Nickel/Hydrogen Attempt

I have been attempting the dissolution of hydrogen into plated Nickel over a 12 month period but without any apparent generation of excess energy. The apparatus consisted of a 1kW quartz element inside a 25mm diameter stainless steel tube (180mm long) which I had plated with 200um of Nickel. This was then sealed in a copper vessel with an external water jacket, circulation pump and fan assisted radiator. I used electrolysis to generate hydrogen where the pressure around the sample was maintained by adjusting the electrolysis drive current. The heating element and the Nickel tube were thermocoupled so that any temperature changes could be monitored (0.1degC resolution). The heating element was used to heat the Nickel up to a maximum of 900degC in order to reduce the Nickel surface and also to try and initiate activity in the Nickel lattice after hydrogen had been dissolved over various periods of time. Labview was used to control and record the electrolysis current (based on the hydrogen pressure) and the sample temperature (using phase control of the heater element). A Geiger counter was also used to monitor radiation adjacent to the pressure vessel. All data was logged onto a hard drive for later analysis. The intention was to use thermal impulses to initiate activity and to look for any anomalies in the cooling characteristics. I saw no significant thermal activity over the 12 month period. Photographs of the apparatus are available but it is current dismantled whilst processing the accumulated data and considering further experiments. 26/8/17

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the feedback. I will have a look at the link. I have a long standing interest in alternative energy sources so am willing to have go at anything promising (as long as the cost is not too unreasonable). I have many years experience in the electronics/instrumentation industry so am able to design/build most of the equipment myself. My wife is a physicist so we work together on the physics theory and design of experiments. Kind regards Steve.

Hi Adrian,

The heater I used was a tungsten coil in a quartz tube. Previous reading on the subject led me to believe that one any oxide had been removed from the nickel, that molecular hydrogen dissociated into atomic hydrogen at the surface. Is this not so?

Regards Steve.

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the welcome Alan. Support and criticism are welcome. I would like to make a positive contribution to this particular field but am aware that basing experiments on conventional knowledge (physics?) may not be successful. My experience is in electronics, sensors and control systems and so I am capable of designing and building custom equipment so that test profiles can be automated and data can be recorded over extended periods. However, with so many different results being presented, it is difficult to know which experiment is most likely to produce measurable and repeatable results (particularly when a small error may make the experiment ineffective)? I hope that others' experiences may help me to provide results that in turn help others.

Kind regards Steve.

I had not considered that the heating element material would have a direct influence on the dissociation of the hydrogen. In my particular set-up the heating element was not in close contact with the nickel surface as the nickel plating was (primarily) plated on the outside of the stainless steel tube. The heating element was included to 1) reduce the nickel surface by heating to above 600 degC. 2) Periodically cycle the sample temperature to see if this increased the hydrogen absorption. 3) To induce thermal impulses to try and induce a self heating process. The system was essentially sealed with a pressure sensing system maintaining a fixed positive pressure in the vessel by automatic control of the electrolysis current (generating the hydrogen). I was assuming that the steady state electrolysis current was a measure of the rate of absorption of the hydrogen into the nickel. This steady state current initially started quite high but reduced over several months. I assumed that that this indicated initial high absorption which decreased as the hydrogen loading increased. There was still some electrolysis current at the end of 9 months but I am not sure whether this was due to hydrogen diffusing out of the system or whether it was still being absorbed.

I did consider doing the experiments using Deuterium into Palladium (and spent a considerable time developing the required calorimetry) but I was not confident that I would be able to keeping the Deuterium uncontaminated by moisture.

In contrast, continuous Hydrogen production is relatively simple using electrolysis (although the extended period meant that I had to change from carbon electrodes to platinised titanium as the carbon disintegrated over time).