Can we talk about Holmlid?

Quote from robwoudenberg

Looking to Rossi, although not taken seriously anymore, and even Soininen, recommending Nickel powder that seems to be optimized when particle size is in the range of 5 um, there would be a limited penetration depth possible.

One of the reasons why I'm reasonably confident that this idea could actually work even for thick&large objects is that when several months ago I reached out Holmlid on this matter by email, from the reply I received I got the impression that although the diffusion of the small clusters into the bulk hasn't been studied by his group there should be no limit to the diffusion depth, except for the time needed (as with regular hydrogen). So, my idea is that if this is true it might be possible to load any transition metal of any shape with these clusters - provided of course a large enough H(0) production.

Of course, the hard part here would be producing the H(0)...

Quote from can

So, my idea is that if this is true it might be possible to load any transition metal of any shape with these clusters - provided of course a large enough H(0) production.

I agree.

I expressed myself in the wrong way, what I meant to say is that the 'Rossi way' may be optimal when H(0) penetration has been maximized to 2.5 um by applying 5 um particles.

Deeper penetration may cause too violent responses.

On the other hand:

Sintering of loaded Nickel particles may occur, causing uncontrollable responses.

Probably one of the reasons why the 'Rossi way' is so hard to control.

Rob Woudenberg

If it was actually possible to use a special catalyst to load ultra-dense hydrogen into non-active materials as I described, the Rossi way (whatever it truly is) might not necessarily be the best. One could use plain foils, or wires, and then, after a large loading of those H(0) clusters is somehow confirmed, attempt to pass an electrical current through them, whether in a controlled manner or by discharging a capacitor bank. Perhaps that would be enough to induce the same reaction that Holmlid observes with a laser.

If we assume that the underlying mechanism is the same as in many other LENR claims, other triggers may be possible too.

But I feel this might be starting to be too much speculation as it's still an unproven (although testable) hypothesis. The original aim of this was simply to load "impossible" amounts of hydrogen into materials of known properties and dimensions.

Quote from Alan Smith

Worth pointing out that hot tungsten wires dissociate H2, as will copper, magnesium, and perhaps cobalt/iron.

I find the interaction of heated tungsten with hydrogen interesting for reasons that go beyond dissociation of hydrogen; I wonder whether tungsten can be induced to fission or to decay by way of alpha decay, as it is quite heavy and already has an isotope that is a natural alpha emitter.

From a different thread:

Quote from axil

Did you add the works of Leif Holmlid or Ken Shoulders in your library, if not why not since they have detected transmutation.

Has Holmlid detected transmutation? Perhaps he does have transmutation in his materials but I don't recall him looking for it.

Quote from can

From a different thread:

Has Holmlid detected transmutation? Perhaps he does have transmutation in his materials but I don't recall him looking for it.

Can: "In http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169895 he calculates a an energy release "a factor 450 higher than the laser-pulse energy"."

Where does the COP of 450 come from?

axil

That comes from extrapolating the current produced by the charged particles (kaons, pions) passing through a small foil inside the apparatus over a full sphere around the laser target.

Holmlid has never studied transmutation products although it would be very interesting if he did.

Quote from can

axil

That comes from extrapolating the current produced by the charged particles (kaons, pions) passing through a small foil inside the apparatus over a full sphere around the laser target.

Holmlid has never studied transmutation products although it would be very interesting if he did.

Do you think that the production of mesons, pions and muons can happen without transforming the nucleus of an atom?

axil

Holmlid thinks that the particles come from nuclear reactions within the protons composing the ultra-dense hydrogen material.

Source: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169895

This is different than saying that he detected transmutation, which in the LENR field is usually done by analyzing the heavier elements composing the active materials used. As far as I am aware of, Holmlid never did this.

Quote

Do you think that the production of mesons, pions and muons can happen without transforming the nucleus of an atom?

In dense aether model the particles are just nested vortices of vacuum. You could create them just from gamma rays, the presence of charged particles indeed helps with it, but the lepton collisions are quite sufficient to do it - it's just matter of energy density concentrated at place. So that the mesons (pions are just specific kind of mesons) and muons can be indeed formed by pushing of laser pulses into cloud of electrons and the atom nuclei may not be involved in it at all.

Unrelated with the above discussion, but can I get a bit of help here?

In http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3514985 (paywalled) Holmlid et al. write:

Quote

The base pressure in the vacuum chamber is <1×10⁻⁶ mbar. Deuterium gas (>99.8% D₂ ) is admitted at a pressure in the chamber up to 1 × 10⁻⁵ mbar. The flow rate through the external needle valve is close to 5×10⁻² mbar dm³ s⁻¹

The at first odd [mbar dm³ s⁻¹] unit of measurement is also known as leak rate. A definition of this is available in this pdf: Basics of Helium Leak Detection with Pfeiffer Vacuum

Now, my question is: assuming that the vacuum chamber in the case of Holmlid has an internal volume of about 10 liters, at the reported flow rate and starting/ending pressures how much time it would normally take to finish admitting hydrogen (deuterium here)?

Quote

Deuterium gas (>99.8% D₂ ) is admitted at a pressure in the chamber up to 1 × 10⁻⁵ mbar. The flow rate through the external needle valve is close to 5×10⁻² mbar dm³ s⁻¹... assuming that the vacuum chamber has an internal volume of about 10 liters, how much time it would normally take to finish admitting hydrogen (deuterium here)?

This is a common aspect of Holmlid publications: they're not overly focused to actual experimental details. IMO your question has no answer under condition set given, as the answer will depend on the actual pressure difference at the needle valve. At 1 mbar pressure it would take 10 x 1 × 10⁻⁵ / 5×10⁻² = 0.01 second to fill the 10 l chamber - which is apparently too fast, so that the pressure difference was 1 × 10⁻³ mbar max.

Right? That's what I thought too: that seems too fast. Given that later in the paper it's suggested that hydrogen admission lasts for hours, either there's an error or it's an indirect result of the condensation of gaseous hydrogen to Rydberg matter or the ultra-dense form, which are not gases and would not contribute (not significantly at least) to the pressure increase.

EDIT: hydrogen adsorption on the walls of the apparatus may be a possibility too, but I'm unsure whether it's the case here as Holmlid here seems to be doing experiments where the hydrogen feed is interrupted for a period, then restored, seemingly without pumping the apparatus out.

Quote

either there's an error or it's an indirect result of the condensation of gaseous hydrogen to Rydberg matter or the ultra-dense form

Probably the former, but the hydrogen could get also adsorbed within material evacuated. If Holmlid is smashing some iron oxide with laser in hydrogen atmosphere, I would expect, that some portion of hydrogen will get also consumed into reduction of iron and similar stuffs. That means, I don't trust Holmlid's research very much, but because I don't see any practical usage for it in this moment, I'm not also very interested about it including its errors and inconsistencies.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Probably the former, but the hydrogen could get also adsorbed within material evacuated. If Holmlid is smashing some iron oxide with laser in hydrogen atmosphere, I would expect, that some portion of hydrogen will get also consumed into reduction of iron and similar stuffs.

The laser is not directly focused on the iron oxide catalyst; in most of these studies it's either focused at a close distance from its surface or at the surface of a metal target in its proximity where the ultra-dense hydrogen collects.

Quote

The laser is not directly focused on the iron oxide catalyst; in most of these studies it's either focused at a close distance from its surface or at the surface of a metal target in its proximity where the ultra-dense hydrogen collects.

Do you have some source for it? If the catalyst isn't illuminated neither heated, then I don't understand its role in Holmlid's experiments.

These are figures from the paper linked above, which is a bit dated.

The "emitter" is the Fe2O3:K catalyst, which is directly heated by a current passed through the tube holding it. Hydrogen diffuses through the heated catalyst which forms a loosely bound "cloud" of Rydberg matter and ultra-dense hydrogen material around it, and is here probed with the laser at a small distance from its surface.

The ultra-dense hydrogen produced also falls on the metallic foil/holder assembly that can be seen in the photo, as if it were a liquid. In newer papers the laser would be typically focused there.

What I know is, heated iron oxide gets reduced with hydrogen rather smoothly. The reduced iron is dense and ferromagnetic and thus it will fall down at the foil where it could be affected with magnets in similar way, like prof. Holmlid is claiming for "Meissner effect at room temperature" in dense hydrogen clusters. Even the Fe3O4 and ferrous (II) oxides are ferromagnetic. Curie temperatue of Iron (Fe) is 1043 K, Iron(III) oxide (Fe₂O₃) 948 K, Iron(II,III) oxide (FeOFe₂O₃) 858 K.

I'm not saying, it's just the case of Holmlid's experiments - but their thorough replication and revision would be useful here.

I suspect that iron peaks would arrive at a later time than the lighter and much more tightly bound ultra-dense hydrogen atoms in the time-of-flight analysis that Holmlid usually does, so they would probably be easily recognizable.

This being said, these catalysts are not just composed of iron oxide but also other oxides (chromium, potassium and other promoters that are typical for these industrial catalysts) which slow down reduction and improve structural stability. A low hydrogen pressure should also help.

I guess this explains why sometimes Holmlid uses precious metals as laser targets, like for example Iridium or Platinum. It appears that in Intense ionizing radiation from laser-induced processes in ultra-dense deuterium D(−1) (2014) he suspected that the ultra-dense hydrogen absorbed between atoms (interstitial) on/within the surface of the laser target contributes to a non-linear behavior which increases the total energy release. Apparently this effect would be greater on "catalytic metals". This is by the way also interesting in the context of the possible absorption of ultra-dense hydrogen clusters into the bulk of metals as I previously suggested in this thread.

...