MacGyver (aka JohnyFive) LENR experiment

Quote from kirkshanahan

Please expand on how the run was conducted...

I cut and folded a fresh strip of printer paper, taken from a closed ream package. I left the paper sitting face-up for ~12 hours next to the lead cave that is part of the test bench, about 20 cm from the cell. The test paper was thus shielded from the cell by about 15 cm of lead bricks.

Then I placed the paper( inverted) on the GMC pancake detector, which had been left in its horizontal orientation (face up). I put each of the metal foils on top of the paper, singly in sequence as done for the "live" test. The measurement times and thus duration are shown in the text log I posted along with the data file.

Today's follow-up live radiation test is delayed a few hours, to run hopefully around 21:00 UTC

After the usual struggle with Remote Desktop, I have the video stream running:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96YDyEQVZAg

Note that the cell current is now shown in milliamps, rather than amps as labeled. The PA 1000 power monitor is set to low-power mode, which changes the units of measurement.

I'll start the radiation measurement in about 10 minutes, to allow some background data to accumulate. Meanwhile, does anyone have a suggestion or requests for this test sequence?

magicsound

Besides copper foil or also mm-thick copper plate if you have it, I'd be curious about thick (10-15mm if available) plastic blocks like polyethylene (etc.) and plastic (first) + metal foil/s (ideally the metal which works best).

Quote from magicsound

I'll start the radiation measurement in about 10 minutes, to allow some background data to accumulate. Meanwhile, does anyone have a suggestion or requests for this test sequence?

I would keep it simple. I liked THH's ABABABAB approach where A is exposed paper and B is unexposed. I suppose that the window of the counter has to be wiped between changes.

The test paper was put in place with the stainless steel cover, at 21:54 UTC. The GMC count dropped from ~30 to ~28 CPM (5 minute moving average).

This is within the noise bounds of the background level, typically 26-31 CPM

The sample was removed at 22:02. The count went back to ~30 CPM over a 10 minute interval.

The sample was put back on the detector at 22:15, covered with the Ni foil. The count dropped to 26-27 CPM after 5 minutes.

Cover removed at 22:23 Count increased to 28-30 CPM over about 10 minutes.

At 22:33 a lead cover was placed on the detector, comprised of 8 pieces of 1.7 mm sheet. The count went up to around 36-38 CPM over 15 minutes, probably due to spallation of the lead by cosmic ray impacts.

Conclusion: No radiation increase above background was seen from the test paper, after eight days of exposure to the cell.

How about some wax paper?

From Youtube OCR data something happened and/or is happening. Unfortunately I couldn't manage to download the last 20 minutes or so of video to add more:

Quote from Bruce__H

I suppose that the window of the counter has to be wiped between changes.

It's far to delicate to be wiped, and has an Al screen to protect it. No attempt was made to remove dust from the detector, the test paper, or the metal plates during any of the tests.

If I can find a big enough static shield bag, I'll try that as a dust protector and see if the background count goes down.

I do think activated dust from Radon progeny might be what was seen in the initial testing. From some comments posted last week, such dust has a typical half-life of 5-10 minutes.

Having left the detector horizontal (face up) for background measurements did increase the measured background from ~25 to ~30 CPM. So the paper on the cell would accumulate dust from the air, possibly retained by static charge on the paper. Then when the paper was inverted onto the detector, that dust increased the count for about 20 minutes, until it decayed back into the local noise.

Quote from can

From Youtube OCR data something happened and/or is happening:

Yes, at 00:33 on your plot I covered the GMC detector with 1 cm of laminated lead. The count initially went low, then gradually increased by ~ 5-8 CPM. This may be due to secondary emission from the lead resulting from cosmic ray hits. It's not dust from the air at this point, so it muct be something to do with the lead itself.

Here's a summary event log, with time zone corrected to match your graph:

23:54 paper +SS

00:02 cover removed

00:15 paper + Ni

00:23 cover removed

00:33 Lead 1 cm.

01:22 Lead removed

01:32 Detector placed in anti-static bag.

02:05 Detector inverted (face down)

magicsound

There must be a 4-5 minute delay in the video stream or so because the count rate took quite some time to start decreasing and the provided times didn't seem to exactly match what I was seeing. EDIT: however I just realized that the time on the bottom of the video stream does not seem to differ significantly from my timestamps.

LN7317 count rate still seems elevated.

By the way, in the graphs above I'm using the total count and calculating the CPM myself. It's more flexible and being an integer number it has less OCR problems.

Quote from can

By the way, in the graphs above I'm using the total count and calculating the CPM myself. It's more flexible and being an integer number it has less OCR problems.

Good idea. The running-average code for the DAQ needs to be reviewed. I looked at it briefly in the course of my adopting the project, but didn't give it the rigor needed.

The pancake detector is now enclosed in a large anti-static bag, taped closed but not sealed. The idea is to prevent airborne dust from reaching the detector.

The Youtube latency seems to be 10 seconds or less.

The situation so far. Again, preliminary OCR data:

So no reason to modify the negative conclusion Magicsound mentioned earlier. Certainly nothing like the 5X larger than background signal reported by JohnyFive

Below is the final event log of this test run (#1b). Additional details can be found in my online experiment log at https://goo.gl/4pW1T8

J5 Test 1b Oct. 15-16 2018 Times CET (UTC+1)

23:54 paper +SS placed on detector

00:02 cover removed

00:15 paper + Ni placed on detector

00:23 cover removed

00:33 Lead 1 cm. placed on detector

01:03 Lead removed

01:33 Placed in anti-static bag

02:03 Detector inverted in bag (face down)

Thanks for your help and encouragement. Next up, Heavy Water!

Quote from kirkshanahan

- Water extracts contaminants from materials, andbasic (LiOH) solutions can accelerate that. Thepaper used to cover the cells WILL BE wet, even if not apparent to the eye,since it may be surface absorbed on the paper components. So the paper should be independentlytested. Run an experiment with warmed electrolytein a standard cell, but where no electrolysis is ongoing. I would even push it, and heat the water to75C or greater to maximize the vapor content.Keep going for as long as you would run an electrolysis run.

Quote from magicsound

I cut and folded a fresh strip of printer paper, taken from a closed ream package. I left the paper sitting face-up for ~12 hours next to the lead cave that is part of the test bench, about 20 cm from the cell. The test paper was thus shielded from the cell by about 15 cm of lead bricks.

IOW, you put some paper in the vicinity of the cell and expected that to test for leaching? No. That doesn't compute...

Quote from kirkshanahan

IOW, you put some paper in the vicinity of the cell and expected that to test for leaching? No. That doesn't compute...

No Kirk, it was a test of the paper itself, to confirm that it did not produce detectable radiation away from the vicinity of the cell. Your proposed leaching behavior, though possible, is both less likely and more difficult to detect. If in fact there was some leaching of radioactive substance in the paper, it would surely also be radioactive in the absence of condensed water vapor.

OTOH, if something could leach from the paper into the electrolyte and be catalytic to a nuclear reaction in the cell it would be of great interest, especially if the substance could be identified. But such analytic chemistry is beyond my ability, and I encourage you as a skilled chemist to perform such a test. I look forward to your findings.

AlanG

Quote from magicsound

If in fact there was some leaching of radioactive substance in the paper, it would surely also be radioactive in the absence of condensed water vapor.

No, you ignore self-shielding (self-absorption).

Quote from magicsound

OTOH, if something could leach from the paper into the electrolyte

...it would be too dilute to be detected, although I agree it has the potential for a catalytic, or even just regular chemical, effect.

Quote from magicsound

It's far to delicate to be wiped, and has an Al screen to protect it. No attempt was made to remove dust from the detector, the test paper, or the metal plates during any of the tests.

If I can find a big enough static shield bag, I'll try that as a dust protector and see if the background count goes down.

I do think activated dust from Radon progeny might be what was seen in the initial testing. From some comments posted last week, such dust has a typical half-life of 5-10 minutes.

Having left the detector horizontal (face up) for background measurements did increase the measured background from ~25 to ~30 CPM. So the paper on the cell would accumulate dust from the air, possibly retained by static charge on the paper. Then when the paper was inverted onto the detector, that dust increased the count for about 20 minutes, until it decayed back into the local noise.

Thanks magicsound for this excellent and painstaking work. It is good to have reports here of methodology, and issues, and ways to control them. from skilled experimenters.

For low-level radiation changes in any setup I think the whole "dust containing radon progeny" thing is very difficult and tricky, because it can be pretty well anywhere. Also it can be disturbed, by things separate from the experiment like foot traffic or anything that generates convection current in the room - even a hot reactor - so can show all sorts of weird correlations. Though it is very geography-dependent, some areas suffer from it much more than others. As an error mechanism it is nasty because difficult to say where it will rear its ugly head except by careful checking as you are doing.

I remember we had a guy here getting really HIGH radiation readings when he switched on his reactor. Turned out he was in a near-sealed normally unused basement in a high radon area. Glad for him and his family he found that out, because at least establishing adequate ventilation for that basement is quite important for health.

All that does not mean that any specific low-level radiation signals come from that one mechanism, of course...

THH