Albiston/FluxHeat Mizuno Analogue Experiments

I normally prefer to work and lurk rather than post, but feel it is important to share my experimental progress at this time. I've taken the liberty of creating a new thread rather than posting in the Mizuno threads so that comments directed toward my experimentation can be kept in a single place rather than mixed in 80+ pages of Mizuno thread comments.

First, let me set expectations. I am now one week into my first "fueled" Mizuno analog experiment and so far have seen no evidence of unconventional behavior. I want to share my experimental setup so that if unconventional results are later seen there is a previous understanding of my test setup and procedures.

The reactor is 4 inches in diameter, 26 inches in length, with 6 inch conflats on each end. The heating element is a 3/4 X 18 inch cartridge heater with integrated thermocouple.

One end has a 1/2" Swagelok fitting for the gas connection, the other end has a 3/4" Swagelok for the heating element.

Calorimeter details in next post...

The airflow calorimeter consists of an insulated, airtight box (Magic Chef HMCF7W2). The 3 inch foam insulation has been supplemented with Reflectix foil insulation radiant barrier.

The calorimeter is housed in a non-climate controlled space so the input air is controlled to be a constant input temperature. A modified heated blower (Conair 1875) is used with PID control to maintain input temperature, usually within a few tenths of a degree.

The reactor is placed on a custom rack to ensure consistent placement. Type N thermocouples are placed on the exterior in two locations and clamped in position to ensure repeatability.

Airflow is measured real-time using 4 Honeywell AWM730B5 mass airflow sensors.

Input and output temperature are measured using TI LM34 silicon temperature sensors.

More details to come...

A Balzers MSC 200 RGA station is used for pump down and mass spectrometer analysis. Pressure is measured using a 100 Torr Baratron capacitance manometer, 0.1 Torr Baratron, a Pirani gauge, and a cold cathode gauge.

The heater is powered using a Xantrex XFR 100-12 DC supply.

Calibration details next....

The reactor was pumped down and filled with ~6000 Pa of D2 for calibration.

The left plots show heater power versus heat recovery (Instantaneous COP). I've labeled the mean recovery for the last 4 hours of each power step. This is the recovery that is plotted in the bottom recovery versus power plot.

The right plots show calorimeter input air temperature, output air temperature, and ambient temperature.

50W and 400W calibration

100W calibration

200W, 300W, 350W, 400W, and 450W calibration. The sudden dips in ambient temperature are real, and due to overhead door openings in the non-climate controlled space.

Recovery versus power.

Recovery is calculated using a constant Density = 1.2754 kg/m³ and Cp = 1005 J/kg C. The absolute value of the recovery should just be considered an estimate since the absolute accuracy of the airflow sensors is not great. The repeatability of the sensors and measured recovery is very good though and therefore the calibration can be safely used to detect anomalous results.

For the test I am currently running 4 meshes were prepared according to the Mizuno/Rothwell Materials and Methods supplement to the best of my ability. A couple of notes and observations in the material preparation:

• I used Dawn dish detergent.
• The sanding step is very difficult. Holding on to the meshes while sanding in a tub of water is not trivial. This sanding step is I'm sure a huge source of variability in material preparation.
• I did not have an accurate way to determine how much Palladium was applied, if any. I will seek to improve this and also seek for SEM analysis of my prepared mesh samples to determine how much Palladium I am depositing.
• I pumped the reactor down for 3 days prior to introducing D2. My turbo is old though and probably takes longer than a newer unit. I also do not currently have any way of baking my external plumbing so it was difficult to get all of the water out.

This scan was taken just prior to the valving off of the vacuum pumps and introducing D2.

The Pirani and Cold Cathode units are in mTorr. I don't know what the Y-axis is on the RGA scan, but the relative peaks show that it was mostly H2 left in the reactor prior to stopping pumping.

After several days of testing I have seen no excess yet. I am now doing a second pump down and bake out which will likely last another several days.

Quote from Shane D.

Brian Albiston

Since you are on the MFMP team, and accompanied BG to test me356 's reactor, can I ask if we can consider this an official MFMP Mizuno/R20 replication attempt? And if so, are you working alone?

Shane, you are correct that I've volunteered for the MFMP in the past and was part of the me356 testing team. This is not an MFMP test. I am working alone and being assisted with funding by my FluxHeat business partner. He wishes to maintain anonymity at this time. We feel it is in the spirit of Mizuno's generosity and openness to be as open with this testing as possible though.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

Did you standardize to STP mostly because the mass air flow sensors report in STP?

If you have more details on the mass airflow set up I would appreciate it, if you have the time.

Paradigmnoia Yes, that is correct. I standardized to STP because that is what the sensors report in. I have a hot wire anemometer, but the mass air flow (MAF) sensors are so much more convenient.

I've found the MAF sensors to be very repeatable, but I also discovered the absolute accuracy isn't great by comparing the sensors with each other.

This is corroborated by the datasheet (which I had overlooked that detail when I chose them). What really matters is repeatablity, since I can calibrate the absolute accuracy, and in this they excel. I would bet it would be difficult to achieve such repeatability with hot wire anemometer traverses.

The four sensors are mounted in parallel downstream of the outlet temperature sensor.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

So, back to the MAFs, they are small diameter compared to the outlet tube, so how do you deal with that?

I'm not sure I understand your question. I don't do anything to account for the MAFs small diameter other than I require four of them to allow sufficient air flow because of the back pressure they create. If I had a stronger blower I could probably get away with two MAFs. All of the calorimeter exit air passes through the MAFs. I hope that answers your question.