR?"

It is not necessary but is probably expeditious. The point is that the 'special active state' must form on the electrode surfaces to allow the FPHE to occur. If you load Pd to less than 0.85 the changes to the surface will occur more slowly or be less extensive than if you load to 1.0. The changes are the formation of highly active atomic sites due to loop punching and dislocation formation which occurs to relieve the stress induced by the expanding lattice of PdHx. The higher the x, the more the expansion and the more surface defects formed due to the stress relief processes. Those highly active sites serve as the starting points for the formation of the 'special active state', which I suspect is some particular ordering of surface contaminants adsorbed from solution. Perhaps it an agglomeration based on the Szpak video showing the localized hot spot. But I await more data on this point. It could also be that those sites bind the contaminants more strongly, leading to a faster extraction from solution (due to higher sticking coefficient) and a more firm holding of them on the surface (as opposed to redissolution or perhaps agglomeration on the surface - or maybe agglomeration is good...I don't know). How can I say this? Well, (1) see above, and (2) there are several examples of FPHE detection from researchers early on who made no special effort to get to 1.0. It just takes more time if you load to lower levels.

"Why is co-disposition of palladium hydride a sure way to generate the LENR reaction in terms of CCS theory?"

Surface-to-volume ratio. The codep process produces dendritic structures which are chock full of high activity sites. P.S. It's better, but not at 100% success.

"What is the maximum experimental error if the CCS conjecture is correct?"

It depends on the input power, cell design, and the calorimeter efficiency. Let's consider a cell with 75% efficiency. That means that Pout= (1/.75) * Pin. Now Pin = I * V (current * voltage) applied to the electrodes (of Joule heater). Typically Storms used up to abut 20W input The recombination power available = the current times the 'thermoneutral voltage', which for H2O is about 1.45V if I remember correctly. Cell voltage is also related to cell resistance by Ohm's Law, and depends on the physical separation of the electrodes and the conductivity of the electrolyte. Let's start with 10V at 500 mA current, so Pin = 10 * 0.5 (units of volts and amps to get watts) = 5W (a little low actually, usually Pin is bigger). The Precom = 1.45 * .5 = 0.725 W or 725 mW. Now the problem is that the calorimeter doesn't give you 5W out because of its efficiency. Also, in an open cell you lose the recombination power out the vent in principle, so the maximum power you would see in the cell is (10-1.45)*0.5 W. That has to scaled up via calibration to give Pout = Pin. So you have two scalings in an open cell, one for lost recomb power and one for the actual heat capture efficiency. In a closed cell, you see the recomb heat, but I claim at a reduced efficiency due to the construction of the cell. You lose some out the heat flow paths (which also happens in an open cell).

So if you now get recomb happening in an open cell, that's heat that was already accounted for due to your calibration method, and you end up "double counting" it. In a closed cell, the heat shifting to the higher efficiency zone will be over counted as well, since the overall calibration you did, done under normal circumstances, would have adjusted for having the recomb power detected with a lower efficiency. So it will now be overcounted also, but the extent deoends on the calorimeter. From this you should be able to play around a bit and see what one mught get. CFers should have the data in hand to estimate the size in their setup.

"To what systems does the proposed CCS effect not apply? E.g., is it only proposed to affect electrolytic systems or does it also apply to gas loading systems and glow discharge systems?"

I only did this for F&P-type electrolysis cells. But if the concept apply to other setups, then they apply...

"That my the be the case. If so it is a sad commentary... [snip] LENR literature is filled with similar events. Are they misinterpreting those results also? What could explain these episodes if they are?

What's sad is the way the LENR community has responded to the 'revelation' of a systematic error in their methods. Systematic errors do happen. The correct response is to incorporate the new knowledge into live practice ASAP. Instead they first fought it tooth-and-nail, and then they used the fact that they had published responses, even though they were rebutted (or were at least rebuttable) to ignore the issue. That did exactly as you point out, it allowed the whole community to continue on using flawed methodology.

In the classic F&P cell they problem is that the gases produced are not separated and are instead mixed in the cell's gas space. The mixture is a wet blend of the perfect stoichiometric amounts of H2 and O2 for an explosion. All you need once you have fuel and oxidizer together is an ignition source. Bare metal is an ignition source, and the possibility there will be some in the cell is very high, thus explosions should be anticipated. The famous F&P anecdote about their lab blowing up one night always screamed "H2 + O2 explosion" to me. I believe SRI had an explosion that killed a researcher, and I recall Mizuno caught some shrapnel from another. Mixing H2 + O2 is dicey.

Simple heat bursts in the paradigm I use to understand F&P cells usually come from the sudden onset of the FPHE or a sudden increase in what was already going on. I don't think I could get more specific than that...maybe, just not positive.

"Shanahan thinks recombination can explain excess heat, but miss the point that Mckubre introduced closed cells, and still got the same excess heat as F&P."

In case you don't realize it, this is an outlandish ad hominem on the part of oystia. He/she is repeating what the CF community's position is today, in the face of having seen everything I have written here. To be clear, my CCS error and the potential mechanism I proposed to explain how it would arise in an F&P cell applies to both open and closed cells. Oystia has completely missed the idea that it is the appearance of heat in the high heat capture efficiency zone of a calorimeter/cell that causes the need to change calibration constants. That heat could previously either gone out the vent of an open cell or have appeared at the recombination catalyst in the cell's gas space. It really points out what oystia is doing, just parroting his/her heroes with no thought. It also means I will not be responding to such silliness again.

"others used cells where O2 at anode physically could not reach the cathode, and still got Significant excess heat."

Specify please. The only one I can think of is the work by Oriani where he put plastic shields over the electrodes (open bottom, with some room for electrolyte inside it) and could find NO excess heat. However, when he removed the shields and combined the vent lines into one, he immediately saw apparent excess heat. Pretty elegant proof that you need a clear transport path between electrodes to get the FPHE. Of course Oriani didn't see that (or didn't mention it in any case). It's worth mentioning that I looked at his cal constants for those two situations (which I had to extract out of his data myself, as an estimate), it seemed the constants changed just about the way you'd expect them to if the "CCSH" (meaning the whole thing) is right.

"And this means recombination can not explain excess heat Events in F&P type CF research."

In principle, if the excess heat does arise from LENR, then separating the electrodes as is normally done in electrochemical experiments should not impact the effect (except perhaps in that people talk about forming a uniform electrical field around the cathode with an anode that surrounds the cathode (like a wire wound on supports) - that would be the CFers 'out'). But I can only think of 1 case where they did that, and they got the opposite result (see above). So, unless there really are cases such as are suggested, this is an unproved assertion, not an experimental conclusion.

"If you're referring to Storms' Seebeck effect calorimeters, you can even out the temperature distribution with one or more high quality miniature fans inside the calorimeter. Drive them from a precision and stable power supply and calibrate the calorimeter with the fans running at several different temperatures. Sorry if this isn't relevant-- I have not been closely following this part of the discussion. And of course, calibrate with Joule (electric) heating -- what never happened properly for Defkalion and Rossi in their entire sad and long histories."

As noted previously, single Joule heater calibration will not show the CCS. Perhaps calibration with dual or triple Joule heaters as noted before.

The data I reanalyzed was collected via a mass flow calorimeter, and I believe one could also get an isoperibolic number for comparison. The mass flow calorimeter was 98% efficient. Storms did build a Seebeck calorimeter with at least one internal air circulation fan, I believe subsequent to this incident, but I haven't analyzed any data from it as he hasn't posted any in the open to my knowledge. So I don't know if he got up to 99% or better. But 2% is pretty good. Most of McKubre's calorimeters are of the same caliber. That doesn't leave much room for error, but it is the special circumstance possible in water electrolysis that allows for this one, and its magnitude was not realized until I did the reanalysis.

The question was asked justifiably “How many other systems does this apply to?” which could be rephrased in this thread to be “What has this to do with Rossi?”

The answer is that it teaches you about a potential error in *any* calibrated system. i. e. if an experimental design has an asymmetry about it, that may require the data interpretation methods be notched up a level. So it applies to Rossi, Celani, and anyone else, if it applies! Each experimental setup is different and that possibility may or may not exist in the one we are currently looking at. The things you need to look for are improper temperature measurement (for whatever reason) and anything else that can induce an error in the computed results. Propagation of Error calculations should be done in all cases and the assumed standard deviation values confirmed as the real ones (for ex, using the baseline noise of a calorimeter as the _only_ significant error source in an F&P-type cell).

Back ‘in the day’, I spent a lot of time looking at something called the “Patterson Power Cell”. It was a F&P variant using a packed bed of metal coated beads as the cathode. But Patterson was like Rossi, he didn’t want to bother with ‘scientific’ proof. What that meant to me was when I had come up with a mundane explanation of the Cell, there was no data available to test it, and no hope of doing so with Patterson’s disposition towards ‘science’. In the end, I had just wasted my time (except that I did learn a couple of things along the way).The Rossi case seems the same to me, so I have only superficially followed it. But even with that level, I had noted the problem in the video of Rossi picking up the exit hose from the “Big Blue” test, and I had wondered about the use of an IR camera as thermometer in the “Lugano” test. Others noted these as well, so I didn’t need to chip in, so I didn’t. Thomas Clark has done a good job with the Lugano test, but I am unsure if he included the fact that the IR emissions from heated alumina are non-Plankian. That would make it very problematic to decide what the camera would say when presented with the eCat. Did you work that in Thomas?

In any case, the lesson learned for all “CF” research should be to be more open to alternatives and less fixated on the one you like.

@kirkshanahan

To my knowledge none of Rossi's tests are calibrated. But, if they were, your comments would apply!

Re Lugano - it depends what wavelength you look at. As far as I know the 7-13um (IR camera band) emmissions follow the Planck curve pretty closely (but not of course the integrated Planck curve, which gives T^4 dependence for a grey body). For lower wavelengths the alumina goes translucent and it is really very difficult to know what are the errors because they depend partly on emissivity of internal layers and various other considerations. Hence the alumina surface temperature is well defined (though much lower than was calculated) but the total power out much less certain. In my paper (which I could write more clearly now but remains a decent summary) I raise these issues as caveats without trying to quantify them.

What interested me is that even given this uncertainty the change in COP with temperature goes away with proper calculations. That result is independent of any other errors except ones that are highly nonlinear with temperature, so pretty robust.

Rossi's technical inconsistencies from his own self-contradictory statements and actions alone mean that his case is not quite like that of most LENR researchers who tend I think to cling to invalid results through hope and lack of proper checking of likely artifacts rather than outright denial of contrary evidence. Specifically I think few other LENR researchers would be so careless as to "contaminate" ash sent for isotopic analysis twice over.

It is interesting to me that the debate has in some cases become framed in terms of "Can you prove possible positive results wrong" rather than the normal "Can you prove possible positive results right". Within such a reframing any lack of rigor makes the claims stronger, not weaker!