MIZUNO REPLICATION AND MATERIALS ONLY

Quote from Storms

Can we focus on what is known about the normal and completely conventional aspects of the burnishing process?

It is a good question, but needs advise on what constructions will actually test for your hypothesis.

For example, the mesh may have worked not be cause it is acting as a "sand paper" with a rough surface peeling off Pd. It may be that there are numerous surface areas that are at a 90 degree position to the stroke and it provides a higher opportunity to "embed" Pd.

So, can a reactor be made that does not use one material section, but perhaps 3 or 4? Place one burnished method A, one method B, perhaps one where the Pd is pressed into flat stock with a hydraulic press, etc. etc. Then using IR measurements, one can see which area of the reactor is "hotter" given the same environmental conditions. This would assist in evaluating different processes of apply the Pd to the substrate.

A second reactor could then be used to possibly check multiple substrates. Apply the Pd via the same method to 4 substrates and place all 4 in the one reactor.

Measure the IR coming from each area.

If this method of testing showed that substrate A with pressed Pd under high pressure always showed more excess heat than other substrates / application methods, then close examination of it would likely be much more informative.

This is not to determine COP, etc. but to quickly identify which application method or which substrate shows a higher active reaction.

Or do you have more specific thoughts on how to go about determining which process is best to use.

One can examine substrates ad hoc, but unless you know it produced excess heat, it would do little good. One could test a lot of null reactors before finding the "lucky" one and then examination may not tell what the actual working mechanism is. A methodical approach of testing substrates versus application methods would seemingly be the way to go. However, you knowledge of your theory would best be suited on designing the parameters of such experiments.

Thoughts?

Quote from Storms

thick enough to resist the pressure applied by the burnishing process.

Storms : May I ask a question? When you translate "burnish" or "polish" into the Dutch language, they both translate to the same word "Polijsten". In English there seems to be a subtle difference between the two words. Wikipedia defines "Burnishing" as "is the plastic deformation of a surface due to sliding contact with another object." and "Polishing" is defined as "Polishing and buffing are finishing processes for smoothing a workpiece's surface using an abrasive and a work wheel or a leather strop." As I understand it polishing is a more abrasive process than burnishing. In what sense should I understand your use of the word "burnishing"?

Quote from Storms

The challenge is to figure out how such an unusual nuclear process works. What kind of nuclear process can cause hydrogen isotopes to fuse, cause helium and hydrogen nuclei to be inserted into a heavy nuclei, cause the resulting transmuted nucleus to fission, and cause transmutation in biological systems? I suggest a Nobel Prize is waiting for the people who can figure this out.

We do our Essex LENR reactions inside ceramic or quartz tubes. This allows to get detailed gamma spectra of all LENR reaction phases. This radiation pattern did allow to find how LENR energy gets distributed. Thus LENR is no longer a mystery. But you need to accept a new model for dense matter physics.

Quote from Storms

3. I believe the Coulomb barrier is real and must be overcome for any nuclear process to occur. This barrier can be obviously overcome when high energy is applied. Apparently, it also can be overcome with high efficiency without using high applied energy.

The coulomb barrier is a phantasmic invention/reality of kinetic experimental physicists as they can measure it in all experiments. But nuclear mass is not formed by potentials, its almost all defined by magnetic flux. It looks like any rotating mass with energy of about 1keV can attach to nuclear mass and cause a physical reaction. Thus there is no such thing as a coulomb barrier for LENR. It's a matter of understanding the real physics that works inside dense matter.

You need the right rotating mass as kinetic energy only work under resonance conditions e.g. Alven sheer waves, that enable a 2D (--> rotation) coupling to mass.

A possibility for creating a potentially active material still involving a burnishing process similar to Mizuno could be if the burnished material formed a stable oxide (that does not get easily reduced in hydrogen) that expanded or contracted ever so slightly over the substrate. It is possible that upon oxidation, e.g. with a flame before usage, it could leave gaps small enough to qualify as suitable NAE, without even involving hydride formation.

Possible candidates might have a Pilling-Bedworth ratio at the edge of what is normally needed to provide a passivating oxide layer; from a list on Wikipedia, Al2O3, TiO2, ZrO2 seem suitable, but Ti and Zr would probably be difficult to burnish due to their hardness. Other options may exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilling%E2%80%93Bedworth_ratio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…_the_elements_(data_page)

This is of course taking Storms' model in mind, which as far as I understand is of more general nature than just involving PdD formation. For example, from http://lenrexplained.com/wp-co…d-explanation-revised.pdf :

Quote

[...] The crack might even be generated in the material on which nanoparticles of Pd or Pt are deposited, such as when a chemical catalyst is created.(63) In this case, the cracks would be present initially in the substrate and only need to be populated by H ions formed by the particles of Pd or Pt. In other words, the NAE is not located in the nanoparticles of Pd or Pt as is the common belief. Instead, the cracks might be in the carbon or Zeolite substrates on which Pd is deposited. Care needs to be used when assumptions are made about the nature of the NAE.

But this goes beyond the scope of replicating Mizuno's experiment to the letter, which I think was the general idea with which this thread was created.

The french word is "écrouissage" that could mean in english, pressure and deformation of the crystal lattice by surface depressing.

If there is an XH impact from this deposit's way, the explanation would be rather from this side.

We can imagine some oxides clusters trapped between Pd skin and Nickel layer.

Both lattices deformed of course... deformed with a certain gap as said Storms ?!

Quote from Alan Smith

If I might intrude into this, when you burnish something the action is to a large extent one of slipping and sliding something relatively smooth over a surface which may be smooth or rough. With polishing you are rubbing something rough ~(the slightly abrasive polish) over an already smooth surface to remove tarnish or corrosion.

Burnishing with a smooth piece of agate - a semi precious gemstone - for example is used to compress and create highlights on the surface of gold leaf applied to furniture or picture frames.

.

Quote from Alan Smith

LENR is not one phenomenon, it is a convenient family name for many.

That remains to be seen. We may find that all forms of LENR are fundamentally alike in some way. This would be like discovering that combustion and metabolism are fundamentally alike, even though they look quite different in many ways.

Quote from RobertBryant

I would say "Combustion and Respiration.

both simplify to ( sugar + O2 --->CO2 + H20 )

fundamentally they are not very alike

Thermodynamically they are exactly the same. They are the same chemical reaction producing exactly the same ergs of energy, down to the nearest molecule. The paths and intermediate steps are different, but the beginning and end results and chemicals are exactly the same.

In the same sense, cold fusion is the same as plasma fusion, when you look at one branch of the plasma fusion D+D reaction that forms 4He. Why the other paths do not happen, I cannot say, but that particular reaction does occur, and it produces the same amount of energy in cold fusion as plasma fusion. So there is no question cold fusion is fusion. Complicated fusion, but still fusion. And there is no question respiration is a complicated form of combustion.

Possible candidates might have a Pilling-Bedworth ratio at the edge of what is normally needed to provide a passivating oxide layer; from a list on Wikipedia, Al2O3, TiO2, ZrO2 seem suitable, but Ti and Zr would probably be difficult to burnish due to their hardness. Other options may exist.

These three oxides have also been shown to have dehydrogenating catalytic activity in common with the KFeO2 catalyst Holmlid used to create ultra dense forms of H and D, and TiO2 - ZrO2 combinations have been found to be very effective in styrene synthesis. Since Holmlid's work has been now independently verified can we now argue that the principal LENR reactions result from muon-catalysed fusion? He reported a low spontaneous muon release from UDD which was enhanced by IR laser irradiation - so maybe even Iwamura & Takahashi's results can be re-interpreted as being due to UDH formation on the ZrO2 base they suspended the Pd/Ni particles on, UDD formation in Mizuno/Zhang's reactors due to trace amounts of FeO2, MnO2 or other metal oxides in the stainless steel (fusion reactions accelerated due to IR radiation from internal heater) Could the presence of trace metal oxides even account for F &P's original cold fusion observations? Could such a muon-based mechanism even account for Brillouin's results? If this is indeed a credible mechanism ie how cold fusion works as originally proposed by A Sakharov then who needs electron capture, electron screening and the host of other alternative theories - none of which have ever amounted to more than a hill of beans?

Dr Richard

I should point out that KFeO₂ is the metastable, catalytically-active phase that composes the surface of industrial potassium-iron oxide catalysts after activation. It's defined as having a "tunneled" nanostructure. Perhaps its structure might be related to what is required by a viable NAE, e.g. what might be formed at the interface between Pd and the Ni substrate in the latest Mizuno-type experiments after the burnishing treatment and cycles in a vacuum (striving to keep the thread in-topic while replying here).

Holmlid thinks that excess heat in LENR experiments might be partly due to the formation energy of the stable hydrogen clusters that he calls ultra-dense. Others attribute excess heat in small-scale cold fusion experiments to that almost totally, with fusion reactions playing a minor role: https://iopscience.iop.org/art…02-4896/ab1276#psab1276s9

Quote

[...] Both condensation and spontaneous nuclear processes may be the source of the excess heat observed in the so called 'cold fusion' or LENR experiments (Storms 2007, 2014). That condensation energy may be the source of the energy in 'cold fusion' was pointed out by Winterberg (2010a, 2010b) and by Mayer and Reitz (2012, 2014).

For what it's worth, some time back I attempted a calculation, and I didn't think that the formation energy of stable hydrogen clusters in an ultra-dense state as suggested by Holmlid would have been enough on its own to justify Mizuno's reported excess heat when his report first came out.

During the loading and monitoring phase, the Mizuno paper states (p11): "Loading is measured by monitoring gas pressure with a precision meter (ULVAC, GCMT G-Tran ISG-1). When a cell is left with no nickel reactant for several weeks, pressure does not change significantly..."

Does this mean that the vacuum pump is off during this time? Is the tightness of the system so good as to have no leaks so that one can turn the vacuum pump off and have the pressure not rise significantly for weeks with no vacuum pump running?

And then again on p17, it says "Set the deuterium gas pressure to between 100 ~ 300 Pa." Is this also with the vacuum pump not running?

It sounds as if the vacuum pump(s) are not running during these steps, but I want to confirm.

Imagine two parallel nickel shutters actuated by screwjack. With prepared/burnished facing edges.

What might we observe across this controlled "crack"?

When forced together? Afterwards?

And a round gap made like a needle valve? Another ilk of crack.

https://bit.ly/30Pb5Z0

Quote from Storms

Yes, the Mizuno method is one of several methods I can suggest that can or have worked. However, each is influenced by unknown variables that can make them difficult to reproduce without suitable efforts being made to understand and apply this understanding. In the case of Mizuno, the burnishing process is the important variable not the mesh.

Your knowledge of this field is far greater than mine, and if there are other methods that have worked as well as the Mizuno one, that is fine. I was under the impression that Mizuno's cop is the biggest that hasn't been shown to be a fraud. However, there are aspects of Mizuno's method that are very appealing. The elegant simplicity of the reactor, easy scaling up, heat produced in useable real world quantities at useful temperature.

I totally get that the mesh is not the vital factor here, and, in fact, if we look at the spectrum of parameters involved, it may be that the burnishing is not the key variable either. TM has said that a) he used burnishing as the appliction method because the other method of electroless plating was expensive due to high cost of solutions over base cost of metal content. b) The reason for the big increase in cop was nothing to do with the method of preparation, which was also used in R19, but is attributed to the heating of the R20 reactor from inside rather than outside.

It may well be that there is a coupling of the preparation, involving the use of tap water rather than the perhaps to be expected de ionised variety, with the burnishing, which we know causes intercalation of calcite with the Pd, and which also leaves the larger unpalladised area of the Ni mesh liberally populated with calcite. Were this to be a vital part of the series of conditions necessary, then the burnishing would be merely a coincident facilitator to the real ingredient.

My approach is that in view of the decades of effort that have gone into this area, not least by you, and the lack of reliable repeatability, then there is clearly something about it that is resisting analysis, and very effectively, too. For example, there is clearly a need to increase the number of active sites, which are highly likely to be related to grain characteristics, or morphology. It could be a very unfortunate coincidence that as the NAEs are generated by, in this case, thermal/pressure cycling at fairly modest temperatures, the instant there is the success of generated heat at somewhat higher temperatures, these will be enough to increase the grain size, thus reducing the number of sites, or compromising them in some way. However, there is no arguing with the magnitude of the Mizuno R20 result, so it needs to be focussed on in great detail imho. That is the main reason why I accept the mesh as a given in this situation. Not because I advocate the use of it, but because if something has worked, and you don't know why, the last thing you want to do is change any part of it without very clearly demonstrated reason. If we can find a system, it may well transpire that sheet is better, or foam, or nanowhiskers, or monocrystals or whatever. You can only say what is required when you know what is going on.

The vital thing with this type of analysis, obviously, is to fix as many things as you can. The analogy I choose is differential calculus. An obvious approach: fix everything, and see what happens as you vary one thing- simple; nice. A sheet of A4 and a biro, and you're sorted. But what if you haven't got the luxury of everything conveniently nailed down? If several things are in a state of flux, you can forget pen and paper, you're into Navier Stokes, a much higher level of maths, and a super computer. It may well be this type of mechanism that has made analysis and repeatability so illusive over the years. Coupled processes and the like. We may need to accept that what we 'know' or think we know, has more variability than we find convenient. This field has defied systemisation for so long that we may need to forget Nobel Prize-winning mechanisms, and just look at what has happened, and devise simple experiments to run the numbers of variables in order to see how Mizuno did something that worked. I can't see the logic in relying on known constants in a situation that is famous for not having many.

Quote from ElderingG

In what sense should I understand your use of the word "burnishing"?

I don't want to speak out of turn, but I would say very much the former rather than the latter.

Quote from Wyttenbach

But nuclear mass is not formed by potentials, its almost all defined by magnetic flux. It looks like any rotating mass with energy of about 1keV can attach to nuclear mass and cause a physical reaction. Thus there is no such thing as a coulomb barrier for LENR.

Is this accepted?

If it is, it's amazing.

We can make some awesome velodromes with the multi zillion i.c.u. (international currency unit) cyclotrons.

I said simplicity of reactor, not cheapness of peripherals!

And my food has had rave reviews from a 2 star chef!!

On TV!!!

And I've got the DVDs to prove it!!!!

Anyway, to mix house keeping terminology, how's the post-element-change big bake and vac going?