MIZUNO REPLICATION AND MATERIALS ONLY

sorry i have some late threads but Storms idea about NiO inclusions inside Pd lattice is very good.

Why ? Ni bulk has a very tight FCC lattice, the fact that it's oxidized gives it a BCC lattice.

BTW nickel could be effectively loaded by H/D.

At low temperatures ( 300°) i suggest that oxygen trapped won't be reduced by H/D..,?

Japanese powder only works if there are a few Pd atoms on the surface of the Ni particle according to their reports.

You should know that we play in catalyst technology by doping too.

By playing with electronegativity gap, we induce a selectivity in the catalyst.

Pd on nickel thus will create electrons holes , probably interesting for lattice loading.

Well, we did the same to know how many cycles we need to know if we have removed all oxides from the lattice or not.

Unfortunately Bcc NiO is unstable under H2 and returns to Fcc structure when deoxidized.

You are right about difference between "trapped/bound" however i prefer the picture of a trap, the picture of a spring to imagine how atoms are linked and behave all together.

Because this is not this bound's notion which is important for Lenr consideration i guess but rather lattice mechanical tension, its stretching.

I suggest for example about Pd/D that high loading need help to reach this mechanical lattice tension close to the breaking point.

The analogy could be a guitar string capable of operating at higher frequencies to fit with phonons frequency windows.

Quote from Alan Smith

Well, I don't know about 'trapped' oxygen - by which I guess you mean oxygen bound into NiO which would be hard to shift - but there is plenty of lightly bound oxygen in Ni powder. I have done vacuum / pressure loading of hydrogen into nickel at 250C in all-glass systems, and this produces remarkable amounts of condensed water, water that has not entered the system from outside, but is the result of the recombination of hydrogen gas with surface oxygen. This effect persists but diminishes over several cycles of vacuum/gas loading.

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SOT wrote: 

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Because 250W with 50W in is persuasive (and 3kW much more so) while 108W out with 256W in is more likely to be a measurement error or other error of some sort.

Jed wrote:

No it isn't more persuasive. You think it is because you do not understand the difference between input power and noise. The 256 W in produces only a fraction of a watt more noise than 50 W input. Since any meter can measure 0.001 W of electric power with confidence, the increased error with 256 W comes to roughly 0.2 W. An increase in the error margin by 0.2 W cannot affect a 108 W signal. It is insignificant compared to 108 W.

Sources and types of all other errors would be the same in both cases.

We have been over this time after time, but you don't get it. See, for example:

Google (UBC/MIT/LBNL) post Nature updates.

Storms wrote:

The cost is largely related to sizr. I keep seeing the mistake of trying to go large in order to impress the ignorant that an application of LENR would be possible. Such scale up is much too premature. In fact, even the Mizuno apparatus is much too large for scientific research. An effective study of LENR requires the ability to easily, quickly, and cheaply explore a variety of conditions and materials. Fleischmann had the right idea about doing the work on a small scale. In my case, I designed the calorimeter so as to allow its use for any kind of study (electrolysis, gas loading, or gas discharge) without having to redesign and remake the apparatus. The sample size is no more than a few grams with accuracy of less than 10 mW.

Working on a small scale saves money and allows for more rapid turnaround. Also, achieving increased sensitivity and greater accuracy is easier. At this stage the object is to understand how the process works, not make a large amount of energy. The often quoted COP is meaningless at this stage. In the case of using a vacuum system, the smaller the system, the fewer the number of leaks would be likely and the faster the pump-down. Contrary to how ignorant skeptics think, proof of LENR does not require making a large amount of power or energy. The generated power only has to exceed the uncertainty in the detection system, which can be made very small when a small system is used. But as always, I do not expect this advice to have any effect on what people do. As Jed so correctly observed, "everyone does their own thing" regardless of how pointless it might be in view of what is known.

Jed wrote:

Miles thinks that some isoperibolic calorimeters become inaccurate at power levels below 600 mW when you use a single cell constant. At low power you have to take into account the heat flow out of the cell top. In other words, factors that have no measurable effect at one power level may begin to play a role at a much lower power level. There is a interesting discussion and graph of this on p. 5, here:

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesMcalorimetr.pdf

I always use a simple cell constant, but I realize that only works for a normal range of power, which I estimate is from ~0.5 W to ~10 W for a small calorimeter. It is an approximation. People such as Miles or Fleischmann do much more detailed analyses than I am capable of.

I am sure Ed can measure low power accurately! I think he usually uses a Seebeck, which I think is a little easier, more accurate, and more reliable.

THH: Mass flow calorimetry errors

I am actually not disagreeing with any of the comments above, including SOT's. But, equally, all of these comments are true only in a given set of circumstances which may be easy or difficult to determine. That is why generally we take the ruling of accepted experts on these matters. Of course when results are extraordinary, not generally accepted, and not replicated by independent non-partisan labs, even experts should be challenged. And in all cases where results are not widely confirmed nor theoretically understood experts should not be considered credible without comprehensive and carefully written write-ups. (e.g. McKubre's)

That being said there are calorimetry results so clear that a much less expert analysis can establish merit, because the signal is so much higher than potential errors. Mizuno's R20 results are like that, fall immediately into the can be believed but should be challenged category. And R19 results are similarly believable (but should be challenged) due to the comprehensive writeup. In both cases there is enough lack of care in statements made, and recording of results, that challenge is pretty easy. That makes those results interesting but questionable.

All calorimetry operates under a set assumptions. The problem with off the cuff blog remarks about what is or is not convincing is that it depends on which assumptions are needed in a specific case, and how well they have been validated.

The set of assumptions is not simple, in the case of any mass flow calorimetry, unless efficiency is assumed 100%. In that case all the issues to do with factors that might change efficiency between calibration and active tests go away.

To be clear by 100% efficiency I mean we assume no heat loss from apparatus and therefore all generated + input power appears as specific heat from temperature increase in the output flowing mass. Any losses then will only make the actual power generated higher than what is measured so this is conservative.

A lot of the modern claimed results are large enough that this "100% efficiency" assumption can be made and still (one would expect) have positive results. I'd recommend it because it simplifies analysis enormously and removes a lot of arguments about possible unconsidered changes in conditions (including Shanahan arguments).

In fact, given the complexity of doing "proper" calibrated calorimetry, I think for amateur experiments such an assumption should be mandatory. And would not prevent any of the results we have recently seen claimed from being indisputably validated.

It has consequences for design of experiments. Specifically, make sure that the apparatus is well enough insulated that efficiency is relatively high. If needed just add insulation to make the apparatus more sensitive. That is a much better route to believable results than attempts to calibrate losses and adjust results. Now, I am all for extra measurements to determine losses. They help to understand the equipment and add to the weight of the results. But only if results are not then adjusted to the expected values. That only works if the heat losses during the active experiment are identical to those measured, and proving that is complex.

In terms of result presentation it would be helpful, where heat losses and adjustment is done, always to provide the unadjusted figures as well as the adjusted ones, and work on the basis that unadjusted figures showing clear extraordinary heat excess are the ones that can more likely survive challenge.

And on blogs like this, when discussing and comparing results, awareness of this issue when summarising past results and claims would help.

There are a nice set of other not obvious errors that need to be checked, even with the 100% assumption, e.g. dynamic effects of room heating, differences between flow temperature and sensor temperature, non-uniform flow temperature, sensor drift. These I think require less work to answer (though they must be answered if results are to survive challenge).

THH

Quote from Curbina

as always you do a great job looking at close to all potential sources of error and mistakes, we have been through all this several times, the problem is that you won’t accept the possibility of a result being real even after all these things are checked. You simply deny the possibility. Many of the people involved in LENR research on the skeptic side are way past denial. They are looking at the “why” not at the “if”.

I remain interested in the replications exactly because I accept the possibility of a result being real.

It is just that (realistically) without proper replication the results mean little. With replication they mean Nobel prizes, trillions of dollars, disruptive tech.

Where I differ from some here is that "rumours / badly or not yet written and conducted experiments" constitute replication. I also do not accept that the same group doing the replication as produced the original experiment (eg SRI and Brillouin) is a replication.

Your point that the evidence now is so strong that skeptics are convinced (except for a few diehards like me) says something about "those involved in research on the skeptic side". Since were there high quality evidence it could be published and release the floodgates of general interest.

We can, taking your position, hope and expect that will happen soon.

I'm awaiting, to take two examples we have followed here:

(1) something from Alan et al that is strong enough to be publishable, and can then be considered by experts.

(2) some replication of Mizuno which bears out his findings and is independent and clear.

No point looking at the "why" until the phenomena to explain are clearly known, replicable, and capable of disproving incorrect whys. In the case of LENR they are not - other than the converged NRE conceptual framework that makes for non-standard branching ration D+D fusion on the surface of metal electrodes. That phenomenon is clear enough, but it does not simply extrapolate to the other more recent claims, which themselves are diverse.

Something to replicate? Why not test some of Holmlid's ultra dense deuterium in the National Ignition Facility? Instead of using such low power 100 W Nd YAG laser, why not test a 3-4 M J 1064 nm laser pulse which the NIF laser is capable of producing on a sample of UDD - we might actually see a fusion reaction generating GW of power! Wonder if Winterberg might approve since he cannot theoretically disprove its existence. Or maybe Holmlid has already tried to convince them to try such an experiment without any success. Well its hardly rocket science (or could it be?)

I forgot to report that Fluke (manufacturer of Extech, same guts as CW-60 anemometer) finally answered my question after 3 weeks of back-and-forth about what I meant, solved by asking what do they calibrate to (which even they claim must be done) if a probe tip is replaced? Being traceable to NIST, they use Normal Temperature, which is 40% humidity at 20 C at sea level. This relates to the now obsolete but widely used Normal (cubic) meter of air. Most hot wire instruments will be highly accurate -/+ 5 C of the calibrated temperature.

Around 2004 a meeting of world-wide metrological associations resolved to standardize their chain of air velocity measurement to those at NIST, to a common Standard Temperature. Standard temperature is not the same as Normal temperature, and some companies use 15 C or 0 C as the anemometer calibration temperature to match the actual typical temperature use range better.

Vane anemometers are not affected by air density, and always report the True velocity.

Hot wire anemometers report the velocity as if the air was at Normal Temperature conditions.

TH Huxley, after reading your comments, I get the impression that, in your mind, acceptance of LENR requires publication of a single study containing no detectable error and with such solid data that it alone proves the existence of the LENR effect. Ideally, the paper should also provide an explanation consistent with this "perfect" data. You reject all the imperfect papers published so far no matter how consistently they show the same behavior, including correlations between heat energy and helium production as well as the production of tritium. Frankly, I do not see how the criteria you impose can be applied to any discovery, even ones that are now accepted. All would fail because the perfect study is so rare to be an event by its itself. We all can and do nitpick over details in papers we read but we seldom reject the basic claim based on this approach, except in your case when LENR is discussed

For example, the Mizuno study clearly contains error, which makes the heat energy uncertain. We all agree about this fact. But, why does this study have to be so error-free that it alone can prove LENR is real? That fact has been already established by hundreds of papers and consistent correlations. We are now exploring ways to make the effect work better, as Curbina noted previously. When this viewpoint is applied, the Mizuno method is important because it provides another way to cause the effect that might be better than the many others revealed so far. Consequently, the discussion should be focused on how to make the Mizuno method work better, not on errors it will always contain.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

Hot wire anemometers report the velocity as if the air was at Normal Temperature conditions.

That is interesting. HVAC engineers use instruments that measure temperature and airspeed. Here's a do-everything model for $1,116:

Measure air speed, flow, humidity, temperature, differential pressure, CO & CO2 with one instrument

https://www.instrumart.com/pro…-series-ventilation-meter

This is a hot wire probe. You can see there are no vanes on it, plus it has an add-on or replacement part:

TSI Alnor Thermo-anemometer Air Velocity Probes
Hot-wire probes that measure air flow from 0 to 9,999 feet per minute and temperature with relative humidity optional

I wonder if it automatically adjusts the air speed based on temperature. For that kind of money it ought to. Plus it should make your coffee and answer the phone.

Quote from Storms

Ideally, the paper should also provide an explanation consistent with this "perfect" data. You reject all the imperfect papers published so far no matter how consistently they show the same behavior, including correlations between heat energy and helium production as well as the production of tritium. Frankly, I do not see how the criteria you impose can be applied to any discovery, even ones that are now accepted. All would fail because the perfect study is so rare to be an event by its itself.

Yes. The totality of evidence is what counts. Furthermore, replication is the standard of truth in experimental physics. So, many imperfect papers from different labs are more persuasive than one perfect paper. Also, the correlation of effects counts. That is, heat and helium, or heat and tritium.

Replication is not as important in other areas such as chemistry or engineering. Sometimes, one test is sufficient. When the people at Bell Labs made the first transistor, they were pretty sure it was an amplifier. But not 100% sure. An experienced engineer suggested they put it into a feedback loop to see if it generated sine waves. He said that is a sure way to identify an amplifier. They did, and it did. That was not a "perfect" test, and it was far from a perfect device. It was crude. But even then, they were justifiably confident that it was a solid state amplifier. (See the book, "Crystal Fire" for details.)

Quote from Storms

TH Huxley, after reading your comments, I get the impression that, in your mind, acceptance of LENR requires publication of a single study containing no detectable error and with such solid data that it alone proves the existence of the LENR effect. Ideally, the paper should also provide an explanation consistent with this "perfect" data. You reject all the imperfect papers published so far no matter how consistently they show the same behavior, including correlations between heat energy and helium production as well as the production of tritium. Frankly, I do not see how the criteria you impose can be applied to any discovery, even ones that are now accepted. All would fail because the perfect study is so rare to be an event by its itself. We all can and do nitpick over details in papers we read but we seldom reject the basic claim based on this approach, except in your case when LENR is discussed

For example, the Mizuno study clearly contains error, which makes the heat energy uncertain. We all agree about this fact. But, why does this study have to be so error-free that it alone can prove LENR is real? That fact has been already established by hundreds of papers and consistent correlations. We are now exploring ways to make the effect work better, as Curbina noted previously. When this viewpoint is applied, the Mizuno method is important because it provides another way to cause the effect that might be better than the many others revealed so far. Consequently, the discussion should be focused on how to make the Mizuno method work better, not on errors it will always contain.

Ed, thanks for this reflection.

Data is always interpreted in the light of prior information. Thus if your prior is that LENR (as a clear over-chemical exothermic effect) exists in a wide range of systems, then I'd agree with you. Yet another such system is unsurprising and also not very interesting of itself.

If you take the view that LENR does not exist, which is the mainstream science view, since if it was thought to exist everyone would be jumping on the "explain it" bandwagon, the Mizuno's results:

(1) are exceptionally interesting, if taken seriously

(2) are not clear enough to base further work on

(3) offer the prospect of replication with better record-keeping and methodology. In which case much clearer results would be expected.

My point would be that it is not necessary to say who is "right" on the issue of prior expectation here. The data required to convince many mainstream scientists and unleash great interest does not seem too difficult to get if these relatively simple systems showing long-term high power and energy out relative to power in are as Mizuno's indicative results claim.

There may be some issue of replicability. But just one of M's reactors, behaving as his experiments appear to indicate, tested by an independent and respected institution, would do. Replicability of results is needed, not replicability of systems, as long as a system can be repeatedly tested.

My point is not about the errors in M's air calorimetry. It is that his reactors, tested in a way that would satisfy skeptics, would be enough to unleash major interest. Thus surely it is worth doing?

THH

Quote from THHuxleynew

Thus if your prior is that LENR (as a clear over-chemical exothermic effect) exists in a wide range of systems, then I'd agree with you.

Are you saying you agree with that assertion? You think that LENR exists as a clear, over-chemical exothermic effect? If so, LENR is revolutionary. As far as anyone knows, nuclear reactions are the only source of heat that produces more energy per gram of matter than chemical reactions. That, plus the fact that cold fusion also produces tritium and helium means it has to be nuclear.

Do you agree? Or not? If you agree, why do you continually twist yourself into a pretzel to deny these fact?

Quote from THHuxleynew

If you take the view that LENR does not exist, which is the mainstream science view, since if it was thought to exist everyone would be jumping on the "explain it" bandwagon, the Mizuno's results:

We all know the earth is flat as this is the mainstream science view -14th century. But 1000BC the earth was once round...

Let's just assume that THH is one of the priests with a strong "science religion" background free of any sense for reality and experiments. May he will change his mind only after all SM priests from CERN,ITER,SLAC etc.. confirm that one specific LENR experiment did not lie.

One attitude such priests have: They never visit a lab that contradicts their view. Such a visit could contaminate a religious grounded mind and arguing might become an act of schizophrenia.

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They never visit a lab that contradicts their view.

So what labs are available for skeptics to visit and have a chance of a clear and convincing presentation?

Quote from JedRothwell

Are you saying you agree with that assertion? You think that LENR exists as a clear, over-chemical exothermic effect? If so, LENR is revolutionary. As far as anyone knows, nuclear reactions are the only source of heat that produces more energy per gram of matter than chemical reactions. That, plus the fact that cold fusion also produces tritium and helium means it has to be nuclear.

Do you agree? Or not? If you agree, why do you continually twist yourself into a pretzel to deny these fact?

Jed: On balance of evidence currently I quite strongly think that LENR as defined above does not exist. However even one clearly replicable result which is strongly positive would change that balance for me.

In particular, Mizuno's reactors R19 or R20 doing what his papers say the do, measured independently by a credible party, would alter this balance for me.

A clear replication of Mizuno would also do that, if either well instrumented and documented, or independently measured (e.g. replicator gives working device to another party who with different calorimetry setup also finds strong excess heat).

My quite strong pessimism is that this has not yet happened: but things take time so we will see.

I'd also point out that what would sway me would get a lot of other people interested (including TG).

THH