Are you sure about this figure? Did you also dissolve the electrode ?
Pretty sure. The above Before and After chart shows about 45000 units (propbably ugs) before and 7500 units after the experiment which is about 16.67% left.
The problem among many CF analysis was the fact that people always did look at the sample they treated and not at the containment/equipment. Had Fleischmann done a MS sample of his electrode - as Biberian did later - then no discussion would have broken out. The electrode did store large amounts of excess Sliver isotopes.
It looks like the deposits on the electrode are insignificant and only detectable at microscopic levels. They probably rinsed the electrode and container with water before analysing the solution.
What Saffire shows is just the last step in the chain and here the question is: How much energy is needed/can be regained from such a process.
SAFIRE will be the first step and afterwards the elements will be filtered once the radiation has been eliminated.
From my understanding the Thorium or Radium and other elements (Sodium/Barium etc) are the main source of the energy once the plasma is struck but yet there will be a required external source and they are not looking to generate or recover energy only to neutralize radiation to clean produced water for this device. I doubt it will be a large energy draw as they are only operating at around 1 Amp for this small test. I'm more worried about how long the electrode will last but I guess they are confident it's worth doing so maybe months if not longer.
And last: Why testing Thorium? Thorium is no problem at all as it can be easily filtered out. For storing the waste all the 232Th decay chain products need to be remediated.
Radium is the most abundant and radioactive element in the produced water and Thorium decays to Radium so finding no Radium after the experiment may indicate that the process will work to clean produced water.
They didnt show any decay chain products so maybe smaller elements than the Thorium are fully decayed or maybe they are not an issue as they have short half-lives.