Good to see Matt got a chance to
do Research beyond his House.
Here's a brief update on my (intermittent) work. I did some plating tests with FeSO4, (saturated at 100g / liter). A thick layer of iron was easily deposited at 2 v.d.c. / 600 ma. but the iron didn't adhere and peeled off even as the plating continued. A second test at 1 v.d.c. / 250 ma. yielded a thinner layer that seemed to adhere to the surface in some areas. There was little or no sign of bubbles, and I suspect this kind of iron plating will not give an active LEC effect. Further testing might resolve this question, perhaps with addition of some HCl to a diluted FeSO4 plating bath.
It seems from available references that neither Cu nor Fe form a stable hydride in the way that Pd and Ni do. Yet the discussion so far has referred to the preparation process as "co-deposition". Alan Smith has suggested nano-scale surface morphology as an important factor, but my SEM is unable to resolve anything smaller than around 50 nm on my test articles.
A second test at 1 v.d.c. / 250 ma. yielded a thinner layer that seemed to adhere to the surface in some areas.
Hi.
Breakdown voltage of water is 2V. So no bubbles at 1V. Weaker electrolyte to raise cell resistance might help. Higher voltage and possible use of a current limiter to control the plate rate.
magicsound, the trick to obtain good adhesion is to start with a very small current for say 30 minutes, then rise it gradually until you reach the target current. The thicker is the layer the more difficult is keeping it in place. Of course it is fundamental to clean the piece with alcohol or other solvents. [Maybe I wrote some obvious things]
As for the boubbles, the original procedure (from Frank) was using FeCl2 (or PdCl2), so I think no visible boubling were present also in that cases (?). Rout and Srinivasan detected the radiation in samples of Pd or Ni treated in a variety of ways, so the exact procedure must not be too critical.
However, it appear that using Cu as a substrate instead of brass makes things a little more hard.
I've applied a flash coating of Ni using a standard commercially available watts bath and Ni wire for the anode. Ni plates easily onto brass or copper and within a few minutes, the Ni coating is visible before codeposition with Pd-H. This may also help getting the Fe to stick. I've also plated the Fe directly on to iron and that seems to work fine. Good luck.
Last required item arrived. the DMM.
And where to find an oscilloscope for 10 kilovolts, you can not tell me ...
Gennady- you don't need a HV scope- all you do is clip the scope probes onto the insulated parts of the wire. Enough leakage there to register on the scope. I have done it quite often.
ETA- just put a lead onto 1 live wire btw - connect the other one to earth..
An alternative method is to wrap a few turns of insulated wire to the outside of the insulated part of the HV leads- making a 2 or 3 turn coil. Connect one probe to that and the other one to earth.
Alan Smith I wish you all the best of luck and intuition as you apply considerable skilled study to scaling up.
My balliwick, at times a foible, is I'm all over the map in my thinking...
I'm thinking these from Liviu Popa Simil hold relevance for review. Hopefully this hold true and helps you.
The first is his latest group of advanced plasma tech patents... The many iterations of it are of interest. Worth a fortune as I understand it.
The second is his early CMNS/LENR 'nuclear battery' patent. It is the first patent that led me to muse there would be both LENR Electric and LENR Thermal CMNS energy tech reactors developed.
Liviu Popa Simil patents listed at Justia
Liviu Popa-Simil Inventions, Patents and Patent Applications - Justia Patents Search
DC-DC electrical transformer
Oct 27, 2016 - TIBBAR PLASMA TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
An apparatus and corresponding systems and methods for managing electric power, particularly a transformer system and method, and more specifically a transformer for direct current. An example apparatus includes a chamber configured to contain plasma. The apparatus includes input electrodes disposed at least partially within the chamber, and configured to receive a first direct current input into the chamber. The input electrodes are configured to cause the input direct current to induce motion in the plasma. Motion induced in the plasma transforms current flowing there-through. At output electrodes extend from the chamber. The output electrodes conduct a second direct current, from the induced motion in the plasma, for delivery from the chamber.
Description
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
This invention was made with Government support under Award No. DE AR0000677, awarded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E), U.S. Department of Energy. The Government has certain rights in this invention.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/209,907, filed 14 Jul. 2016, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
METHOD AND DEVICE FOR DIRECT NUCLEAR ENERGY CONVERSION IN ELECTRICITY IN FUSION AND TRANSMUTATION PROCESSES
Nov 15, 2011
A method and device to generate electric energy on demand by fusion or transmutation nuclear reactions produced inside a super-capacitor that uses inter-atomic field's particularities obtained inside nano-structures, by using temperature, density and electric fields in order to modify nuclear entanglement and quantum non-localities particularities in order to control nuclear reaction rate of an inserted material, called nuclear fuel, facilitated by the nano-structure nuclear composition, called burner, that controls the non-local nuclear reaction. Fusion or transmutation generated nuclear particles' energy is converted using a super-capacitor made of a micro-nano-hetero structure meta-material that loads from the nuclear energy and discharges by electric current. The device contains the nuclear burner module that produces the nuclear particles surrounded by the direct nuclear energy conversion into electricity super-capacitor modules comprising several functional sub-modules, and the utilities that provide the nuclear fuel and byproducts management and process control systems.
Addendum
Also noteworthy is his early understanding of THz nano....
Multi-band terahertz receiver and imaging device
Mar 23, 2007 https://patents.justia.com/patent/7851761
Multi-band polarized receiver-emitter THz domain visualization device that includes a group of elemental receiver units made from a resonant system sensitive to frequency and polarization, a micro-bead solid-state voltage amplifier in the gate of a differential FET system. The detection is based on the carrier perturbation method detected by a set of double gate comparator circuits that further generates an integrated signal driven to a digital analog converter. The signal from here is accessing event-based memory used to generate the 3D images. Multiple detection modules are coupled into a triangular detection element detecting a multitude of frequencies, in a cascade of bands from 2 mm to 1 micron. This THz chromatic detector is integrated in a surface morph array, or in an image area of a focusing device generating a pixel of information with band, amplitude, polarization and time parameters, driving to a complex 3D substance level visualizations.
Description
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/786,169, filled on Mar. 27, 2006, which is hereby incorporated by reference in this entity.
BACKGROUND
During the past few decades, electromagnetic applications got a new dimension as solution to assure better communication and better imaging. The new instrumentation not only allowed to have better image, but to obtain images of the temperature distribution and more recently, of the molecular and atomic composition distribution. Developing visualization device in far Infra red presents tremendous advantages and focused the research of space agencies, defense and security as well many other private companies oriented to science. The THz wave emitters and receivers are less developed, compared to its neighboring bands (microwave and optical). During the past decade, THz waves have been used to characterize the electronic, molecular vibration and composition, properties of solid, liquid and gas phase materials to identify their molecular structures.
The Terahertz domain is the most uncovered, because the energies are small to be detected by the majority of the actual devices, while the dimensions are in the sub-millimetric domain. The problem of the ratio Signal/Noise ratio is difficult because the energy of a single 1 THz photon is 4.1 meV equivalent to a 47K temperature, requiring cryogenic electronics.
Hi Alan,
Try this:-
Iron plating solution (19th century):
40 gm iron sulphate
200 gm potassium-sodium tartrate
0,6 lit water
0,4 lit ammonia(25%)
iron anode
Pete.
Alan,
I think an organic anion in solution ( in this case tartrate, C4H4O6 two minus)
may assist adherence, because others talk about adding vinegar.
Pete.
Alan,
Na-K tartrate Rochelle salt about $6 on ebay
Sure- thanks Peter. The usual use of carboxylic acid compounds like vinegar, tartrates and citrates in plating is as a levelling and brightening agents, improving the quality of the plating. Stevenson used a simpler method, HCl only, a low current and a long duration- which (presumably) helps with the co-deposition. But he was plating on brass which is also my choice. .
The plating method is obviously a key experimental variable, and part of the testing space. Do we need good bright plating, or a duller surface. Right now I'm not sure, but hopefully we will find out at some point. Right now Matt and I will use the Stevenson method. If it works as we hope, the tally ho. This could be a lab-rat - cheap too.
Re the above - the best thing about your 19th century recipe is that it is essentially Alkaline- and I have a suspicion that Alkalis produce a slightly more rust-resistant finish.
We (Matt and I) began plating tests on Monday, using the very simple 'HCl only' protocol Stevenson used, but instead of wire I used a hefty slab of low-carbon mild steel, wanting to ensure we could maintain continuity of anode material right through a potentially long series of tests. For whatever reason I could not get it to work. I suspect there was a serious shortage of Fe ions in the electrolyte. Even adding a little FeCl2 didn't help.
This is what we had at the beginning- central iron anode, 2 brass plate cathodes in dilute Hcl.
Adding a splash of FeCl2 did not help. In fact, the brass plates turned copper coloured - obviously the hydrochloric acid was leaching out the zinc from the brass alloy. You can see the effect on the leftmost of these two plates.
So I made a version of Peter 's alkaline recipe using stuff I had to hand.
125 grams Iron Sulphate, 125 grams Sodium Citrate, 100ml 35% Ammonia topped up to 1750 ml with distilled water. Disgusting looking brew btw...the white 'thing' in the bottom is a plastic dish used to support the electrodes.
But it works like a charm...here's a 'just begun' plated sheet after around 1 hour. And then the grid transformer 2 miles away gave up the ghost- no power till tomorrow now. Not my fault, honest.
These are just tests, tomorrow I can begin more precise work, like weighing the plates before and after, and so on.
Yes, disgusting looking stuff, same as what I saw with the FeSO4 alone. In my test some precipitate settled out after 24 hours or so, and the liquid became translucent and more yellow.
I suggested earlier that Fe doesn't seem to be central to the phenomenon, but with no response other than Alan Smith suggesting nano scale surface activity. Using EDX I saw trace amounts Sn when I tested the protocol, but no Fe anywhere on the cathode.
Stevenson's well-documented tests worked despite the probable absence of Fe plating on the cathode. It's possible undetectably small amounts of Fe are having a catalytic effect of course, but I predict a substantial plated coat of Fe will not yield an active LEC effect.
I suggested earlier that Fe doesn't seem to be central to the phenomenon, but with no response other than Alan Smith suggesting nano scale surface activity. Using EDX I saw trace amounts Sn when I tested the protocol, but no Fe anywhere on the cathode.
Frank Gordon had pointed out that Iron can occlude more hydrogen than Pd, if you suggested it might not be important at all -I missed that. But it looks like I can manage a good plating procedure with PeterM's recipe. I like alkaline electrolytes best anyway. They always seem less problematic - every time I've had to fight the chemistry it's been with acidic electrolytes.
BTW- after the powe in the labr went down I just left my plated test piece in the 'dead' tank. I pulled it out before I left for the day and all the plating had vanished, re-incorporated into the electrolyte!
Frank Gordon had pointed out that Iron can occlude more hydrogen than Pd
OK, let's give that a closer look. The supposition is that electrolytic hydrogen is adsorbed onto the cathode surface, then trapped in place (occluded) by the electroplated layer of iron. Some hydrogen may also be "co-deposited" - mixed with the electroplated iron. But neither iron nor copper form stable hydrides at STP, so the hydrogen will probably be in molecular form (absent catalysis by nano surface effects). It can still migrate through physical flaws and grain boundaries in the plating, though not through lattice vacancies. Therefore the gas that eventually escapes will not be ionized enough to generate the LEC effect. What am I missing?
From Wiki:
We are not talking about hydrides at all here- and in Iron they are not true compounds like ferric oxide, but low-energy ligands with electron sharing. So very unstable. Way back in 1865 Thomas Graham studied the occlusion of hydrogen in iron, and found that at room temperature and even in a vacuum it remained in place required the iron to be heated almost to redness to expel it. See the second page of his paper for a mention of this. -
https://www.jstor.org/stable/112545?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents
This suggest to me at least that H atoms are embedded in the lattice, rather than loosely packed into surface irregularities- thought they may well be important.
My version of Frank and Harper's theory is that hydrogen fusion to helium is occurring in the lattice, and that particle emissions (detected in a replication at Los Alamos) are ionising the free hydrogen atmosphere between the plates.
ETA - a nuclear battery. Also here's a pdf of the Graham paper - well worth a read in full I thought.
My version of Frank and Harper's theory is that hydrogen fusion to helium is occurring in the lattice, and that particle emissions (detected in a replication at Los Alamos) are ionising the free hydrogen atmosphere between the plates.
And where does the energy come from to promote the fusion? The measured LEC voltage did seem to increase with temperature IIRC. But if thermal motion of the lattice enough to cause fusion at RT, why isn't ordinary steel (which always has some trapped hydrogen) mildly radioactive? Maybe foundry processing doesn't create enough NAE regions, while electroplating does.
