Frank Gordon's "Lattice Energy Converter (LEC)"...replicators workshop

Hi there! I'm just ended a simple experiment we discussed some posts ago: I tryed to load with hydrogen a solid Fe part, without co-depositing enything else on it. The (somewhat preliminary) result is that no voltage is generated when the pieces are used as WE.

I used two iron nails, one made of mild steel and the other of hard steel. Their diameter was about 2 mm, their length about 6 cm. I cleaned the nails and rubbed with sandpaper. Their appearence was silvery and bright. I set the nails in a small electrolytic cell connected to negative supply (cathode) and I used another piece of iron as anode. At first I wanted to use just water and some salt to increase conductivity, but then I decided to not increase variables and using the same ingredients I already used before. So I added to water a couple of drops of HCl. The current was set to about 10mA for about 8 hours (some regulation was needed to keep it steady). A costant flow of small hydrogen bublles was generated by the cathode. After 8 hours the nails were mostly shiny as at the beginning, so nothing was plated on the surface and no signs of oxidation/rusting.

I took the nails, rinsed and dryed, and inserted them in a small diameter brass tube (same material used for the LEC) with a couple of spacers. Then I measured the voltage: 0 mV in both cases.

So it seems that the co-deposition process is a necessary step: apparently the "magic" happen inside the co-deposited layer.

This experiment also gave me some important clues on the deposition process I used on my first LEC: after one hour or so, the bubling on the cathod decreased, the current also decreased. In order to increase the current level I increased the voltage (this is the thing that also a current generator would do). The current increased to the desired level, but not the bubbling. After some minutes a black deposit started to appear on a small spot of the cathod closer to the anode. This was the same thing that happened with my first LEC WE. Now it has an explaination: once the excess H+ (and Cl-?) ions are evolved, a new electrolytic reaction takes place (the one with activation energy just above the first). This probably involve the reduction of Fe ions at the cathod. These ions apparently are not in solution, but are probably "stored" at the anode as magnetite or something similar, as suggested by Alan Smith.

So the reaction has two different phases: in the first phase (typically voltage is <0.5V) excess hydrogen is evolved on the cathod and some form of Fe salt is formed on the anode. Then in the second phase (when voltage is increased to > 0.8V or no competing reactions can occur) the actual deposition happen. Probably starting with a higher voltage makes both reaction occur at the same time, but in this case it is difficult to keed the current low. Clearly this is a very delicate equilibrium to handle and for sure regular plating with Fe salts is more reliable and practical.

Do I get it correctly (probably not, but...) ? Is something along these lines what you are doing? What am I missing?

1) Co-deposit material on cathode (here Fe on Fe). The transparent squares are insulating mica spacers.

2) Arrange counterelectrode.

3) Measure voltage (I changed probe types in this photo).

?

Quote from Stevenson

Clearly this is a very delicate equilibrium to handle and for sure regular plating with Fe salts is more reliable and practical.

I already mentioned that acidic plating media are (in my limited experience) much trickier than alkaline ones, and much more likely to give rise to deterioration - flaking, blistering, detaching - post plating- Possibly due to acidic inclusions between substrate and coating. Alkalis are in general sompler and more straightforward. Whether they produce a better LEC is still unknown. Here's a quote from a paper discussing this with regard to Ni/Ti implants.

'. The behavior of crevice corrosion is less severe in alkaline samples while

in the acidic ones... The reason for this phenomenon might be in the alkaline

electrolyte we are making coating layers that are more resistant while in the acidic

samples, we have passed the peak of ideal coating quality and by continuing the

process; we are making the coating layer coarser. This will result in bigger pores

and reduced corrosion resistance in acidic samples.

Quote from can

Do I get it correctly (probably not, but...) ? Is something along these lines what you are doing? What am I missing?

can, if I understand your picture correclty, you got it! Also the voltage and its sign seems in agreement with what we've obtained. Can you please tell us sumething about your plating process? And also the thickness of the mica spacers.

I made another quick Fe plating test, since the previously made one rusted (see photo below) and gave 0V after a while.

This time I filmed it. It looks like the voltage effect is present only in close proximity of the plated electrode. It does not seem to be just a galvanic potential difference. Or perhaps, I'm again missing or forgetting something here?

Very nice - close proximity is of course critical if the voltage is being created by ionisation of the air between the electrodes.

Stevenson - you have a gmail.

Quote from can

I made another quick Fe plating test, since the previously made one rusted (see photo below) and gave 0V after a while.

This time I filmed it. It looks like the voltage effect is present only in close proximity of the plated electrode. It does not seem to be just a galvanic potential difference. Or perhaps, I'm again missing or forgetting something here?

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Congratulations to can , could we agree that this is the simplest proof of concept for the robustness of the LEC effect we have seen so far? Going by this, I think Alan Smith and matt won't have any trouble to replicate the effect with their setup.

Quote from Stevenson

can, if I understand your picture correclty, you got it! Also the voltage and its sign seems in agreement with what we've obtained. Can you please tell us sumething about your plating process? And also the thickness of the mica spacers.

I used 2x 0.10mm mica spacers for a total of 0.2 mm spacing. I did not calculate anything for this, I just made sure that the two electrodes were not touching and 1 spacer seemed too little.

The plating solution is 70ml tap water slightly acidified with a few ml 5% HCl solution. It is currently completely black. It is the jar on the left in this photo:

Earlier today I tried 5% HCl but I couldn't get plating to work correctly; it seemed to proceed too slowly regardless of current and voltage. After that, I started over with just tap water and once black deposits/goo started appearing around the anode I added some HCl in two batches, keeping the total solution volume at about 75 ml. I cannot measure the pH but I think it should be below 3.

In the second attempt filmed above, I set the power supply to 1.0A constant current for a few minutes. Voltage hovered at about 17-18V. Once the solution got warm I took the electrode out of it, dried with paper towel and made simple measurements as shown above.

The immersed cathode portion facing the anode has roughly a 6 cm2 area. So the current density during plating was relatively high.

Earlier I tried plating it in the same solution at higher voltages (up to 31V, the maximum allowed by my power supply) and current (up to 3A); it is faster that way.

Quote from Alan Smith

Very nice - close proximity is of course critical if the voltage is being created by ionisation of the air between the electrodes.

Great to know. It seems a very easily reproducible effect if I could do it with improvised equipment in a few minutes.

Quote from can

Great to know. It seems a very easily reproducible effect if I could do it with improvised equipment in a few minutes.

can Like I said, you seem to have done the quickest and simplest independent replication of the LEC, obtaining remarkable results, which means the LEC effect is extremely robust. Can you tell us in what scale you are measuring the voltage?

Curbina

Thanks, but it seems strange this is so easily reproducible. It's possible I'm doing something wrong.

The one from the video is a standard low-end multimeter which at the time of the test had the scale set to 2000 mV. So it is showing millivolts. Possibly too high, but on the other hand my electrode spacing was probably lower than that of other experimenters.

Good job can from another side with this kind of pseudo you are, you only can be successful

Now, seriously if it could not take too much of your time, could you test this effect with only on mica layer, then with 3 ( or more maybe next ?) to better know the effect "amplitude" ?

Thanks

Quote from can

Curbina

Thanks, but it seems strange this is so easily reproducible. It's possible I'm doing something wrong.

The one from the video is a standard low-end multimeter which at the time of the test had the scale set to 2000 mV. So it is showing millivolts. Possibly too high, but on the other hand my electrode spacing was probably lower than that of other experimenters.

Quote from can

Curbina

Thanks, but it seems strange this is so easily reproducible. It's possible I'm doing something wrong.

The one from the video is a standard low-end multimeter which at the time of the test had the scale set to 2000 mV. So it is showing millivolts. Possibly too high, but on the other hand my electrode spacing was probably lower than that of other experimenters.

More than strange is really good IMHO, we still don't have much more than conjectures about what drives the process, but making it easy to produce is key to have more chances of getting to know what causes it.

EDIT: Since I likely made an experimental mistake, I am also likely not observing a LEC effect. Keeping the post available to preserve the discussion, under the spoiler tag.

thank you can now as explanation we have to know that surface electron waves are able to climb "enough" high under IRs stimulation, especially if the surface is oxidized.

When you said "cold" you said ambiant T° so 273K not so cold...

Cydonia

Yes, with "cold" I meant room temperature (27 °C).

As for the electrolyte/plating method, under the spoiler tag below are notes I took earlier today, perhaps they might be helpful:

Can you put a freshly plated cathode by your geiger?

Alan Smith

I gave the Geiger counter away several months ago if you recall, so unfortunately I cannot do this test.

EDIT: Since I likely made an experimental mistake, I am also likely not observing a LEC effect. Keeping the post available to preserve the discussion, under the spoiler tag.

As reported by Stevenson, "So it seems that the co-deposition process is a necessary step: apparently the "magic" happen inside the co-deposited layer."

JP Biberian had a similar result in his first LEC replication test where he used a Pd-Ag rod that he had available. It didn't produce any voltage. I suggested that he codeposit some Pd onto the rod which he did and this time, it was successful. We suspect that the "magic" is due to vacancies that may include super abundant vacancies on the surface of the working electrode. Fukai reports that codeposition will produce such vacancies. There may be other deposition techniques that will also work.