Phonon Energy to replicate MFMP Glow Stick experiment

This looks really good. I'm a sucker for a pretty face, and that is what they show in the video. These guys mean business! They just moved a "laser LENR" experiment out of the test cabinet, I wonder if this is the lab that worked on Letts replication.... They cleaned everything up for show-and-tell, obviously. Spotless.

The May Zhang Hang report looked good, on the face, though it is not difficult to imagine possible artifacts. All this work requires repetition to show reliability of any effect, anecdotes are not enough. I like the method used by Zhang, it is one that I have been suggesting. Heat the oven to a temperature, knowing what power it takes. Then add fuel and see what power it takes to reach the same temperature. Notice that it is not necessary for this to have an accurate temperature measure, only a precise one. One of the questions I would have for Zhang would be how the IR spot meter was aimed, i.e., what was it aimed at, and could small disturbances of the interior, such as created when adding the fuel, affect heat distribution? I would want to see a series of experiments with presumed fuel and with dummy fuel, not just an empty fuel container.

These NiH explorations are getting serious.

Now, as to the test plan. They have two "reactors," each heated with a heater wire or coil, running through both sections. I.e, the section heaters are in series. With this arrangement, the power delivered to each section will not be identical and cannot be individually measured. I would suggest, instead, that there be a common return for the two sections in the middle, so a single wire would run out of the tube in the middle, where the tubes are held anyway. They would then be in parallel, if connected that way, but it would also be optional to control the power in each section separately. The "fuel" section should also be calibrated with dummy fuel, and the "no-fuel" section should also have dummy fuel and fuel container.

The Zhang Hang approach could then also be used, calorimetry by how much heating is backed off to maintain a controlled temperature. It appears that they have at least dual measurement of temperature, and I would hope that they also use sound methods to calibrate the emissivity of the tubes in operation at operating temperatures.

One fact has been brought out in recent discussions on the CMNS list. Energy expended to maintain an oven temperature is not actually input power to an experiment. If we run an experiment in the winter, even low "COP" PdD LENR experiments, we don't count the energy used to heat the lab. Temperature may be maintained with strong insulation, so the only input power with no XP would be replacing remaining heat losses through imperfect insulation. We know that LENR reaction rates generally increase with temperature, before the point where the materials melt or similarly alter structure. COP, properly considered, should be infinite, because no specific input energy to the cell should be needed. So the issue becomes accurately measuring any generated heat. I won't go into detail here of how that can be done, and I do expect Phonon Energy to use high skill, but .... some of the implications of what I'm writing here have often been ignored even by experts.

Imagine an oven with good thermal circulation, so that interior oven heat is verifiably uniform. In this oven are placed samples of various materials in sealed containers. How do these samples vary in temperature? If the samples undergo some chemical reaction with heat, releasing energy, for that time, COP for the samples would be infinite! From the temperature behavior and the materials in the samples, it should be possible to measure the chemical energy released, and it would show a characteristic time behavior. From the rate of change of temperature and the thermal mass, and chemical calibrations could be done. Generated anomalous power should be accurately measurable. This approaches Fleischmann-Pons calorimetry, which was precise to 0.1 mW, it's claimed. At the temperatures involved here, that is not possible, but precision could be maximized, and calibrations could then make it accurate.

Most cold fusion experiments opted for mathematically simpler calorimetry, facing a rejection cascade and wanting the calorimetry to be simple and apparently bullet-proof. The desire to look good overwhelmed care for precision, which would have been more in line with a basic scientific approach.

For NiH to be fully accepted, aside from Reliable Big Heat, identifying the fuel/ash relationship will be necessary. Once a device can be operated long enough for an ash such as deuterium (Storms' theory, and it is not implausible 'that some mechanism might do this) to accumulate and be possible to measure and correlate with heat, and when this is independently confirmed, this will be a breakthrough that could penetrate the fog. Or other transmutations, but the key is correlation, and that requires many measurements, not just one.

(Lugano was complex, and highly vulnerable to a series of assumptions that led to test failure. Complexity, per se, wasn't the problem, it was lack of calibration at operating temperature, which would have exposed the errors, and, in fact, good calibration could have made the determination of emissivity moot.)

Quote from THHuxley

Abd wrote:

It was I think Brian Ahearne? Albiston? (my memory is lousy) who said he was going to do such an experiment with a Lugano replication a long time ago.

It would be Brian Ahern. https://www.lenr-forum.com/for…php/User/422-brian-ahern/

Quote

The idea is you heat the reactor up in an oven, and monitor temperature differences between the reactor and oven ambient. This would be a much more sensitive indication of any power emitted or absorbed than the current experiments which all have difficult to quantify errors. It would provide a clear indication without needing calibration except for that of the differential temperature measurement sensors,and would have much higher signal to noise ratio than other techniques.

It would provide an indication without calibration, and precise measurements with calibration. As well, dummy reactors with ersatz fuel would be control experiments, run in parallel. Many combinations could be tested at once, and many iterations of the same combination, to demonstrate consistency, if that exists.

For this application , an IR imager might be ideal. However, there are details .... it might be necessary to add a thermocouple to each fuel capsule. Even more sophisticated, an external thermouple mounted to the capsule, but insulated from it -- to measure ambient there, verifying uniformity, and another bound with it, intimately, to measure capsule temperature (this must be kept free of hydrogen! which eats thermocouples for lunch). If viewing windows can be suitably made and calibrated, the single camera seems ideal, making each fuel capsule simple.

NiH must move away from generating anecdotes to generating many results, rapidly. The calorimetry described above is isoperibolic, as adjusted in the way F&P did, considering the rate of change of temperature. "Isoperibolic" refers to a constant-temperature heat sink, to which heat is conducted in a controlled way. So the rate of change in temperature of the "cell" correlates with the power dissipation, minus the energy absorbed by the mass to allow increased temperature. If temperature is constant, the temperature will correlate directly with the power. No power, no temperature difference at equilibrium. In this way, many of the artifacts that allow temperatures to vary throughout the system disappear. Then it is a bit more complex if power is changing. For a given temperature difference, the rate of change of temperature shows power differential.

I don't know if it would be easy to take the camera readings and pick out the pixels to use for each cell. If not, then perhaps individual IR thermometers could be used. Labview could be programmed to display power generation for each cell, real-time. Again, this should show chemistry, if chemistry is possible for a cell. And some cells might simply contain calibration chemistry with known heat.

Heh! I imagine an oven with pockets for each cell, and the pockets are instrumented....

Standardization is important, so that results from one experiment can be compared with results from another. In this field, many researchers keep "improving" the experiment, so what might be definitive becomes a huge mass of incommensurable anecdotes. If there is high standardization, multiple research teams could compare their data, quantitatively.

I have since never heard anything of the results from this experiment.

There are many factors to consider in these experiments. I could write up a list, but I'm not going to. In short, they need to prehydrogenate their nickel, make sure it is "clean" of oxides before being placed in the reactor, and then heat the reactor at a CRAZY SLOW RATE between 100-225C. I mean slower than 1C or even .5C per minute. Slower than 1C per minute will ensure the nickel doesn't melt, smother the nickel, and prevent hydrogen absorption. Also, at very slow rates, the entire decomposition of LiAlH4 will occur by the time 225C is reached.

Then after they have arrived at 725C or higher, they need to perform a "triggering" test by dropping the temperature as quickly as possible to lets say 300C and then heating it RAPIDLY at maximum power back to the original temperature (or until abnormal heat generation takes place).

Quote from Alan Smith

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

We already got one of those...

Well, looks like two pockets. I had in mind maybe sixteen. Of course, one could set up many of those puppies. But would they provide the isoperibolic environment described? Maybe. You tell me.

How about if they are all enclosed in a big oven? Can your instrumentation leads withstand high heat?

("Pockets" within a single uniform-temperature environment is what I had in mind. No individual cell heating. But that could be added and might be useful. Use the same individual-cell heating for all "pockets" and then back it off if XP adds heat, to keep all the pockets at the same temperature. And if the XP makes the pocket too hot, the pocket heater would be completely turned off and the heat measurable by temperature rise, if calibration has been done.)

David Dagget,

Here are a few nuggets of information and advice I have for you.

1) Use brand new Alfa Aesar brand LiAlH4 97% purity. This brand of LiAlH4 has a much smaller particle size than other brands which enhances the desorption. Also, utilizing a purer brand of LiAlH4 may reduce the content of Chlorine which is a contaminant from the production process. Very importantly, never let the LiAlH4 have contact with the atmosphere, because in moments reactions can take place producing nitrides and oxides that could hinder hydrogen release.

2) From 100C to 225C heat the nickel-LiAlH4 fuel mixture at a maximum rate of 1 degree Celsius per minute. Even slower would be better. This does two things. First, it prevents the LiAlH4 from melting before decomposing, wetting the nickel, and potentially hindering hydrogen adsorption (the critical rate limiting step in the hydrogen uptake process). Secondly, it lowers the temperatures at which LiAlH4 decomposes and releases hydrogen. This may be important, because Piantelli has claimed to have found an optimum hydrogen uptake window at around 170C or so. Of course hydrogen will absorb into the nickel above this temperature, but maximizing the pressure as early as possible could be very useful.

3) At least in the early stages, keep the hydrogen pressure as high as possible. I see zero reason to vent out hydrogen to lower pressure until after a slow ramp (no faster than 5C per minute) until 725C which is just above the temperature that the LiH will breakdown into lithium and more free hydrogen.

4) If you are going to attempt THERMAL SHOCKING (for example to increase the pressure inside intragranular hydrogen bubbles that may have formed in the nickel lattice), drop the temperature as rapidly as possible from 725C down to 300C. The resulting shrinkage of the lattice may boost the pressure in these hydrogen bubbles or other defects/cavities which do not have a clear route to allow hydrogen to release.

5) If you want to try to reduce pressure before THERMAL SHOCKING, my thinking is that reducing the pressure at 300C immediately before heating the reactor AS RAPIDLY AS POSSIBLE back up to 725C or higher would be the optimum time. By reducing the pressure on the outside of the nickel particles while heating the nickel rapidly, you are maximizing the force of hydrogen trying to escape the bubbles/cavities/defects. You basically have force pushing out from the inside and suction on the outside. This may be enough to trigger LENR.

6) Monitor the active reactor closely as you transition through the CURIE TEMPERATURE OF NICKEL. Just below the curie temperature there is an anomalous gradual thermal EXPANSION of the lattice and then a SUDDEN ABRUMPT shrinkage of the lattice. This sudden shrinkage is the only "kink" in the entire thermal expansion curve of nickel from zero degrees all the way up to the melting point. The two temperature points I have most hope for in seeing excess heat are 340-360C (around the curie temperature), 700-725C (melting point of LiH), and ultra high temperatures (1250C-1400C) where lithium vaporization may reach a maximum.

Finally, I've heard that pre-hydrogenation of the nickel fuel can be important. It probably wouldn't hurt to try and hydrogenate the nickel outside of the active reactor in a different vessel before using the fuel in an active test. If nothing else, this would remove oxides from the nickel so that they would already be gone by the time LiAlH4 breaks down in the active reactor.

Hello Dave,

The role of aluminum is an interesting topic. Multiple researchers from years ago (Focardi, Piantelli) and modern replicators (Me356) have proven that to produce excess heat, only nickel and hydrogen are required. Certain replicators such as Me356 claim that aluminum serves as a moderator in high temperature Ni-LiAlH4 systems to prevent thermal runaway. Apparently, when excess heat is triggered via the interaction between nickel and hydrogen, particles are emitted that then go on to impact the lithium and produce additional reactions. According to Me336, with only nickel and hydrogen, a stable COP of 2-3 is doable, but the addition of lithium boosts the output even higher. He describes it as a "shortcut" to excess heat. The drawback is that at high temperatures runaways can take place. He claims that the aluminum can help a reactor remain more stable at high temperatures.

Depending upon your setup, it might be interesting to use less LiAlH4 and supplemental LiH instead, along with hydrogen from a tank to increase the hydrogen pressure every so often. This would result in less aluminum (that might block the particles from interacting with the lithium) and increase the reaction rate.

Quote from Alan Smith

Hi. Thank you for your kind advice. LFH are well aware of the regulations, and have all neccessary info to hand. In this instance we are depending on the 'de minimus' ruling which effectively makes it possible for us to ship clearly labelled and properly packed very small quantities of most of the chemicals we supply without a full 'hazardous cargo' declaration.

Yeah.... When Parkhomov announced, I looked into those regulations. It's complicated.... I would assume that Alan would get it right. "Triple sealed" would mean three packages would have to fail to release the material or expose it to air. 3 grams would mean that if there was an accident serious enough to release it, the chemical issues it would almost certainly be irrelevant.