MFMP:LFH - LION2 100% Replication well beyond LION1

I had a chance to do a little more microscopy on the 1000C/48Hr sample of copper wire wrapping. There are a couple of spots where careful filing reveals microscopic grains of copper buried in the crystalline copper oxide matrix. This is a reflected light shot at 250X. The curvature of the sample makes it impossible to get the whole field of view in focus, but here you can see a representative spot. This copper is of course nothing like the more or less untouched Cu wire clearly visible in BobG's photograph of a 'post event' tube. Tomorrow the 800/48 sample will be baked and will give (perhaps) a better comparison.

If you like toroids (o's) then maybe you will like this..

https://www.researchgate.net/p…Without-Really-Trying.pdf

Quote from Robert Horst

If any of the replications succeed, then it will be important to know whether the specific preparation of the diamonds aided, hindered or did not matter.

Exactly. But first comes replication, after that comes investigation. It is important not to confuse the two entirely different procedures by incorporating improvisations during the first experiments.

The 800C reactor stripdown underway- preliminary examination shows 2 differences to the 1000C run. First of all there are two bands of sooty deposits on the outside of the wrapped tube and a little on the Quartz liner. The origin of these is the insulation on the CU wire burning off at 'first heat'. 800C for 48 hours is obviously not enough to burn all the carbon away as happened in the first run.

There are also very clear signs of the silver leaf melting and migrating under the copper wire and then pooling on the bottom surface of the tube. No surprise there, that is the hottest zone where the tube is in contact with the liner. The silvery patches have adhered a little to the quartz, and removing the tube has removed some small fragmentsof the Quartz surface, still stuck to the copper/silver matrix.

I'll get back to this later with photographs and a look beneath the oxide layer. How exciting - but maybe I should get out more.

Photographs from the dismantled 800/48 tube. A few differences apparent, but nothing remarkable. Tomorrow I'll crack the oxidised copper coating and see 'what lies beneath.

Here you can see glints of reflective silver where it has melted and run into the copper wrapping, and thence toward the inner surface of the Quartz furnace liner which it has adhered to.

Unlike the run at 1000C, there are a few spots of soft sooty carbon - debris from the burnt-off insulation - on the wrapping, and a little in the quartz -soft enough to rub off with a cotton bud.

This is the mirror-like (to the naked eye) surface of the silver leaf component, where is has pooled against the quartz liner. Quite different in appearance to the more crystalline Copper oxide.

500X

This is the crystalline surface coat of CuO on a another part of the tube. Note the grainy appearance, unlike the more amorphous surface of the silver.

200X

This is a close-up of a fragment of Quartz, bonded onto the silver coating that formed over part of the copper wire. The garnet colouration is a diffraction effect, not a real colour,

lenrcentury Yes, these are the control Runs that LION hasn't yet done- nothing inside the fuel tube but a thermocouple. Do pay attention.

There looks to be more un-oxidised copper just below the surface of this 800C sample, and the form of the wire is much more visible. Also the colour of the wrapping is darker and less lustrous than the coating on the 1000C sample. More photos soon.

800C 48 Hr update - and more Diamonds in Deuterium..

There is indeed considerably more metallic copper present under the surface oxide coating in this sample than in the 1000C run. Scraping the oxide coating off almost anywhere along its length, most readily done away from the silver-impregnated parts reveals bare copper beneath with a thin band of crystalline CuO visible beneath and between.

The detached diamond pads have been baked at 200C for exactly 7 days, and have been quenched in D2O, where they will remain for the next 30 days. This, as I understand it is the LION protocol. Small variation, instead of dropping hot pads into D20, I added D20 to a porcelain crucible holding them as soon as it came out of the oven for maximum thermal shock. Photos below are of the process, showing the pads after quenching being transferred into more D20 for long-term storage, and a couple of diamond close-ups. Pads btw are 2.5mm in diameter, and roughly 120-150 microns thick.

Bob Greenyer has posted a 20 minute (approx) video of him cracking open the alumina foam block the LION fuel tube was running in. It shows what appears to be melted Alumina in one part of the interior -I have never seen anything like it beofre, in the course of building and experimenting with quite a few Model T reactors.

And this is fascinating- I have never seen anything like this inside a reactor. !0 mins...

For comparison purposes, here is the inside of the control reactor, which including calibration has been operated at temperatures exceeding 700C for 70 hours, and at 1000C for 48 hours. The RH quartz tube (used for the LION control experiments has been replaced, but the equally clean and unmarked tube on the LHS has been in place throughout, as have the heater coils. The coils and the quartz are not stuck to each other, or the alumina, which apart from the crack is undamaged.

Quote from Alan Smith

No - Lion duplicated Lion, nobody else has done so yet. Sorry if that was not clear - I assumed that as BG had referred to LION1 and LION2 and (probably) as I have been close to this the whole time I thought that was clearer. Apologies. Both of us, MFMP and LFH, have been promised by LION that he will supply prepared fuel tubes. LFH will also begin - in fact has begun gathering materials for - a totally independent replication based solely on info supplied by LION. We - by which I mean LFH - are trying to make this as serious and independent a replication as is possible, taking great care over every detail. We can do no more than that.

Alan,

Thx for doing the heavy lifting. May I ask when Lion plans on giving you and MFMP those prepared fuel tubes, so that you can run the reactors live?

Mid April has been suggested. But maybe I can achieve something before then. I am moving LFH into 1000sq ft lab in two weeks time, which is keeping me busy doing mundane tasks, but we really need the space. I can keep my current lab for building reactors, and the new one will be a 'clean room space'. With a kitchen too. Just like home.

Quote from Alan Smith

Mid April has been suggested. But maybe I can achieve something before then. I am moving LFH into 1000sq ft lab in two weeks time, which is keeping me busy doing mundane tasks, but we really need the space. I can keep my current lab for building reactors, and the new one will be a 'clean room space'. With a kitchen too. Just like home.

Alan,

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to keep us informed. With this Lion thing, and your new business venture you have your hands full. It has to be difficult juggling it all.

Is there a particular reason Lion wants to wait on providing the fuel? And also, is there some scientific benefit to giving spent/melted reactors first for analysis, with the fuel coming later?

Well, the spent reactors are very important circumstantial evidence that we are not barking up a gumtree- also controls are as important as tests - and running controls has shown clear differences between ordinary and extraordinary behaviour. I think LION wants to run some more experiments before we get a tube from him. That tube may not be a replication but an improvement. In the meantime I am assured of full disclosure and support from LION to replicate completely independently.

In that case then, I just do not understand why Lion is confident enough to send his spent reactors for study, but insecure enough that he feels the need: "to run some more experiments before we get the (fuel) tube from him". Not being difficult, but just trying to make sense of this.

I want the best, but then again, I am gun shy after Rossi.

Quote from Shane D.

In that case then, I just do not understand why......

He has been working on this -on and off for years - he has a day job and I don't think he sees 8 weeks are being a disaster. And neither should anybody else. In the meantime LION has shared enough information during the course of six hours of fascinating face-to-face discussion to make independent replication possible.