FP's experiments discussion

  • They were devised. I just pointed you to the paper that describes the 3 month test. You won't read it, and even you do read it, you will not understand it any more than you understand thermodynamics, boiling, and other middle-school level science, but here it is again:


    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RouletteTresultsofi.pdf


    Yes, I already saw that document, but it is hard to call it a paper that describes scientific tests. Even Fleischmann didn't sign it. It is little more than a press release: no references, no mathematical model, no raw data, just some badly drew diagrams, and a summary table, which also contains some errors.


    In any case, the final table shows that there is no real FPE. In fact, 4 tests out of 7 gave a total energy gain around zero. Such a concentration of null results implies that the positive ones are only due to some experimental anomalies.


    Such a negative outcome has been obtained by using ICARUS 9, a much improved calorimeter compared to the original ones used in 1992. This is probably the reason why the report you mentioned is, FWIK, the only document published dealing with this kind of closed cells. All the other papers on F&P experiments deal with open cells, that is the only model able to provide a fictitious excess heat, thanks to unaccounted losses of liquid water, as even implicitly confirmed in the Roulette-Pons document: "The present design incorporates better seals at all liquid/casing interfaces, and at the thermistor inlet ports. […] Foam rise in the calorimeter at the boiling temperature has been minimized."


    When, in 2009, Krivit and Marwan were trying to defend the "validity of at least some of the reported experimental phenomena" (1), they talked about the F&P experiments carried out in 1992 with open cells and the only F&P document they cited was the paper they presented at ICCF3. The ICARUS 9 closed cell and the tests described in the Roulette-Pons report were completely ignored.


    So, let's go back to the more famous F&P open cells and to the "major paper" of Fleischmann (2). Could you please answer my previous question (3)? Which of the equations described in his gargantuan and sophisticated calorimetric model has been used to calculate the "Output Enthalpy in Vapour" on page 16?


    (1) http://newenergytimes.com/v2/l…ivit-S-ANewLookAtLENR.pdf

    (2) http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf

    (3) FP's experiments discussion


  • Jed.


    You argue strongly that entrained droplets could not exist leaving the F&P cells in amounts that explain the apparent excess heat. For each of your arguments, perhaps you could consider the argument on the other side? In some cases this is compelling. In other cases it is more doubtful. Your argument would be stronger if you did not give all arguments (ones reasonable, and ones obviously false) the same weight in your posts here.


    Your arguments against entrained droplets:


    Salt balance measurement precludes this. UNTRUE - because entrained droplets can be distilled (no salt) or electrolyte that has never been vaporised (contains salt).

    Appendix I equations prove this. UNTRUE - they do not consider all the complex effects at boiling temperatures: turbulence in liquid and gas, entrainment, etc. (They don't consider entrainment at all).

    Does not change up the amount of make-up water. UNTRUE: the issue is not the total amount of water exiting the cell (measured by make-up) but what is the calorific effect of the water (different leaving as liquid or gas)

    It would not account for the difference between controls and active runs. UNTRUE: no controls have been run under extreme boiling conditions (please correct me if I'm wrong citing the reported results).


    Now, more complex arguments may show that entrainment cannot, as Ascoli suggests, account for the observed excess heat. I'm interested in a serious consideration of these, which could be made here. I have not found any arguments in the much quoted F&P paper which rules out Ascoli's (and, independently, my) proposed mechanism. Arguments that it is unlikely, or that professional calorimetrists would be aware of the issue and rule it out, do not help us:


    Unlikely. Well, maybe, but in science (and engineering) unlikely in a complex system often happens: our engineering judgement is often surprised by the real world. The boiling case, specifically, when Ugas gets large, is complex, as is stated in Appendix I.

    Professional calorimetrists would have ruled it out. Unfortunately, and unprofessionally if in fact it was it was considered, such work to rule it out is not documented in the papers, and therefore cannot be relied upon.

  • You argue strongly that entrained droplets could not exist leaving the F&P cells in amounts that explain the apparent excess heat.


    THHuxleynew : This also goes to you: Where are the droplets in the control that has been run with plain Hydrogen and same input energy ???


    May be you can invent new physics for the control to explain the difference...

  • THHuxleynew : This also goes to you: Where are the droplets in the control that has been run with plain Hydrogen and same input energy ???


    May be you can invent new physics for the control to explain the difference...


    To my knowledge no control has been run under boil-off conditions, which alters the balance.


    There may be changes between control and actual before boil-off (even ones that lead to boil-off in one case not the other). That is a separate argument, and we'd need to look at the non-boil-off calorimetry to see how large are the differences and what physical differences between H/D, and differential effects such as (putatively) ATER could account for them.


    When understanding complex problems it is important to deal with matters bit by bit. My post above (and the one it was replying to) deal with the very impressive large claimed excess heat under boil-off conditions in the F&P paper.


    Other, not so large, claims are also made. Considering those would be a separate discussion.


    PS - re new physics. Yes H and D have quite different physical properties, as you know, so no invention required! Shanahan here supposes (reasonably) that if ATER exists, these would affect its magnitude. Other effects are possible; and it is difficult to rule them out without a very careful consideration of all. For example how do the different physical characteristics of H2 and D2 affect the dynamics of phase changes between liquid and gas? I have no idea what effects there might be. Can you rule any such out? The dynamics of phase change are a good deal more complex than the well understood equilibrium positions.

  • That would be a freshman mistake by a master experimentalist. Even if not cited it would be extraordinary if they used no controls.


    When publishing extraordinary results, the extraordinary cannot be ruled out.


    In any case my point remains, without clear documentation, speculation as to what F&P would or would not have done is unsafe and unwise. Something that seems obvious to one person can be left out by another: and an example of that, if you are right and they did these tests, is the lack of a clear discussion of the entrainment issue and how it was ruled out, as ascoli suggests would normally be done.


    So it is extraordinary even if they did all this (complex and difficult work) to be sure entrainmnet was not an issue. They would know the work was complex, and would therefore know it needed to be written up. In the uncontrolled and chaotic environment of boil-off it is more difficult to be sure that there are no differences between control and active runs - e.g. those caused by the properties of H vs D, or other small differences in setup.


    They do, briefly, discuss entrainment, but without saying they did all these extra checks that would be needed to ensure it was not an issue for the experiments showing the claimed very high anomalous boil-off excess enthalpy. Indeed the only test they specify for supposing no entrainment (measurement of salt balance) is not valid.

  • It would not account for the difference between controls and active runs. UNTRUE: no controls have been run under extreme boiling conditions (please correct me if I'm wrong citing the reported results).


    Actually, some control tests at extreme boiling conditions that should have not generated any excess heat, but that surprisingly behaved like the normal tests, have been reported by Biberian in 2007, in a paper where he summarized his past experience in CF/LENR (1).


    Speaking of the F&P replications carried out in collaboration with Lonchampt, he wrote: "We measured (see table 1) at boiling temperature excess heat up to 29 %, in qualitative agreement with Fleischmann and Pons. However, the magnitude of the excess heat that we measured was less important than what they observed. Their analysis of the boiling off in two periods, assuming that the vast majority of the excess heat was produced at the end of the experiment was difficult to evaluate.

    The experiments in Li2SO4 are surprising since they seem to show that the palladium is active, and that even platinum is active."


    From the above quote, we can deduce two things. The first is that the qualitative agreement with the F&P results, coupled with a lower magnitude, can be explained by the fact that the Lonchampt replications were carried out a few years after the F&P original tests and, even if their cells and procedure are recognized as the most similar to the original ones, there could have been improvements in both in order to reduce the impact of the liquid losses.


    The second is that the surprisingly activity of platinum can be easily explained by …, well, it's not hard to understand.


    (1) http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BiberianJPcoldfusiona.pdf

  • Salt balance measurement precludes this. UNTRUE - because entrained droplets can be distilled (no salt) or electrolyte that has never been vaporised (contains salt).

    I suggest you compute how much water would have to leave the cell to cause this effect. Also, I suggest you address the others issues I listed. For example, explain why this droplet effect only works with Pd-D2O and not any of the controls (Pd, H2O, resistance heating). Explain why it causes only the cathode to heat, and why it melts the Kel-F plug.


    Does not change up the amount of make-up water. UNTRUE: the issue is not the total amount of water exiting the cell (measured by make-up) but what is the calorific effect of the water (different leaving as liquid or gas)

    When make up water is added, there is no boiling, so there is nothing to push the droplets up and out of the tube, so your hypothesis does not apply.


    Furthermore, if the enthalpy carried off by the water was not according to these equations, the control experiments would not show a heat balance of zero. To disprove this, you will have to show how the choice of metal, water, or a resistance heater caused you hypothetical effect to turn on and off. Why? What would be the mechanism?


    Professional calorimetrists would have ruled it out. Unfortunately, and unprofessionally if in fact it was it was considered, such work to rule it out is not documented in the papers, and therefore cannot be relied upon.

    They have ruled it out. The best calorimetrist in the U.S. is Robert Duncan, and he ruled it out. I have never heard from a single one that this technique does not work. I have not seen any papers making that claim. The only people who say this are you and a few others on the Internet, and you have not published a paper, or addressed any of the points listed by Fleischmann (and copied by me) proving you are wrong. Except you did come up with "drops being pushed up." As you will see if you do an actual test, only a tiny fraction of the water could be removed by this mechanism. It would cause a milliwatt or less than milliwatt error, roughly 100,000 times too small to explain the excess heat. Such a drastic quantitative error is not science.


    t would not account for the difference between controls and active runs. UNTRUE: no controls have been run under extreme boiling conditions (please correct me if I'm wrong citing the reported results).

    These are not extreme boiling conditions. They are ordinary boiling conditions. 150 W of heat can easily be supplied with electrolysis or a resistance heater. Of course they did both, and they stated this many times in the paper. I have pointed this out to you, and cited examples.


    If you are saying you don't believe Fleischmann, and you don't think they calibrated, then the discussion is over. There is nothing I can say to convince you if you don't trust the authors. Except that I would suggest you try calibrating yourself. See if you can force droplets out of a test tube in large enough amounts to make 35 W input look like 150 W.

  • To my knowledge no control has been run under boil-off conditions, which alters the balance.


    The reason is very simple: The input energy could never cause a boil off in the control. That's how the calorimeters & the process was designed.


    I agree that we can discuss the exact amount of the huge excess energy, but with this you implicitly accept that it can only be LENR that produced the excess energy, regardless how much it was. The chemical deltas (Enthalpy) between H/D are small, the absorption in Pd is quite different, but still to small to explain any effect because the release of H/D from Pd is slow - at least far to slow to explain any burning like behavior.


    The true value for me are the timing diagrams FP delivered, that tell a lot about the internal LENR process.

  • The reason is very simple: The input energy could never cause a boil off in the control. That's how the calorimeters & the process was designed.

    They definitely did run boil-off control cells, and so did other people. They had to supply much more power than the boil-off with cold fusion: 150 W instead of 35 W. You are correct that with 35 W it does not boil. The water does evaporate fairly quickly, but it does not all leave the cell in 10 minutes.


    THH refers to the boil off as "extreme boiling conditions." What does "extreme" mean? That it is hard to replicate? This makes no sense. 150 W of heat in a test tube is not a bit extreme. This boiling is no more extreme than a small pot of carrots cooking on my stove with 45 ml of water left. If I accidentally leave that for 10 minutes it will boil away the water and scorch the carrots. That's not extreme. It is an ordinary event that I have replicated many times.

    • Official Post

    If you are saying you don't believe Fleischmann, and you don't think they calibrated, then the discussion is over.


    It is actually impossible to imagine that F&P would design and build a calorimeter from the PSU upwards and not calibrate it every which way at every possible temperature in their range of expectations. It would be like building a computer and never switching it on until you needed to search google for the definition of 'unlikely'.

  • They are ordinary boiling conditions. 150 W of heat can easily be supplied with electrolysis or a resistance heater. Of course they did both, and they stated this many times in the paper. I have pointed this out to you, and cited examples.

    They also described the results of boil-off calibrations in detail, such as when they point out:

    1. The boiling stops as soon as the water level drops below the anode and cathode.
    2. Both the anode and cathode get hot, a boiling appears on both.
    3. The Kel-F plug does not melt.
    4. etc.

    How would they know that if they had not calibrated?


    Also, as Alan Smith points out, do you really, seriously, honestly think that the most accomplished electrochemist in the world, Fellow of the Royal Society, etc. etc., and Pons, the chairman of the Department, would make such a stupid, elementary mistake such as not calibrating, in tests that went on for years and cost Toyota millions of dollars? These test were done 16 at a time, repeated every few weeks for several years. Do you think no one else on staff and none of the advisers and observers sent by Toyota would notice they were not calibrated? Or that they would notice but refrain from saying anything?


    And do you suppose they are lying in the papers when they describe the calibrations?


    Your droplet hypothesis is quantitatively wrong by a factor of roughly 100,000. I am sure you will see this if you test it. You cannot possibly make 35 W look like 150 W. You will not see that much water in droplets being forced up the glass walls. If macroscopic quantities droplets were forced up the walls or magically carried by steam at just above 1 atm, they would not be pure water; they would carry salt with them, and this would be detected. Microscopic amounts of pure water might be removed, but a microscopic effect would not cause 30 W to look like 150 W. In short, you are making a gigantic mistake. But in a sense, your estimate of how people behave and the likelihood that Fleischmann, Pons and their co-workers would do what you imagine they did is even more far-fetched than your droplet hypothesis.

  • If you are saying you don't believe Fleischmann, and you don't think they calibrated, then the discussion is over. There is nothing I can say to convince you if you don't trust the authors. Except that I would suggest you try calibrating yourself. See if you can force droplets out of a test tube in large enough amounts to make 35 W input look like 150 W.


    Jed, could you please give me a reference for this calibration (in boiling conditions similar to the boil-off conditions that resulted in large apparent excess) , so I can determine what it was, what were the results, etc. this is something where details are needed (as in a careful write-up) and therefore anecdotal accounts without details do not help us. It is not in the F&P paper and therefore even if done in some other similar experiment it does not much help us, given we know the extraordinary excess heat does not always occur.

  • ed, could you please give me a reference for this calibration (in boiling conditions similar to the boil-off conditions that resulted in large apparent excess) , so I can determine what it was, what were the results, etc. this is something where details are needed (as in a careful write-up) and therefore anecdotal accounts without details do not help us.

    These are not anecdotal accounts. All of the observations I listed were published in papers by Fleischmann, and also by Miles, Hansen, Biberian and others who did boiling experiments. They are not in a single paper, or well organized. Some are not at LENR-CANR.org. I cannot find a description of the blank boiling cell calibrations, but I am 100% sure they are there.


    However, more to the point, you don't need papers. You don't need Fleischmann, Miles or anyone else. You can see for yourself. I mean that literally. Look a good copy of the boil off experiment video and you will see, for example, that:


    1. Boiling continues after electrolysis stops

    2. Only the cathode is hot. That is the only source of boiling.


    So the heat cannot be from electrolysis input power, and your droplet theory cannot explain it. How could droplets cause boiling when there is no input power? How could they cause one electrode to get hot while the other remains cool? Your hypothesis explains at best one observation out of seven, leaving the others unexplained, so it is a non-starter. Whereas the hypothesis that there is anomalous excess heat explains all observations. Here's the list:

    1. A heat balance of zero in several different calibrations. (What I cannot find on-line at the moment. The other 6 in this list are covered in great detail.)
    2. All of the salts left in the cell. (What you attempt to explain, only your explanation is 100,000 times too small.)
    3. Boiling with far less input power than normal.
    4. Boiling with no input power.
    5. Melted Kel-F plastic when the calibration leaves the plastic underwater.
    6. Excess heat a week before the boiling, and for up to a day after it. Why did it stop for 10 minutes only?
    7. Boiling on the cathode only

    I cannot find #1 but the others are described in detail in several different papers. For example, Miles observed boiling on the cathode only in his work at the NHE lab. See p. 60:


    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanthermalbeh.pdf


    (That paper has a lot about the calorimetry and blanks in the other phases.)


    See also:


    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf


    Again, those 7 points are not "anecdotal." They are repeated, independently replicated, published observations.


    It is not in the F&P paper and therefore even if done in some other similar experiment it does not much help us, given we know the extraordinary excess heat does not always occur.

    When the excess heat does not occur, items 3 - 7 also do not occur. It is obvious. Boiling is not the only evidence of heat in the boil-off experiments. Plus, there are other indications the experiment is not working, such as low loading and the wrong OCV, and your droplet hypothesis does not explain these either.


    To put it another way: if, as you say, the excess heat does not always occur (correct!), and the calorimetry is faulty, how could it sometimes fail and sometimes work? Do the droplets turn on and off depending on loading and various events that occur a week before the boil off?


    This is wrong: "It is not in the F&P paper and therefore even if done in some other similar experiment." It is in other F&P papers; it isn't just "similar" -- it is exactly the same; similar boil off experiments have been done millions of times since the 18th century. The heat of vaporization of water is well established, and Fleischmann's experiment, and his cell, are excellent ways to measure this. Some other cell designs would not be.


    You can confirm much of this just by looking at the video, but here is something else you can do -- and you should do, if you are serious. You have proposed a droplet hypothesis that makes 35 W of input look like 150 W. It causes a gigantic error. An artifact. If you are correct, this is an important new hypothesis. If confirmed, it will overturn a great deal of ordinary chemistry and various industrial processes such as distillation. So, you should do two things:


    1. Compute how much pure water would have to condense on the walls and then be carried out of the cell to cause an error of this magnitude.


    2. Conduct an experiment to show that this error can happen. I think you will find the effect is microscopic at best. I mean it is too small to seen with naked eye. You will not spot any droplets moving up with the steam. Therefore, based on your computation in Step 1, it will be far too small to cause the effect.


    3. Compute the heat balance from your test. I am confident you will not see anything remotely like a 130 W artifact. There will be no hint of excess heat. The balance computed from vaporization alone will be negative, because it does not include radiation from the cell. Whereas it is positive from vaporization alone in Fleischmann's experiment.


    You can use any narrow test tube for this. If you want to test one similar to Fleischmann's, look at the schematics in his papers. You do not need electrolysis; resistance heating is fine.

  • Liquid losses from F&P open cells: from admission via negation back to admission


    1) Admission (December 1989, revised in March 1990) – From article "Calorimetry of the palladium-deuterium-heavy water system" (1):

    "there is usually a change to an increase of the potential with time when cells are driven to the boiling point probably due to the loss of electrolyte in spray leaving the cells."


    2) Negation (August 1993) – From Fleischmann's reply to Morrison's comments on F&P paper "Calorimetry of the Pd-D2O system: from simplicity via complications to simplicity" (2):

    "Stage 4 Calculation Douglas Morrison first of all raises the question whether parts of the cell contents may have been expelled as droplets during the later stages of intense heating. This is readily answered by titrating the residual cell contents: based on our earlier work about 95% of the residual lithium deuteroxide is recovered; some is undoubtedly lost in the reaction of this "aggressive" species with the glass components to form residues which cannot be titrated.

    Furthermore, we have found that the total amounts of D2O added to the cells (in some cases over periods of several months) correspond precisely to the amounts predicted to be evolved by (a) evaporation of D2O at the instantaneous atmospheric pressures and (b) by electrolysis of D2O to form D2 and O2 at the appropriate currents; this balance can be maintained even at temperatures in excess of 90 degrees C [7]"


    3) Admission (October 1996) – From Roulette-Pons "RESULTS OF ICARUS 9 EXPERIMENTS RUN AT IMRA EUROPE" (3):

    "These calorimeters are much improved in thermal dissipation, sensitivity, precision, and accuracy compared to the original calorimeters used in these laboratories from 1992 to 1995. The present design incorporates better seals at all liquid/casing interfaces, and at the thermistor inlet ports. […] Foam rise in the calorimeter at the boiling temperature has been minimized."


    (1) http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetr.pdf

    (2) http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf

    (3) http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RouletteTresultsofi.pdf

  • You can confirm much of this just by looking at the video, but here is something else you can do -- and you should do, if you are serious. You have proposed a droplet hypothesis that makes 35 W of input look like 150 W. It causes a gigantic error. An artifact. If you are correct, this is an important new hypothesis. If confirmed, it will overturn a great deal of ordinary chemistry and various industrial processes such as distillation.


    Jed, what I and Ascoli propose here is not new, nor does it in any way chnage industrial processes such as distillation.


    For it not being new, I refer you to F&P's own work, where Appendix I recognises the possibility but does not elaborate except to say that it is complicated

    For it changing distillation: you've made this comment a few times and I don't understand it.


    This is wrong: "It is not in the F&P paper and therefore even if done in some other similar experiment." It is in other F&P papers; it isn't just "similar" -- it is exactly the same; similar boil off experiments have been done millions of times since the 18th century. The heat of vaporization of water is well established, and Fleischmann's experiment, and his cell, are excellent ways to measure this. Some other cell designs would not be.


    You agree that such effects are apparatus-dependent. You agree, I think, that F&P have not documented the testing of the specific apparatus they use. You therefore rely on there being no unexpected effects that would switch the behaviour of the F&P apparatus in active tests towards higher condensation of vapour. within the calorimetric boundary. Yet this effect (condensation within the calorimetric boundary) is of its nature complex. It is like a basball player saying: i always hold my bat this way and kiss my good luck charm, then I can always hit the ball out of the ground. (Forgive me if I'm translating improperly from cricket to baseball here). That empirical observation is 100% true --- until it is false. Without exact understanding unanticipated variables can change behaviour, which is why scientists are careful about such things.


    You rely on authority: that F was an expert calorimetrist who can be trusted to have done this right even though he does not show this in write-ups. I do not. That difference in view is fundamental, and comes from my more skeptical approach towards unsupported scientific statements of experimental truth.


    Do most scientists do this double checking all the time? No. They do it when there is no additional confirmation that results are correct, or when something weird happens, or when results are unreliable. All three apply in this case.

  • So you think that your woolly suppositions about CCS trump McKubre's finite element modelling (with moving heat sources)?


    Ah Zeus, you troll you....


    What equations exactly did Dr. McKubre have in his finite element model to test the CCS problem? Have you seen his code? I am aware he did a FE model as part of the investigation into Andrew Riley's death, but I admit to not having searched for this particular detail in that report. Did you perhaps?


    And just what is 'wooly' about partitioning the recombination heat between two (or more) locations as opposed to limiting it to just one?


    Do you have any info that Dr. McKubre tested for that with heaters in the gas space of his cell that were then compared to the heaters in the electrolyte and wrapped around the whole cell?


    So yes, I do think my suppositions about CCSs trump McKubre's unsupported assertions about what he did and what he saw, since he never describes it in enough detail to determine if he actually ran tests that would eliminate the possibility of a CCS due to ATER (or something generically equivalent thermally).


    BTW these are rhetorical questions primarily for the lurkers, I expect you to troll some more on this but I won't be replying.

  • Ah Shanahan you little crackpot, you...


    All reasonable points, however as McKubre hasn't dropped any major clangers about the first two laws of thermodynamics (to my knowledge at least) - I'll stick with him for now, ta.


    And that's probably your fourth "last ever" reply to me! That shtick is wearing a little thin...


    And just what is 'wooly' about partitioning the recombination heat between two (or more) locations as opposed to limiting it to just one?


    Because the effects can be ingrated away with decent calorimeter design. As FEA modelling can no doubt affirm.

  • Because the effects can be ingrated away with decent calorimeter design. As FEA modelling can no doubt affirm.



    No, they can't. Just shows you haven't bothered to understand as usual. Troll.


    And that's probably your fourth "last ever" reply to me! That shtick is wearing a little thin...


    Well sorry to tire you but your trolling tires me too. So stop trolling and I will be able to stop clarifying what you muddy up for the rest of the readers.

  • "Because the effects can be ingrated away with decent calorimeter design."


    No, they can't. Just shows you haven't bothered to understand as usual. Troll.


    Five times now. And Shanahan, you nutter, you're now claiming that 'every single calorimeter ever' would be flummoxed if the heat source moved? Because that's just silly...

    And I point out an old post from McKubre, which answers your recent points, and then point out how typically you ignore such posts... And suddenly the post is being ignored, and I'm accused of trolling. Some kind of distraction strategy perhaps.

    I could equally argue that you troll anyone with common sense, or maybe even a single shred of rational thought.

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