Simon Brink "Subtle Atomics" Discussion Thread

1st Official Post

    After reviewing Simon Brink's website at http://www.subtleatomics.com/ and watching his ICCF-21 presentation I think that there should be a thread for discussion about his theory, his experiments, the ramifications of his work, and the application of the information toward high powered LENR.


    There is much to discuss, and I hope he'll participate on this thread. However, in a nutshell, the limited understanding I've gathered is as follows.


    Fractional hydrogen states may exist and be similar - however different in some fundamental ways - to those predicted and allegedly verified by Randell Mills and BLP. The production of these fractional states can be triggered by exposing atomic hydrogen (or deuterium or tritium) to catalytic elements. From there, these shrunken hydrogen atoms with a reduced electric charge can be captured by other atoms to induce LENR reactions. Another stage of reactions beyond LENR is also conjectured.


    What I find interesting is that both lithium and nickel are catalysts that are alleged to interact with hydrogen at the ground state to produce species with fractional states. I'm assuming that both lithium and nickel would need to exist in an atomized form to induce hydrogen atoms to de-excite and lose energy (something that BLP has discovered in tests utilizing strontium and lithium). Using this theory to examine some alleged high power LENR systems, I can think of ideas of why the use of plasma (even in powder based systems) could be so important. One reason could be that "hot" protons crashing into the nickel could impact with enough energy to produce nickel vapor. This vapor could then interact with atomic hydrogen to induce the formation of fractional states of hydrogen. The resulting modified hydrogen could be absorbed by nearby atoms to produce even more output power. I'm also thinking that some optimal frequency applied to the environment of the reactor could enhance the rate of these reactions.


    I would also like to applaud Simon Brink for continuing his research despite the previous persecution he experienced.


    No company should try to squash non-commercial basic research.


    I think they did so to try and prevent him from making the LENR connection.

    Seems to me hes talking about a pre mix nano with a plating type process of the needed capture and release coatings then the nano is introduces to a hydrogen gas flow.

    I would think there would be a simple way to try this.

    The biggest problem I see is the opportunity to test something like this. you would need to wait for something that would ground aircraft and keep people in there home at the time of the test. not to be reckless~

    On his Excess Heat page, Simon describes this experiment:


    Experiment

    Method: Load a 316 stainless steel plate with hydrogen by electrolysis of a hydroxide solution. Dry plates. Apply far infrared light.
    Observations: Cathode plate heats up much faster than anode plate and controls
    Conclusion: Infrared stimulation of Hydrogen loaded metals can produce excess heat.


    See details of the experiment at:

    http://www.subtleatomics.com/excess-heat

    This does not sound too difficult for someone who already has a lab set up for temperature measurements and electrolysis experiments. Magicsound?

    He revealed that 1/10th on that chart is Lanthanum.


    It seems like to induce the smallest fractional state from the ground state nickel and lanthanum are best in that they are almost exact resonance matches. However, since they have high melting points it might make sense to use lithium which more easily forms a plasma.


    I want to say that I still don't buy the idea that fractional states exist. They might or they might not. What I think is more likely is that the protons and electrons are reconfigured to appear like fractional states. At this point what's most important is not what they are exactly but how can we use them to produce powerful LENR reactions. Here are a list of questions I hope Simon or someone can answer. Even if you don't have answers, please provide your thoughts.


    1) What's required to maximize the interactions between atomic hydrogen at the ground state and these catalytic elements to produce fractional states or modified hydrogen atoms? (I have a wild guess I'll provide at the end.)


    2) When these modified hydrogen atoms (de-excited according to this theory) are created in a plasma, how long can they hang around before absorbing ambient energy and growing back in volume to the ground state?


    3) What type of energy most rapidly grows these hydrogen atoms back into the ground state? In other words, what is their favorite food?


    4) Not thinking about LENR for a moment, could it be possible to shrink these hydrogen atoms, allow them to collect energy from the environment, and shrink them once again to release that energy? (If the energy being absorbed by the ambient isn't energy we're putting into the system, it seems like this could be an interesting way of collecting environmental energy.)


    ---


    Now, here's my guess on the most effective way of producing these modified hydrogen atoms and promoting their capture by other atoms. First of all, we need a way of producing atomic hydrogen and atomic lithium. Creating an ionized environment between two electrodes in a low pressure environment would seem ideal. Now, we need to really get stuff moving in the discharge. A good way to do this is to operate in the abnormal glow discharge regime. In this region that exists between normal glow discharge and arc discharge, there are instabilities which can produce powerful transient discharges of current. This should really give all charged ions a good jolt. These charged ions should also impact ordinary neutral particles and make them interact. I think this could be how Andrea Rossi makes the QX work.


    No, not too difficult to replicate, but all it would show is that electrolysis changes the infrared emissivity of the stainless steel plates. That would result from the color and texture change change commonly seen in electrolytic treatment of metals.

    SS316 is already 10-14% nickel. Since hydrogen atoms would presumably be transitioning to/from many different excitation states, you'd want many different elements to resonantly accept their various energies, not a single one, unless you can precisely control reaction conditions and know what it's going on exactly.

    Hello Can,


    There are multiple strategies to employee in such an experiment. One idea is to use the "atom ecology" approach and utilize an abundance of different elements. This is a good approach. However, we don't know yet if multiple elements approaches are better than certain single elements. I would like to see a Ni-H baseline (one in which the Ni was processed in such a way to maximize the number of super abundant vacancies that would form). This way we can compare the results of mixed element systems to pure element systems. My guess is that we are FAR from optimizing any of these systems -- mixed or pure nickel. I don't think most experimental systems are consistently maximizing hydrogen absorption and uptake. Once we are able to figure this issue out, which we will need to do for every alloy and combination of elements, certain combinations will work far better than nickel alone.

    If you study LENR in a plasma state you don't have to worry about partial quantal states, surely, because all the particles are in an ionized state-free electrons, deuterons, protons and possibly free gaseous ionized metal transition elements? I think a 'dusty plasma' approach is worth trying, in which we set up a spherical discharge reactor rather like the Safire reactor, but just use a flat Ni plate electrode instead of a spherical anode. An AC RF voltage applied to the electrode at reduced D/H gas pressure will elicit a discharge plasma above it, held there by the electric field, similar to inertial confinement. Then we need to apply a powerful magnetic field to set the plasma in motion (from above, at right angles to the plane of the plasma-can use a magnetron)-the idea being to accelerate protons/deuterons in a circular field to sufficiently high kinetic energies to induce fusion in the presence of catalytic gaseous transition metals, In the ITER/tokamak or reversed-field reactor modelling, dust formation from metallic particles is regarded as a problem to be 'vacuumed up'. For LENR this could be an advantage apposing the excited states of reactant particles close to the activated gaseous catalytic transition elements. Then heat produced by such a reactor could be monitored/converted by a heat exchanger in contact with the external casing held at ground. With such an open reactor system both fusion fuel and potential catalytic agents could added into the chamber and rapidly tested by monitoring excess heat/gamma rays/neutrons. A simpler way to initiate the plasma may be to use a microwave-induced pasma at atmospheric pressure using a surfitron waveguide system-more economical not having to use a vacuum pump, and denser plasmas could be an advantage.

    In several of his experiments (and patent applications. One example here) R.Mills already vaporizes hydrated solid "fuel pellets" with a large impulsive current. That results in a "cloud" of fine metal particles and condensing plasma where the Hydrino reaction is supposed to occur.

    Quote from can

    In several of his experiments (and patent applications. One example here) R.Mills already vaporizes hydrated solid "fuel pellets" with a large impulsive current. That results in a "cloud" of fine metal particles and condensing plasma where the Hydrino reaction is supposed to occur.


    And strict Bomb shell calorimetry did show all possible COP's from 2-10...

    So this approach apparently works, then, using a railgun or very high current plasma bomb. Randall's systems seem to be limited to non-equilibriun explosive plasma states i understand, its only on relaxation, or recombination from, the plasma state that presumably the hydrino is formed releasing the energy as photons. Isn't there a way of releasing the same energy continuously from the plasma in an equilibrium state? That's what I thought might be possible using the PULVA1 method, using a DC magnetron to spin the ring plasma formed-the differential spin velocities of free electrons, protons, deuterons, HOH atoms and metal ions/nanoparticles allowing continuous collisions or relaxations resulting in continuous hydrino formation/ LENR fusion reactions. Extending Randall's invention from the explosive to an equilibrium steady energy release would make it much easier to harness the thermal energy released (also less likely to blow up his reactors, as in his videos!).

    Dr Richard

    From R. Mills, a further way to produce the Hydrino state is for example recombining H+ and OH- ions from dissociated water (the so-called HOH catalyst, or "nascent water") in the presence of excess electrons, excess atomic hydrogen and advantageously (but not necessarily) other catalysts. Earlier experiments from him including some of those described in published papers, were of the electrolytic type (example), but he appears to have later moved on plasma systems. In general it seems these Hydrinos can be produced under a wide variety of chemical and physical conditions (similarly to how LENR experiments are reported to work) as long as there is some sort of agent or catalyst under the proper conditions that can resonantly accept the energy of hydrogen in an excited or ionized state.


    He's also written patent (applications) dedicated to electrolytic systems. I think several others from previous years exist too: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0072836.html

    Yes, but isn't he just re-inventing the hydrogen fuel cell, running it in electrolytic mode to generate hydrogen, then switching to fuel cell mode to generate current in the external circuit when it recombines with oxygen? He claims more electric power out than in but if this were true why aren't we all running our electric cars with this miraculous system nearly five years later? Elon Musk wouldn't have needed to use Li batteries at all!

    It could have to do with the fact that it's not generally desirable to recombine [atomic] hydrogen with oxygen immediately after work has been performed to dissociate it from water. According to generally accepted science the overall efficiency would be 1 at best: no gain should be expected.


    This would be the case if there was no chance at all for hydrogen atoms to transition into states lower than ground state, which again aren't generally thought to exist.


    So, nobody checks because it would not produce useful work and it would not be scientifically possible anyway. But if "below ground" Hydrogen states existed, then it should be expected that various other methods could be used to obtain them.



    Loosely related diagrams, from Simon Brink's website: http://www.subtleatomics.com/electrons


    https://storage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-25079009/images/5b234323f205aRYFzSEM/Electron-state-sizes-with-primary---image-v2_d1000.png


    https://storage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-25079009/images/59019cf6c1e79cW04goz/Electron-Cycle_d1000.png

    So its the catalysed de-excitation stage in forming the hydrino from ground-state hydrogen which releases the extra energy? How is that released as an increased flow of electrons rather than heat? I'll have to read more of his papers to find out, I guess. This is stiil a non-equilibrium system, zapping water into H and O, relaxation of H to hydrino then back reforming to water. Energy conservation seems violated as far as I can see unless the hydrinos undergo fusion bound in the metal lattice of these special electodes. Wasn't that the reason for proposing the hydrino, like the ultra-dense hydrogen state, to account for cold fusion in the first place, similar to muon-catalysed fusion in that protons in these states could be brought close enough together to overcome their coulomb repulsion? Also maximizing possible electron capture/neutron formation, electron screening and hence tunneling?

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