Hydrogen trapped inside iron lattice ,this is possess a name "hydrogen embrittlement".
In fact, a steel which is simply an iron alloyed is sensitive to this behavior when its lattice moves from CC to FFC.
Now by chemistry probably difficult to well control this parameter.
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?
That's the $64K question. I don't know, but I want to find out.
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.
Alan Smith, as I wrote, at first I was very unhappy with the plating I used: for more than 5 hours no signs of plating on the brass, and it slighly turned reddish due to "dezincification". However, something happened abruptly, and the cathode became black in a few minutes (about 2 or 3 hours before ending the process). Probably there are more than one equilibrium at play, and maybe it is difficult to obtain the right conditions. Probably the FeCl2 or FeSO4 solution is a more reliable approach.
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'm quite shure there was a meaningful amount of Fe on the cathode, because it rusted over time and it was even magnetized. However, I noticed one interesting thing from your pictures (and also Alan's ones): your plating actually looks like Fe (gray and shining), and it seems relatively thick. My plating was instead a kind of very thin black layer, looking quite like soot. This may imply an amorphous or nano-porous structure. I don't know if or how this may affect the experiment.
There are still many things we don't know: you may be right in saying that the Fe layer alone is not sufficient to get the effect. But probably the opposite is true (as suggested by the Rout and Srinivasan paper): you could start with a solid Fe part and electrolytically load it with hydrogen (this is quite easy to verify, I think I will test it in the coming days).
Note that if instead the Fe is not needed (because the small amount of hydrogen absorbed on the cathod is sufficient), probably a "sandwitch" design of the LEC will not work, because you will have the "radiation" from both sides of the plate (you should use just one layer or revise the internal series connections).
Alan Smith, as I wrote, at first I was very unhappy with the plating I used: for more than 5 hours no signs of plating on the brass, and it slighly turned reddish due to "dezincification". However, something happened abruptly, and the cathode became black in a few minutes (about 2 or 3 hours before ending the process). Probably there are more than one equilibrium at play, and maybe it is difficult to obtain the right conditions. Probably the FeCl2 or FeSO4 solution is a more reliable approach.
That's a very interesting observation.I noticed when trying the pure HCl method that the piece of 50x22mm steel bar I was using became covered with a loosely adhered greenish-black (but mostly black) film of fine powder after a few hours. The green I take to be copper chloride from the de-zinced cathode but the black was probably magnetite -Fe3O4. Zinc Chloride is colourless in solution so would be invisible as a gross contaminant.
I have seen and examined microscopically nano-magnetite formation on steel electrodes in other unrelated experiments. No surprise really, there are a lot of OH radicals and short-lived singlet oxygen ions around the anode. On exposure to air and out of the electrolyte this rapidly changes (it can happen in a few minutes) to the lower Gibbs free energy and more familiar form of red heamatite Fe2O3.
Could something have made magnetite suddenly desert your anode and move over to the cathode?
As shown in the attached plot, the hydrogen diffusivity of iron is approximately two orders of magnitude greater than that of palladium at room temperature and is approximately equal to the hydrogen diffusivity of palladium at its melting point. The much lower cost and worldwide availability of iron could be important factors in the future economic feasibility of LEC devices. For these reasons, LEC cells were prepared using working electrodes of iron to evaluate iron-hydrogen performance. There is much to learn from the experiments and other metals or alloys may work better.
I noticed when trying the pure HCl method that the piece of 50x22mm steel bar I was using became covered with a loosely adhered greenish-black (but mostly black) film of fine powder after a few hours. The green I take to be copper chloride from the de-zinced cathode but the black was probably magnetite -Fe3O4.
Interesting... The presence of magnetite could explain why both the iron wires and/or the WE became magnetized. However the black powder at the anode could also be cupric oxide (CuO), since there is a spontaneous migration of copper to the anode, where there is a very oxidative environment.
The black layer formed on the WE was conductive, so probably it was not (entirely) magnetite, some metallic Fe was present, and this explains the subsequent rusting (perhaps magnetite could have been reduced by the hydrogen during the deposition process).
you should try an austenitic steel, an ss steel, on older broken tool for example..
This is a good idea. In particulare testing the difference between austenitic and martensitic steel. SS steel is instead more problematic, because there are many different alloys depending on the specific manifacturer, so results can be inconsistent.
As shown in the attached plot, the hydrogen diffusivity of iron is approximately two orders of magnitude greater than that of palladium at room temperature
This should confirm that may be a good idea to try loading a solid Fe part, instead of co-depositing the Fe. This experiment will also clarify if the effect is due to something happening during the co-deposition, or it is just due to hydrogen permeation in to Fe lattice.
Black magnetite nano-particles down-convert to red heamatite almost while you watch. So I think it likely that rapid rusting is evidence of that. Your wires etc became permanently magnetised because of the DC flowing through them, this creates an electromagnetic field in the metal, which being ferromagnetic hangs on to it after you switch off... no mystery there.
Atomic Hydrogen Occluded in Iron Nitride.
ATOMIC hydrogen in iron has so far been known to ))
be occluded when iron is quenched from a high tem- ))
perature in water or when iron is electrolytically )))
deposited. )))
1 have observed the existence of atomic
hydrogen in iron nitride prepared by heating iron in
the current of ammonia gas. I confirmed it by
measuring the single potential of the iron nitride in
normal ferrous sulphate solution. The time voltage
curve of the iron nitride showed a minimum due to
atomic hydrogen at the beginning, similar to that
which appeared in the curve of iron quenched and
loaded with atomic hydrogen, obtained by T. W.
Richards. 1
I also confirmed the existence of atomic hydrogen
by immersing the iron nitride in a solution of potassium
ferricyanide and observing the formation of Prussian
blue on adding the ferric chloride solution. This re-
duction, K 3 Fe(CN) 6 +atomic K 4 Fe(CN) 6 ,
also takes place with the iron quenched in water, and ))
thus loaded with atomic hydrogen, but never with )))
ordinary iron. SHUN-TCHI SATOH. )))
Mitsubishi Research Laboratory,
Tokyo, Japan.
1 Zdt. physikal. Chem., 58, 310; 1907
I don't know how to load pictures and other graphs in text on this Forum so I've attached separate files. The .pdf file is the PRELIMINARY analysis of a test that we just completed. More analysis remains to be done but I've posted this preliminary report and welcome your questions and comments. I've also posted 3 pictures of the iron working electrode that were taken after the test. The initial appearance of the WE was uneven, lumpy black deposits of iron onto an iron pipe nipple. Following the test, there were interesting features that were not present before the test.
Thank you Frank. I was able to continue with my plating tests today, since UK Power Networks kindly fixed the local transformer.
As a reminder, this is the plating tank - 2 plates at once, anode in the middle.
Same electrolyte as before, Iron Sulphate, Sodium Citrate, Ammonia. pH 9.9.
View from Above.
Typical plating current. (reminder to self - clean PSU...) Also remember that the surface area here is large, so current density (A/cm2 ) is low.
This is the brass plate before coating (x300 approx) - the scratches are from 600 grit abrasive.
This is the plate after 7 hours in the tank - it started out with an almost mirror-like coating, and gradually it is becoming darker. Adhesion seems good though there's one spot in a bottom corner where the substrate shows through
This is the microscope view...the dark spots are the adhered magnetite (I think)
.
And now it's back in the tank, brewing overnight.
Cold Fusion is ceused by the bond compression.
so in Fe fcc lattice has the T site which has D- and D+ join to D- to be 4He.
As a reminder, this is the plating tank - 2 plates at once, anode in the middle.
Just a curiosity: the plating you got is on one side only or both? If both sides are affected by the process, the original stack design probably needs a little revision.
Hi there.
The intention is to plate one side- but there's a little 'bleed-over' Some metal is plating onto the reverse side of the brass plates - just around the edges. As you say, with 2 sides plated some re-ordering of the stacks would be required- but this is the kind of thing I'm trying to find out.
But if the cause of the voltage is ionisation of inter-electrode hydrogen, would it actually matter if the ionisation was coming from both sides of every plate? Probably it would, because of polarisation issues with every plate trying to be positive and negative at the same time, but without a clear idea of a mechanism for action I cannot be certain.
I probably missed this from earlier discussions, but has the emission of excited atoms or energetic H or D ions from the plated material already been considered as an explanation for the voltage effect? Perhaps after treatment the material even emits faint crackling noises when left in the atmosphere?
but has the emission of excited atoms or energetic H or D ions from the plated material already been considered as an explanation for the voltage effect?
All we know is that the cell is able to conduct a current in both directions in a pretty simmetrical way, so there should be an almost equal number of positive and negative charges in the gas, i.e. the gas is ionized by something. This could be H ions with adequate energy, or "medium energy" photons (in both cases >20 eV).
Quite some time ago I was forwarded this paper; I thought that something along these lines (perhaps enhanced by the initial electrolytic conditions and materials used) could be contributing in some way to the observed LEC effect.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ar970030f
QuoteAbstract: Hydrogen atoms emerging from the bulk of Ni metal to the surface are observed to be the reactive species in the hydrogenation of adsorbed methyl radical, ethylene, and acetylene to gas-phase products. Surface-bound H atoms are unreactive. The distinctive chemistry of a bulk H atom arises largely from its significantly higher energy as compared to that of a surface-bound H atom. These results demonstrate that bulk H is not solely a source of surface-bound H in catalytic hydrogenation as proposed 50 years ago, but rather, a reactant with a chemistry of its own.
As for the other observation in my previous post, sometimes I have noticed that the plated side using steel/Fe sheets appears to outgas strongly and emit audible noise as it does. The occluded hydrogen gas could be emerging from the surface energetically as suggested above, although whether such atoms would have > 20 eV it's difficult to say.
Quite some time ago I was forwarded this paper;
The paper is behind a paywall, so I cannot fully read it. It may be relevant or not, depending on the energy levels that are discussed. Since the paper deals with organic hydrogenation reactions, I guess it refers to something < 5 eV as "high energy" 
sometimes I have noticed that the plated side using steel/Fe sheets appears to outgas strongly and emit audible noise as it does.
This mainly happen when the plating is obtained with high currents, that lead to the formation of a disordered deposition, that is full of mechanical stress (in fact it crumbles very easily). I would say this is not the case for the LEC.
The energy levels discussed in the paper are definitely nowhere near 20 eV. I was only wondering if a similar process could exist at a higher level during electroplating under conditions that promote hydrogen absorption, something that tends to be avoided in commercially desirable platings. If polarity reverses at high temperature as mentioned by Alan Smith in a comment I previously missed on the previous page however, it's not likely to be related.
Indeed under the conditions I mentioned there was a lot of heat, gas and current, and a dull black layer (presumably Fe using just mild steel electrodes) was quickly formed. I made a quick test yesterday just to see if I could reproduce this noise observation I made in the past (which I could) and not all of it adhered but I did not put any care trying to clean the pieces beforehand. I'll go back to my nest.
