Nickel-Hydrogen reactor - Important findings

Quote from JohnyFive

The patent US 201110005506 Al describe usage of Boron as must have. Perhaps next version of E-Cat replaced Boron for Lithium, who knows.

It would be nice to run Nickel-Hydrogen reactor in a Copper container surrounded by Borated water.

Don't you run into a heat issue with copper? It is also my understanding that strange radiation likes to consume electric conductors.

@JohnyFive

Isotope effects exist for the permeability of hydrogen into metals. It seems that metals are generally more permeable to protium than deuterium, but this might not necessarily always be the case for all alloys. There are a number of papers about this but they're mostly paywalled.

https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/5277693

https://www.sciencedirect.com/…cle/pii/S0360319914016796

https://www.sciencedirect.com/…cle/pii/S0022311510009487

etc.

At low temperatures copper has a very low hydrogen permeability compared to iron (from the graph below about 100 times less at 350C), so if you decide to use the same powder with a copper container you can check out if the effect described in the opening post still occurs to the same extent.

http://rebresearch.com/H2perm2.htm

Quote from JohnyFive

Oh and I forgot to mention the Nickel-Deuterium system is displaying very same behavior. But rate of consumption is two times slower than with ordinary Hydrogen.

Yup. Hydrogen usually gets through metals quicker than deuterium (nuclei are more zippy because half the mass).

These differences between H and D are one reason why you need to be careful using H as control for D or vice versa. There are different physical mechanisms at play that can alter pretty well any physical characteristic.

Quote from JohnyFive

This mean that there is no leak, instead hydrogen, its protons are just fired from the cell.

Not sure I understand what you mean by "fired from the cell". Do you mean permeation with the protons that are first absorbed within the internal wall of the SS cell, which then diffuse across the SS cell, to finally desorb at the external wall the cell? Or do you have any other process in mind?

Related to this, is the decrease in pressure progressive over a few days (as expected from the permeation process described above) or do you see a sudden change in pressure anytime during these few days?

You probably know more about this then me but can I check you know about Hydrogen embrittlment? Is it safe playing with high pressures in steel vessels? I guess 10 bar isn't that high but perhaps you planned higher.

Un séjour sans faille

Quote from JohnyFive

J'ai aussi essayé cela avec une poudre de titane. Là, de l'hydrogène était chargé dans la poudre mais la pression restait constante. Pourtant, le titane peut dissoudre beaucoup plus d'hydrogène, non?

Johny5 what type of nickel powder you used for this ? what type of titanium too ? SStube 304 or 316 ? Were your SS tube fully filled with Ni powder, Did the powder touch the wall ?

Thanks for your reply;

@JohnyFive

What about the implications for your opening statements, according to which the container material was a key factor and that the effect wouldn't occur with alumina tubes?

You're asking others to explain your findings, but you are not providing sufficient information to have a more complete understanding of what you did and how/when it happened (data, photos of the setup, experimental notes, etc).

I concur with can that more information is required for anyone to understand your findings.

What do you mean by "negative pressure"? How do you monitor pressure? Can you control it?

If you use a vacuum pump and a pressure gauge, I confirm that a pressure lower than the one that can be achieved by the pump can be obtained using Ni-H. However I'm not sure that what's you mean.

Quote from JulianBianchi

[...] If you use a vacuum pump and a pressure gauge, I confirm that a pressure lower than the one that can be achieved by the pump can be obtained using Ni-H. However I'm not sure that what's you mean.

This would be an interesting test to perform for those who have the proper equipment. A double ended tube tightly filled with nickel powder could be arranged, and a hydrogen source on one end and vacuum pump on the other be provided. Then the results when applying a vacuum with the hydrogen source closed/open and if mild heating of the powder filled tube makes any effect in either case could be tested. It shouldn't need a very long time to perform.

It reminded me of this paper whose effects, to my knowledge, have not been specifically experimentally confirmed by other groups yet (i.e. not attributed to hydrogen absorption into the lattice, migration elsewhere, etc): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10876-011-0410-6

can More than RM, we interpret the sudden decrease in pressure as the formation of UDH.

JulianBianchi

I believe the author of that paper had more in mind Rydberg matter (RM) of alkali atoms like Cesium rather than Hydrogen, which would make the pressure decrease primarily a result of RM formation. Leif Holmlid often writes that due to the presence of inner electrons RM composed of atoms heavier than hydrogen (or small molecules like also H2) cannot form ultra-dense states.

I don't recall Holmlid ever making mention of such pressure decrease effect in his papers, although it's quite possible he might have observed it. Perhaps gas admission flow rate and times that do not seem consistent with chamber volume could indicate that (although since in retrospect such inconsistencies would be difficult to justify, that could explain why they are never reported).

Quote from JohnyFive

Sorry for the delay...

So after playing with Ni-H I've achieved condition when behavior that I described at the first post I can confirm that this is happening also with high purity Alumina tubes.

This mean that pressure is going to a negative values too.

How can you explain this?

Normally I use SS tube AISI 316. Fully filled with powder -- at the end. Yes, it is touching the wall.

All materials are from Alfa Aesar. Nickel is around 80 - 150um in size.

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I saw similar pressure behavior in several of the Glowstick runs. The Ni powder in an alumina tube was pre-loaded with H at around 200 C and 5 bar pressure. Then the cell was cooled and pumped out to 30 um (the limit of my vacuum pump) and re-heated to 200C. Over the course of several hours, the pressure was seen to decrease to below 1 um, the measurement limit of the Pirani pressure gauge. The expected de-loading of the Ni with resulting increase in pressure was not seen in these cases.

I thought at the time that this behavior resulted from H2 previously split by the Ni powder, combining with oxygen trapped in the powder as Nickel Oxide. But at this vacuum, water would not condense even at room temperature, so the NiO must have been fully reduced during the loading phase, and the water vapor removed by the vacuum pump. It could be that any residual hydrogen gets re-adsorbed on the freshly exposed substantial surface area of the Ni powder. Or it could result from the formation of dense hydrogen.

It's not fully repeatable, having been seen in only two of the six runs using this protocol. But the parameter space is small, so it should be possible to improve this process yield.

Quote from magicsound

It's not fully repeatable, having been seen in only two of the six runs using this protocol. But the parameter space is small, so it should be possible to improve this process yield.

Exactly. For the ones that "failed", (1) add more H2, (2) let Ni split H2 and absorb H, (3) cool and pump out, (4) re-heat. With Ni-H, the faster the increase in temperature the higher the chance to create UDH. Cycle the above until you see this pressure decrease. After this onset, add more H2 at a low rate, pressure should not increase significantly, but temperature will.