According to me356 the mesh may work after bakeout, though at reduced level. I'm finishing my current test by heating back to 250C after the deloading process. If the hydrogen is truly gone, there should be little if any rise in pressure. Currently at 175C the pressure is still below the 1 Pa measurement limit.
Very well. Before adding D make sure that temprerature is constant at the room temp. If temperature is still falling loading rate of hydrogen is faster. So filling is best to do at constant temp or right after you power up the heater when it heats up - at as low temperature as possible. And also please try to fill the cell as slow as possible and only at the first try. Any additional filling to the mesh will improve flux of the mesh. Which is unwanted if you are unable to deload the mesh fully - which is almost impossible when we are talking about Nickel.
You are trying to not load the mesh because when it is loaded flux of the mesh is reduced. When flux is reduced excess heat is always limited.
So what we are trying to do are two things that are quite controversial.
And low pressure range is maintained so that hydrogen can be trapped back from the lattice and circulate near the surface.
I hope I can find a parable that could show how transition metal and LENR works.