An improvised quick carbon arc experiment [result: inconclusive]

Quote from Curbina

Singh states using 30 to 35 V with 15 to 18 A. Sundaresan worked at 10V with 20 to 25 A initially and later lowered to 15A.

Albeit Santilli has not done a specific replication, he has reported changes in the carbon rods, but he works with a 24KWh welder.

As the intensity of the magnetic field of the plasma is allegedly what drives the process, perhaps using higher amperages is a requirement.

I haven't read much about Santilli but he sometimes writes that the discharge has to exceed threshold values.

https://www.researchgate.net/p…roids_from_a_Hydrogen_Gas

These thresholds seem a difficult requirement to fulfill in the relatively low power experiments performed and described (also in the references) in this thread, but perhaps at least 3 kW of power as suggested in the excerpt could be reached transiently if the graphite electrodes intermittently arc like they appear to do in water (due to quenching) and by sliding or weak contact.

It's kind of an obvious observation but from the voltage/current data reported by the other groups which reproduced the Ohsawa experiment it is apparent that they used electrodes with different geometries than what I used. Below I also added data from what I tested (I did not measure voltage in real-time but I have often seen it decreased to about 11V at high load). EDIT: I just tested again and it seems that in my case peak current is about 42.5A and that supply voltage is stable at 11.67V. I think voltage starts decreasing significantly when largely exceeding about 45A (I recall seeing 70+A peak in other testing several months ago).

Just out of curiosity I tried using a cheap software-based RF spectrum analyzer at gain +0 dB with a fully extended 60 cm whip antenna in close proximity of the arcing electrodes and I get, relatively to the background-subtracted signal (yellow), peaks (gray) in the regions as seen in the graph below in the 30-850 MHz range. These are only the maximum peaks over a few minutes or testing and they do not necessarily appear in the same place at the same time. It takes about 15 seconds to perform a full sweep over the selected frequency range.

I used the following program: https://github.com/pavels/spektrum

With this USB RF receiver: https://www.nooelec.com/store/…vers/nesdr-smart-sdr.html

EDIT This is after a few more minutes of testing after adding some KOH flakes (liberal amount), again only showing the maximum values. The difference could be coincidental and depend more on the position of the electrodes relatively to the antenna.

Some graphite particles or clusters of graphite particles seem attracted to the same magnet, but the effect is not large. The attraction to the bulk of the floating particles seems significantly stronger.

If you recall Renzo Mondaini's experiments: Fusione fredda Renzo Mondaini—trascrizione

He shows a RF spectrum of the supped reaction in his videos:

I tried overlapping this spectrum on the one I got earlier. It's not a perfect match but there are similarities. His one was taken in the ?–2000 MHz range; mine in the 30–850 MHz range:

It could still be he used a similar antenna setup with a similar RF response, however.

EDIT: here there was more discussion on Mondaini's measurements:

Fusione fredda Renzo Mondaini—trascrizione (post 125839)

Mondaini claimed that there was a peak at 327 MHz corresponding to Deuterium, but from the graph it seemed at a somewhat higher frequency than that.

Alan Smith

I do not have knowledge/experience with how narrow those signals would be, although I'm aware that molecular signals can be sharp.

I'm not sure if what is being measured in my case is a series of equally-spaced broad signals. If the first broad peak can be assumed to be the combination of two different things (from the double-peak character it could be the case), then it might be. I'm not an expert in molecular spectroscopy however. It's likely that this could be possibly due to the setup arrangement.

EDIT: I took a few others in the 30–1000 MHz range

Due to the way this works, it's not simple to get good spectra. What I noticed:

• It works best when the electrodes are struck in the atmosphere above the water level. If the electrodes are immersed, the signal is low.
• It works well when the electrodes are wet, but not very well (almost not at all) when they are dry.
• It does not work at all if the arc is continuous. It must be intermittent, which can be achieved by sliding or other strategies. When this happens the electrodes vibrate and emit a high-pitched noise.
• It's easier if the solution contains KOH and it seems easier if the concentration is higher. It was first made with distilled water.
• However, when I tried adding tap water to the electrolyte solution (thinking that it would not make much sense to use more distilled water since conductivity was already high), it suddenly became much more difficult to obtain a good spectrum. It's possible that this might have been a temporary fluke.
• I tried also a thin 27 cm antenna with a 2.5cm coil, but I didn't seem to get good results. The 60-cm extensible whip antenna appeared to work better.

However, even so I do not get ferromagnetic particle production, at least not in large amounts. I guess some could be found by searching them carefully. Whether this has any relevance to the typical carbon arc experiments remains to be seen. It could have some relevance to the Mizuno/Mondaini plasma electrolysis experiments.

Quote from Wyttenbach

327/1420 are the nuclear resonance peeks of Deuterium/Hydrogen also known as fine structre signal...

I meant that in Mondaini's case it appeared to peak at a higher frequency than 327 MHz, but Alan Smith pointed out that the peak is supposed to be narrow, not wide as seen there.

Following more testing and curiosity, I Just tried taking another spectrum in the 30–1750 MHz range (the wider the range, the longer it takes to perform a full frequency sweep. Furthermore the signal response with this antenna might be poor at high frequency) at a slightly elevated antenna gain setting. It appears that I'm getting a low and broad peak just above 1400 MHz. See the gray line:

Whether this is just a coincidence/artifact, I can't say.

EDIT: I tried with the other 27cm antenna (in a more favorable, elevated position) and although some of the broad peaks roughly match, others seem to be missing. So it's still possible that this could be mostly the effect of different RF response to broadband noise of different antennas.

EDIT2: on the other hand I think I am seeing that more of the graphite clusters seem very weakly attracted to the magnet, so perhaps this RF monitoring could be a way for optimizing the reaction (if it actually exists). To be confirmed, though.

I get similar results with the whip antenna extended to 26 cm and the 27 cm antenna mast advertised as being for the UHF range (I used a slightly narrower frequency range with the latest test so the graph was scaled).

So I guess this similarity to the spectrum shown by Mondaini in a somewhat different experiment type could be an artifact of some sort for this antenna type (and it could be he used one similar to mine). However I do not know enough about antenna theory to tell more about what could be going on.

The antennas are made like this. The mast is replaceable:

Source: https://www.nooelec.com/store/nesdr-smart.html

After a few cm worth of graphite electrodes and many tests, reproducing the same conditions as earlier, when I thought I observed the ferromagnetic graphite effect, I have to conclude that what I saw was due to iron contamination of the worn electrode that was initially used. So, in the end the results are still "inconclusive" on my part as per thread title (i.e. if iron was indeed synthesized, it wasn't in macroscopic amounts that could be easily tested with a magnet).

On the other hand, a few other interesting observations could be made:

• The graphite electrodes that I used apparently need a period of "priming" in order to work properly and heat up. It could be that the initial surface layer, which looked smooth, had a too low resistance, or that some compound preventing them from heating up was adsorbed in the surface layers (they don't smell anymore as they did when new).
• The RF noise emitted by these experiments appears to be similar to that of Mizuno-plasma electrolysis setups. The peaks observed apparently depend on the antenna resonant gain characteristics. I made a thread about this for further discussions (and request for more information) here: RF noise in plasma discharge experiments

I took a couple screenshots showing the "flaming" anode from a video I uploaded here. From various sources, graphite burns above 700–800 °C, but I think I saw it suddenly start "igniting" above this level. The effect would be show up by a typical "flame sound".

EDIT: here are a couple photos of the electrodes. The cathode looks moist. This should be expected because the positively charged alkali will migrate to the negatively charged cathode, then quickly form oxides which rapidly react with moisture in the atmosphere, after the electrode has been dried by the heat of the discharge reaction. I find more surprising that the anode appears visually completely dry.

Unfortunately I do not have a suitable power supply and safe environment for attempting high-power plasma electrolysis of thick graphite electrodes. I once attempted doing it at low power with 0.4 mm pencil cores—which get quickly eroded in the process in an unimpressive reaction—but as they contain relatively large amounts of Fe (as well as Al, Si) oxide, the resulting powder can exhibit ferromagnetism.

Of course, when trying to sand off some reportedly pure graphite for magnetic testing, you might want to avoid Fe2O3-containing sandpaper which could introduce ferromagnetic impurities in the powder.

Mystery solved, I guess? That might need the proper graphite or perhaps just a sufficient amount of deformation not usually provided by low-voltage arcs (at a few tens of amperes), since I could never reproduce it in larger than tiny amounts that way (factoring out ferromagnetic impurities/contamination).