[SPLIT]Older LENR Experiments were bad, good... in general


    The point was that this is a well-known experiment, and the use of series connection so that experiment and control have the exact same current is not uncommon. Cold fusion researchers often use constant-current supplies, because it makes the measurement of power simple. I'm not going into all the detail here. The fact was that Wyttenbach was simply showing a lack of familiarity with cold fusion research, and used his inexperienced ideas of what is good and bad as a standard for making a definitive statement that was simply wrong.


    The purpose of the test was to look for XP and to compare results with deuterium and hydrogen. This did it very effectively. Wyttenbach has not stated what he would use as an alternative, other than constant voltage, but it would introduce variables, almost certainly, that the electrochemists who do this work would not want. Yes, below a certain voltage threshold there would be little effect. They are not below that threshold nor are they close to it.


    Because Wyttenbach has never done this kind of work, and has not studied the work of those who have, he has no idea of what benefits might accrue.


    For myself, I considered doing a codep experiment with a light water control. I would have placed two cells in series, using a single constant current supply, thus providing the same current for both. Yes, the power input is different. But that comes out in the wash, the input power is subtracted. I am aware that it is a variable, but comparing hydrogen and deuterium will always involve some variation unless a lot more work is done. Efficiency of the work is an issue.


    (Constant current means that the rate of evolution is constant for hydrogen and deuterium. It takes different voltages to make that rate the same for a hydrogen and deuterium cell.)


    The voltages are measured. That's easy to do. The cells are treated identically, same method of recording data. I would have had for my data collection system the collection of three voltages, one of which would be ground. So it's really only two: the full voltage across the two cells, and the voltage across one of them, the one connected to ground on one side. So that's two voltages to record, plus the current, which is held constant. Measuring current is more complex than measuring voltage, one must have a shunt for each current to be measured (and there would be two). With constant current, there is one measurement of current, and it is often a computer-controlled setting in the power supply. It can be measured with a meter for confirmation, but these supplies are very reliable.


    (I have done substantial analysis of raw data from work where the input to the cell was "constant power." That looks like a great idea, but I think it isn't. It really isn't constant power. It is a constant current supply that is programmed to change to keep power constant. When one tries to look at what is going on in the cell as to, say, a resistance drop that I noticed always preceded the appearance of XP in that work, it is then masked by the changes in programming. A mess. It *seems* simpler to control the power, but in actuality, constant current is preferred by electrochemists, it appears, constant voltage is almost never used. Power is then calculated.)


    (Changing the current changes the rate of evolution of deuterium which is a critical variable. Allowing the voltage to change does not affect that variable if current is constant. Voltage is noisy because of bubbles changing the effective resistance of the interface layer which is where most of the voltage drop is found. My suspicion about that resistance drop is that there is a burst of alphas at low energies, lowering the resistance of the interface layer. This also explains the SPAWAR "hamburger" and the "chemical etch" of CR-39. It would only affect a very thin layer of electrolyte. These are all things that could warrant extensive investigation.)

    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    There is some basic chemistry here: the reaction of molecular hydrogen with palladium, which dissociates the molecule, i.e,. the formation of palladium deuteride, is exothermic. It takes energy to break the H2 bond, but this is more than returned by the heat of formation of palladium deuteride. So the reverse reaction, the release of hydrogen -- which will "evaporate" from palladium deuteride -- is endothermic. Yes, the released hydrogen will combine with itself to generate heat, but that is more than compensated by the cooling from the evaporation. Thus atomic recombination cannot be a source of heat for HAD.


    Put simply and respectfully, no. The energy for dissociation comes during electrolysis. Hydrogen does not spontaneously dissociate, THAT reaction is endothermic (positive delta H). The reassociation is energy yielding, in fact strongly so. You are right about many things, but not this.

    Quote from Eric Walker

    I'm saying the part about 2 or more zones still being subject to possible CCS, possibly because of the positioning of feedthroughs, is hand-wavy. Do you disagree? Can you suggest a concrete experiment using just resistance heaters, or possibly forced on-cathode recombination (using bubblers perhaps)


    (Creating this reply took me a bit as I has to recreate my math from 16 years ago...then I had to reformat it after the cut-and-paste...whew!)


    Yes, I disagree. It’s more solid that that due to some mathematical teeth. Let's try working through the algebra. For an electrolysis cell the input power is given by I * V, and it is divided into two parts by the thermoneutral potential (Vth). Ohmic heating of the electrolyte (zone 1) is (V-Vth)*I. Recombination heat (zone 2) is given by Vth * I. For a two zone model, e1 and e2 are the (fractional) heat capture efficiencies of the two zones. Assume a closed cell so you don't have to mess with the overall recombination fraction and exiting gases. In my formulation of the problem, because the recombination heat is normally all in the gas space and the ohmic heat is all in the liquid (‘normally’ implies no active FPHE) the power in each zone is the ohmic and recombination heat, and the measured heat coming out (< Pin) is given by the zone efficiencies times the zone power, i.e.


    actual 'uncalibrated' Pout = Pout)act = [ ( (e1) * (V-Vth) * I ) + (e2) * (Vth * I) ) ]


    Since Pout)act is less that Pin due to losses we have to calibrate. But we also know the overall expression Pout)act = e0 * Pin, so substituting that in (using V= Vohm + Vth also):


    Pout)act = e0 * Pin = e0 * (Vohm + Vth) = [ ( (e1) * (Vohm) * I ) + (e2) * (Vth * I) ) ]


    Rearranging to isolate e2 from the rightmost equality, e2 = e0 + (e0-e1) * Vohm/Vth


    Now we can compute some example cases.


    First, if e2 = e1, the model reduces to the 1 zone model (parenthetical tem is zero). Second, recall e1 is postulated to be greater than e0, and e2 less, so that limits the ranges we need to look at. Basically we need to use realistic e1 values such as .985 up to .99999. So if e1=.985 and e0=.98, e2 = e0 + (e0-e1) * Vohm/Vth = .98 + (.98-.985) * (8.46/1.54) = .98 - .02746 = .9523


    If e1=.99 and e0=.98, e2 = .9251. If e1=.9999 and e0=.98, e2 = .8707, etc., etc. So there are several possible e1,e2 pairs that would give the observed (via 1 zone model) overall heat capture efficiency.


    Let's use the (.99, .9251) values and consider the CCS case, where a portion of the recombination heat is moved from zone 2 to zone 1. Use z as the fraction moved. Now zone 2 actual heat = (1-z) * (Vth*I) and zone 1 is [(z) * (Vth) * I] + [ (V-Vth) * I ] (moved heat plus ohmic heat), and the power equation becomes:


    actual 'uncalibrated' Pout = [ ( e1 * Vohm * I ) +( (1-z) * e2 * Vth * I )+ ((z) * e1 * Vth * I) ]


    This would be the straight calculated Pout with no calibration. Also note the moved heat is now multiplied by e1, not e2, thus since e1>e2, the sum will be larger than the base case of no ATE recombination (i.e. an excess!).


    Now recall we were going to have to develop a calibration equation from the ‘no-moved-heat’ case above. That means to get the true Pout values, i.e. Pout)cal, you have to apply the calibration equation, i.e. Pout)cal = m * Pout)act +b, and now Pout)cal = Pin = IV. Note that if b = 0, the m value = 1/e0, so Pout)cal = (1/e0) * Pout)act. This is the ‘bump up’ I talk about.


    In usual practice the computed Pout)act values would be multiplied by the constant (m) and have another constant added (b). With the moved heat, the new Pout)actual would still be multiplied by the same m and have the same b added. But we haven’t changed the total heat present, just the location and thereby how much of the recombination heat gets reported (which will be a positive excess due to the problem construct). So a difference in Pout)cal for the two cases shows up and gets reported as a positive excess.


    How big that is a concern of course. So let’s put in some numbers. For example, a 50% moved heat means z=.5 and using the prior e and V values:


    Pout)act = [ ( .99 * 8.46 * 3 ) + (.5 * .99 * 1.54 * 3) + ((.5) * .9251 * 1.54 * 3 ) ]
    Pout)act = [ ( 25.1262 ) + (2.2869) +(2.1370) ] =29.5501


    Before the move, Pout)act = [ ( (e1) * (Vohm) * I ) + (e2) * (Vth * I) ) ] = 3* [ .99*8.46 + .9251*1.54]=29.4002
    and the excess would be m*(29.5501-29.4002). So if m = 1/e0 = 1/.98 for the Storms data, the excess heat = 1.02041 * .1499 = .1530 W or 153 mW excess.


    In the bracketed term above, the first term is the ohmic heat, the second is the moved recomb. heat and the third term is the unmoved recomb. heat. We see an excess of 153 mW over the nominal Pi = 10*3 = 30W, and all we did was change the location of some of the recombination heat.


    Note that the 153 mW is not the value from the Storms study, which was 780 mW or so. So maybe we chose the wrong e1, e2 pair and z value. Choosing the .9999,.8707 pair only gives 304 mW excess, still not up to Ed’s value. If we up the z value to all of the recombination, it’s like the 1 zone case but using the higher efficiency, meaning our actual Pout would be 30W which is then bumped to 30.612 for a Pex = 612 mW.


    We are in the ballpark now, so we would really have to use the actual data to do the comparisons to see how close we can come to his reported Pex. That’s something I don’t need to do to make my case. This model is a simple way of illustrating the idea of different heat detection efficiency in a real cell. The residual disagreement shown above is likely due to some of the assumptions made in the derivation (such as linearity and b=0) plus the fact that real noise isn’t factored in here. A finite element or difference model would be the best way to do this most realistically. I personally can’t do that.


    Quote from Eric Walker

    Can you suggest a concrete experiment using just resistance heaters, or possibly forced on-cathode recombination (using bubblers perhaps), that will show or falsify a CSS "signal" in a setup specifically with several thermal barriers?


    Ed and I batted this around a lot. As I recall, he always found a problem with my suggestions and I with his, but we can speculate a little (no guarantees these ideas will work)...


    One might use two cal resistors, one in the gas and one in the liquid, and 'calibrate' with a fixed partition, then change it as done in the calculation above, and see if you get 'excess'. This could be done with the current cell configurations I believe if the typical (electrode + Joule heater in the electrolyte) was simply changed to (Joule heater in gas + Joule heater in liquid) by removing the electrodes and connecting the leads to the second Joule heater that is then placed in the gas space.


    Since this seems relatively easy to do I would probably try it, but you have to remember that resistor calibration is different from electrolysis calibration. Resistors don't stir the electrolyte much, so maybe you’d need to add stirring. I'd watch the viscosity and Cp with T changes too since we are dealing with such small effects. Very tricky to do right.


    With the bubbling gas over the cathode, you would still need to have the special active state present (the RAE), which is also very tricky to get and keep around. The bubbles would need to adhere to the electrode surface so an initiator could be present. Then you have the question: Do O2 bubbles merge directly with H2, or do they need to first adhere to the electrode, or do H2 and O2 need to mix in solution and then adhere? The size of the bubbles might make a difference too, since that impacts the total energy needed to reform the bubble surface on the electrode. These are small effects but they are mechanistic details that would have to be worked out.


    I think my preference would be to learn to control the formation of the RAE as it is being called and then get a high degree of reproducibility in producing and controlling the apparent excess heat signal. That's still a lot of work though and actually not very different from what people try to do now. The main difference would be that the experimental parameter variations would be chose based on the non-nuclear FPHE model.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    I think you have me mixed up with someone else. I did not mention an external condensor or recombiner. Miles did not use either one, as far as I know. He measured the gas and vented it. He also measured the electrolyte water level.


    I did not say combination happens always. It happens never, with an open cell that is vented.


    No Jed, I am not mixed up, I just remember the literature better than you (primarily because I am less biased). I have been discussing the 2005 paper by Szpak, Mosier-Boss, *MILES*, and Fleiscmann, where they measure 7.7cc of water consumed when they calulate it should have been 7.2. I checked and I see they actually don't say how they did that, so maybe it wasn't Miles after all.


    But you missed the point. The point is that the electrolysis gases normally do not recombine. When they do, explosions tend to occur.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    A Venturi is often used. See p. 8 here:


    lenr-canr.org/acrobat/McKubreMCHcoldfusione.pdf


    Interesting that we don't get that until 2014. Is there an early reference to this?



    So, what are the error bars on those methods? The CCS effect works in the 1% relative standard deviation regime. If the techniques you refer to aren't that good, they won't pick up the problem. Plus, do your referenced methods include entrainment?

    Quote from Longview

    Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:


    Put simply and respectfully, no. The energy for dissociation comes during electrolysis. Hydrogen does not spontaneously dissociate, THAT reaction is endothermic (positive delta H). The reassociation is energy yielding, in fact strongly so. You are right about many things, but not this.


    Actually, hydrogen will spontaneously enter palladium, electrolysis is not required. The entry requires dissociation. Electrolysis, by generating hydrogen at the surface, speeds it up. Some might form H2 and then enter, dissociating in the process.


    If course hydrogen does not dissociate spontaneously. However, that fact is then used here incorrectly. The thinking is probably that to enter palladium the hydrogen must dissociate first. But palladium will spontaneously strip one hydrogen atom from another. That is how it can catalyze recombination, in fact. Otherwise H2 and O2 gas can mix, and unless the temperature reaches ignition temperature (where some of the hydrogen will be dissociated), it won't burn.


    Here: http://scitation.aip.org/conte…cp/28/1/10.1063/1.1744059, a 1958 paper.

    Quote

    Pure palladium spontaneously absorbs hydrogen in hydrogen‐stirred solution until the saturation limit of the α phase is reached. This limiting atomic ratio of H/Pd=0.025±0.005. Between a H/Pd atomic ratio of 0.03 to 0.36 both the α and β phases coexist and the mixed potential is determined by that of the α domains. In the H/Pd region 0.36 to 0.6, the potential is a function of the hydrogen content of the palladium.


    The need for electrolysis as a loading method is to reach high loading values, above 60%. Pressurized hydrogen can also be used.


    The reaction of palladium with hydrogen is exothermic. That includes subtracting the dissociation endothermy. From that we know that the reverse reaction must be endothermic.


    Thanks for putting it respectfully. Being wrong is the fastest way to learn. By saying what you believed, you exposed some gaps in your knowledge. That is to be encouraged.


    And, of course, if I'm wrong, I learn big time.


    Just a little more thinking about palladium and hydrogen. When the palladium approaches saturation, it becomes easier for the deuterium to "evaporate," I call it. It's like water: the heat of formation of water from water vapor his high. So evaporation is endothermic, but it happens spontaneously. That's the basis of evaporative cooling. That happens because the Boltzmann distribution of molecular velocities in the liquid includes velocities adequate to climb the potential barrier created by the hydrogen bonds that hold water together, and escape. Because the hotter molecules escape (and are slowed in the process), the water cools. Hydrogen behavior in palladium is like that. The escape rate varies with temperature, as expected. Electrolysis adds hydrogen vapor pressure at the surface of the palladium. That Pons and Fleischmann were able to reach high loading was not expected by most (so the negative replications were happy with 70%). McKubre recognized immediately that they must have done that, because PdD was well explored up to maybe 60-70%.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Light water and heavy water look exactly the same from the calorimeter's point of view. For that matter, salad oil would be the same. Cooling water passing the outside walls of the cell will show no difference between heavy water, light water, Crisco, or a cell filled with air with a joule heater. If it does show a difference, it is not working right.


    In a perfect world sure. In the real world all those materials have a different thermal conductivity, which means that heat flows differently in the same calorimeter depending on the materials present. Yet the feedthroughs and supports and such don't change. In principle then, the changes in heat's residence time could allow for differing amounts of heat lost, which would change the calibration, etc.


    The key point is what the error bars on the conclusions with different materials present are, and whether they are significantly different between cases. Of course, my whole point of the papers that I have written on CF is that the CFers don't do adequate error analysis and thus assume significance when they shouldn't.


    Quote from JedRothwell

    A variety of blanks tests are done, such as a heater in ordinary water, a heater in heavy water, or Pt in light or heavy water. Only Pd-D produces anomalous heat. (Ed Storms once claimed that Pt-D worked in one instance, but I do not know of other observations of this. If it is replicated it may change the assumptions made in these experiments.)


    Oh, that is rich! ROTFL! Storms' 'one case' is the study I wrote my first paper in CF about! It's the one where I point out the CCS! Oh wow...you really are up on the literature aren't you Jed...

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Any experiment that is calibrated proves him wrong. Any experiment in which the researcher confirms there is no recombination proves him wrong. So between those two, that's all experiments. Every one of them proves he is wrong. Period.


    Missed the whole point again didn't you Jed....


    The whole point, well known to analytical chemists (and others I presume), is that you can't calibrate an unstable system. By "can't calibrate" I mean you can't obtain reliable results. Of course you can go through the motions and try, but the test is whether you get reproducible results over an extended time period.


    My 'CCS' criticism points us a systematic error in the usual CF calorimetry methods that assigns a more correct noise value to the technique than simply looking at baseline noise. The Storms' case semonstrates that a 780mW excess heat is noise.



    You seem to have an extreme emotional committment to this idea that there are no mistakes being made by the CFers. That's not a good thing.

    Quote from Longview

    Put simply and respectfully, no. The energy for dissociation comes during electrolysis. Hydrogen does not spontaneously dissociate, THAT reaction is endothermic (positive delta H). The reassociation is energy yielding, in fact strongly so. You are right about many things, but not this.


    Nope...H2 dissociation is very definitely exothermic. I gas load a variety of hydride materials and I always monitot the temperature rise that I get when exposing an empty material to H2. Sometimes the rise can be near to 100 degrees C (depends on a variety of parametes of course).


    It has been suggested in the literature that at very high loadings, H adsorption into Pd might become endothermic, but that is a very hard region to study via gas loading (H/M = .9 or greater), so I don't believe it is confirmed.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    The whole point, well known to analytical chemists (and others I presume), is that you can't calibrate an unstable system.


    Electrolysis is stable. Many cold fusion reactions are stable. So once again you are imagining a situation that does not exist. You should be running for President!


    "Things would be so different, if they were not as they are." - Anna Russell

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    No Jed, I am not mixed up, I just remember the literature better than you (primarily because I am less biased). I have been discussing the 2005 paper by Szpak, Mosier-Boss, *MILES*, and Fleiscmann, where they measure 7.7cc of water consumed when they calulate it should have been 7.2. I checked and I see they actually don't say how they did that, so maybe it wasn't Miles after all


    Wait! Hold the presses! I made another mistake!!!


    Reading again the paper above, I see they referenced a paper by Szpak, et, al from 1998 (Fusion Tech. 33 (1998) 38). AN umarked copy of it is here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SzpakSonthebehavc.pdf They show how they measure evolved gases and it *IS* as I thought. They route the gases through a recombiner to make water and then collect the liquid water.


    So getting back to my original comment on Jed's remark,


    kirkshanahan wrote:
    "No Jed, recombination does NOT happen always. Why do you think Miles, et al, used an external "recombiner". It wasn't an external "condenser"."


    Jed replied:
    "I think you have me mixed up with someone else. I did not mention an external condensor or recombiner. Miles did not use either one, as far as I know. He measured the gas and vented it. He also measured the electrolyte water level.I did not say combination happens always. It happens never, with an open cell that is vented."


    I was correct, Jed was not. They did not measure the gas and vent it, they recombined the gas and collected the product (liquid water).


    My point was that the error in that measurement was 6.5%, vs. a 1-3% change in cal constants in the Storms data reanalysis. Their methodoogy would likely not see the problem. And as said before, it also did not allow for entrainment, even though they collected more water than they had electrolyzed.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    kirkshanahan wrote:
    The whole point, well known to analytical chemists (and others I presume), is that you can't calibrate an unstable system.


    Electrolysis is stable. Many cold fusion reactions are stable. So once again you are imagining a situation that does not exist. You should be running for President!


    "Things would be so different, if they were not as they are." - Anna Russell


    Jed, for the 2 billionth time, the excess heat signal is the indicator of the change in steady state that invalidates the calibration...

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    Jed, for the 2 billionth time, the excess heat signal is the indicator of the change in steady state that invalidates the calibration...


    The excess heat is often stable. It often continues for hours after all other inputs are turned off. So the excess heat itself is usually in steady state, both when it is combined with steady state input power, and by itself.


    Again, you make things up.


    Even if you were right, how could you distinguish between your pretend heat and real heat? Your hypothesis is not falsifiable. The artifact you propose produces the same conditions and results as real excess heat (stable or unstable). Anomalous heat has been detected with many instruments your theory cannot touch, such as Seebeck calorimeters. In most other experiments, conditions you postulate -- such as recombination -- never occur. They are ruled out. So you are wrong about the vast majority of experiments. Since the few remaining tests might as well be actual heat as your (pretend) artifact, it makes more sense to assume the heat is real in these cases as well.


    You need to give it up. No one believes your nonsense. You make catastrophic quantitative errors without even noticing it. You are off by a factor of 37,000 for heat after death. You stopped doing science years ago. You are spinning your wheels inventing endless nonsense out there in Cloud Cuckoo Land, and wasting hours of your life for nothing.

    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    Added. The plot mentioned for SRI P13/P14 is on page 2 of the report given to the DoE in 2004: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Hagelsteinnewphysica.pdf


    This is not an impressive level of heat, the peak is about 500 mW. That lasted for 84 hours. If Shanahan wants to explain this with a mysterious recombination effect, he'll need to look at the specific calorimetry. The efficiency of the flow heat capture was 99%. The cell architecture has both the electrolyte and the recombiner relatively far from the coolant outlet, so a positional difference would be suppressed.


    Yeah so...two nominally identical cells, at least physically. Same current to both...OK, no problem. One used D2O, one H2O...oh oh...problem...significantly different chemical characteristics....observe apparent excess heat in D2O, not in H2O...OK, typical result...lasted 84 hours...yup, a little less than some...(I was discussing CF with a chemist one time, who was more cognent than most, and he thought it was related to a phase change. I asked him is a phase change would last hundreds of hours. He said no.)...99% efficient, 500 mW excess...not too different from Storms' numerics. I don't see a problem here. Fits my proposal like an glove (no...not the OJ type...).


    Distance from the coolant outlet is not a relevant paramter in my model.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    You are off by a factor of 37,000 for heat after death.


    Oh yes..HAD...


    Let's see. My thesis: minor changes in heat distribution in a cell can cause minor changes in calibration curves, which then produces apparent excess heat signals....


    HAD...Cell has had electrolyte level reduced to the point where no current flows or the current has just been turned off...that means no electrolysis...that means no bubbles stirring the electrolyte and no gas leaving the cell...probably get some recombination of existing D2 or H2 and O2 in the gas space, gas space is much larger than in normal situation, also might get air flow into cell to replace consumed material not compensated for by water vapor...means cell heat capture efficiencies have to be altered from normal configuration...means input 'power' not clear (how much air influx?)...definitely means different cal curve needed....Is different cal curve determined and applied?...nope...never...conclusion: HAD claims are bogus.


    I also remind people that someone (Abd? Jed?) just posted a message stating it took 89 hours to unload a Pd electrode..I have no problem with that statement...so in theory you'd have a heat source present until all that H2 was oxidized...so in theory you could get a HAD indication for that timeframe plus a little I'd guess.


    It's also amusing to look in my whitepaper and see Figure 1, where I superimposed Fleischmann and Pons' Figures 8a and 8b from their Phys. Lett. A 176 (1993) 118 paper. (Check here for a link to it: http://www.e-catworld.com/2012…s-article-of-cold-fusion/)
    Note first that the two Figures are time plots of input power, cell temperature and cell voltage for two nominaly identical cells. One is claimed to have displayed a HAD event, the other not. The plots are virtually identical...so I'd say either *both* had no HAD or *both* had a HAD. I defy you to tell me which one was the HAD and which not. My conclusion was the criteria used to designate a HAD event were flawed.

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    Conclusion: We can't measure the power of an engine, because starting it disrupts the steady state... @Kirki: VW looks for engineers!


    The appropriate comparison is that you are in your car at a 500RPM idle when it suddently jumps to 700 RPM and you claim leprechauns just jumped on the engine and made it run faster. Not that you started your car. Get with the program dude...it's always the leprechauns.


    Kirk, you remember a narrow range of the literature, not because you are less biased, but because it is where you found "smoking guns," you thought. That had emotional impact. And, if you are normal, what you will remember is not the actual paper data, but what you thought it meant. We have already discussed that paper in this sequence. What they measured was "makeup water," i.e, water to restore the cell to initial conditions. Recombination would create less loss of water, so the error there is in the wrong direction. It is used, by you, to then claim similar error in many experiments, though this only applies to the one experiment and the error is 0.5 ml. With a reasonable sized cell, that would be a very small visible difference. They said that it was "within experimental error," which is sensible, especially when we consider evaporation, i.e., water vapor in the outlet gases. The method of measuring the gas itself is more accurate, probably. The water evaporation effect is apparently small.


    Explosions occur when gases are allowed to build up. The SRI explosion involved a recombiner failure, it got wet, and wet recombiners don't work. (That, by the way, is a guide to part of the problem with the unexpected recombination theory, showing how, yes, it requires an anomaly, unexpected behavior.) When the gases built up, being an explosive mixture, then the recombiner worked enough to release enough heat to ignite the mixture, and BANG! And a fatality and McKubre still has glass in his body, if I'm correct.

    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    Basically, recombination could explain a small, immediate HAD effect. Not a large or extended one.


    No...no problem with long term event...


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    Shanahan posits that "Heat after Death" is from recombination. Old idea. However, there is a problem. When the electrolytic current stops, the cathode deloads, evolving deuterium. There was only a limited amount of oxygen in an open cell, likewise in a closed one. (orphaned oxygen has been vented). So this oxygen could reach the cathode, which is now exposed, butit will be quickly used up, and the evolving deuterium gas, in an open cell, will exclude atmospheric oxygen from entering.


    a.) Everyone accepts that H2 present in the cell would combine with O2 in the presence of the now exposed metal electrodes.


    b.) Everything depends on rates. If the D2 evolves slowly, it will not block air ingress because 2H2 + O2 = 2 H2O. That means the molar content of the gas space decreases which would cause a suction, relieved by air ingress. The O2 in that air will further react with the current D2, further reducing the pressure and causing more reverse flow. OTOH, recombination at the electrode (now over-the-surface) will heat the electrode speeding up D2 release. Wonder who wins the race?...


    c.) The HAD situation is *radically* different from the normal operating condition. See previous post regarding what this means...

    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    Kirk, you remember a narrow range of the literature, not because you are less biased, but because it is where you found "smoking guns," you thought. That had emotional impact.


    No, I cite a limited range of papers, because, yes, they have major importance to understanding the phenomena. And no, what's more important is that they have scientific impact.


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    We have already discussed that paper in this sequence. What they measured was "makeup water," i.e, water to restore the cell to initial conditions. Recombination would create less loss of water, so the error there is in the wrong direction.


    I hope you are referring to the "SMMF" 2004 publication which I wrote a comment on in 2005. In that aper, they DO NOT SPECIFY how they measure the water. They *do* REFERENCE the other paper I mention, which explains, with a Figure, how they measure water. The IMPLICATION is that that is what they did in the 2004 paper. If not, they screwed up and should have explicitly said what they did. Until they publish an Erratum though, all of us are forced to assume the reference means that's how they did it.


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    It is used, by you, to then claim similar error in many experiments, though this only applies to the one experiment


    Since this experiment has produced what I consider to be a unique and relevant result, why would you presume that suggesting it may be going on in other experiments of similar physical construction is wrong? They have a typical open cell. They recombined the effluent gases and measured it. They found 6.5% more water than they expected. I at least think this came from a 'normal' physical/chemical process probably active in other similar cells, which leads me to distrust connecting water lost/found measurements with the actual (not theoretical) extent of recombination.


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    and the error is 0.5 ml. With a reasonable sized cell, that would be a very small visible difference. They said that it was "within experimental error," which is sensible,


    Yes it is 'small', but what *exactly* do you (or they) mean by *small*. I am quantitative. The CCS I detected in Ed's work was a 1% effect. Their error was 6.5%, which places it in the generic 5-10% effect category. Which means that it masks the 1% effects. This is the difference between myself and those of the old school, who simply wave their hands at effects in the 5-20% range with the phrase "within experiemntal error". That might be true, but the hand waving stops further thinking, and beneficial results can come from thinking about *small* things.


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    especially when we consider evaporation, i.e., water vapor in the outlet gases. The method of measuring the gas itself is more accurate, probably. The water evaporation effect is apparently small.


    There have been attempts to include evaporation in the energy balance equations used by F&P and sometimes by Miles for calibration. I've not heard of them doing it in the mass balance in the literature. Care to cite your reference here? anyone?


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    Explosions occur when gases are allowed to build up.


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    The SRI explosion involved a recombiner failure, it got wet, and wet recombiners don't work.


    The SRI explosion is *postulated* to have occurred due to a recombiner failure. This problem had been observed previously (which means it really should have been considered from a safety point-of-view. We actually had a post-doc not get rehired because he had an event similar to this. The 'investigators' decide he was unsafe, and this workplace cans people for safety violations.).


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    recombiner worked enough to release enough heat to ignite the mixture,


    That's one possibility. Consider the following. Loading Pd to ~1 H/M causes excessive stress in the lattice. The material routinely deforms, including cracking. Good CF Pd is thought not to crack, so what if the SRI experiment started out OK, but the 'good' Pd decided to suddenly develop several significant cracks? That would cause a rapid unloading but still keep the gas mix within the explosive envelope (we would assume). The recombiner is unaffected, but again serves as initiator. The subsequent explosion would make it impossible to tell if cracks in the remaining Pd came before or after it.


    Another possibility. One of the leads to the electrodes breaks internally. No current means immediate unloading to some point. Rest follows above. Again, did broken leads occur before or after...?


    Jumping to conclusions is never a good practice. It shuts down thinking on alternatives (kinda like "it's gotta be nuclear").

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