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

Quote from can

matt

For what it's worth, I'm currently repeating another test this time using 0.125M KOH (so far at 0.5A constant current). The distance-dependent voltage effect still works, and of course no plating is occurring under these conditions.

I got a few times in a row measurements similar to the "after a while" numbers I posted earlier, i.e. approximately:

0.1 mm = 460 mV

0.2 mm = 42 mV

0.3 mm = did not work

However when voltage at 0.1mm dropped to about 150 mV I couldn't manage to measure anything at 0.2 mm. If the signal only proportionally decreased over time, I would have expected to measure values around 10 mV. Again, take this information with a pinch of salt since the mica sheets may have some variations, and results may change depending on consistency of measurements/plates and sheet location and so on. I observed a similar behavior earlier on, though.

Display More

Thanks can . Yes, no worries, I've got plenty of salt to throw around 🤣 .

Using the numbers you just gave would give a mean free path of 0.1mm - same ballpark.

I'm curious to see with Alan Smith in the coming weeks whether our bigger plates show similar distance relationships.

Quote from Cydonia

Stevenson suggested a kind of EM radiation which seems more likely than He4 i think.

Now expecting a pseudo nuclear reaction is relevant in the context of great loading pressures as Mc Kubre had demonstrated.

Or regarding the surface events way, light is the trigger, as demonstrated Cravens by lasers.

Also a question what could be the magic behind your He4, the hydrogen shrinkage as nkodama proposed or the always fashion Holmlid ? other ?

Thanks for your questions Cydonia. I don't have answers for you I'm afraid. I have very little interest in speculating on mechanisms at this point. I'm still trying to see whether something nuclear makes sense at all. My approach is to therefore try and apply some known models to the data coming out of these experiments and see if things make sense. I'm not wedded to alpha emission, but it was simple enough to make a calculation about. I'm happy to entertain EM - feel free to write some notes on that from which we can put some numbers into.

you don't entertain the community, your way of thinking about the main free path is good

I only wanted indeed to put the attention on the fact that one does not create nuclear reactions so easily.

So I just wanted to focus on caution, the factual as can does.

Quote from matt

Thanks for your questions Cydonia. I don't have answers for you I'm afraid. I have very little interest in speculating on mechanisms at this point. I'm still trying to see whether something nuclear makes sense at all. My approach is to therefore try and apply some known models to the data coming out of these experiments and see if things make sense. I'm not wedded to alpha emission, but it was simple enough to make a calculation about. I'm happy to entertain EM - feel free to write some notes on that from which we can put some numbers into.

Quote from can

Stevenson

I thought it could possibly be some sort of neutral particle ejected from the co-deposited layer that decays into an undetectable form (with the current instrumentation) after a short distance, but it's just speculation. Perhaps a cloud chamber could show something?

Really don't know how this radiation could be: lot of hypothesys standing, but not solid evidences up to now. Some time ago I saw a video showing that this kind of plating do not produce any emission in a cloud chamber. This would worth ti be tryed however...

Quote from Alan Smith

The next thing was to stack the plates using 0.9mm microscope slides as spacers. This gave a peak reading of 350mV which over the next hour dropped down to 250mV.

Great! Something around 250mV seems to be the average voltage obtained under various conditions. Also 0.9 mm is a good distance.

Quote from Alan Smith

Also I noticed that any disturbance -for example tapping the be nch sharply next to the stack would cause a drop down to 150mV which would soon recover to around 250mV. It looks like the current is around 2mA - but I'm not sure that is a correct figure.

It looks like an occasional spurious contact between the plates.

Wow! 2mA is a (relatively) huge current!

Quote from matt

Superficially (I need to read more about mica), it seems that with a 0.1mm mica slide between the plates that alpha radiation could get through. Couldn't the voltage then just be due to the working electrode emitting alpha and then depositing that alpha onto the other plate.

Hi Matt! I was aware of these peculiarities of alpha particles, so in my experiment I placed an end-window Geiger tube (the LND712) within 1 mm from the plated WE. The end window is made by very thin mica, so alpha could penetrate into the tube. But I didn't get any conut. Moreover if the radiation would be alpha (Helium nuclei) we finally demonstrated "cold fusion"!

The better way to test this is by making some experiments in vacuum (or very low pressure) by applying and electric field to an intermediate grid (like in a triode).

Quote from Cydonia

Or regarding the surface events way, light is the trigger, as demonstrated Cravens by lasers.

Also a question what could be the magic behind your He4, the hydrogen shrinkage as nkodama proposed or the always fashion Holmlid ? other ?

We don't have any solid evidence up to now. All directions are open... The mean free path calculation from matt is a first step in sheddin some light on the phenomenon.

[EDIT] By the way, I'm designing a quite sensitive open window ionization chamber, in order to make some test on the nature of the radiation.

Quote from Stevenson

Hi Matt! I was aware of these peculiarities of alpha particles, so in my experiment I placed an end-window Geiger tube (the LND712) within 1 mm from the plated WE

Stevenson Ah, I forgot you had a mica window. Thanks for the reminder

Quote from Stevenson

The better way to test this is by making some experiments in vacuum (or very low pressure) by applying and electric field to an intermediate grid (like in a triode)

❤️

My current pfigure might well be wrong- I did say I wasn't sure about t- but by increasing the plate surface area considerable- the plates are 125 cm² - Matt and I do hope for an increase in current. And when we have a whole stack who knows what we might see?

Incidentally - short circuit recovery time is fast- less than 10 seconds if the plates are not moved.

Thoughts around the main free path..

Mean Free Path Calculator

www.omnicalculator.com

Here we can see a simulation about the main free path of hydrogen at 300K 1bar, 0,15µm

Wien's Law Calculator

www.omnicalculator.com

Now here a simulation around the wavelength of light always at 300K, around 10µm

We have to know that surface plasmon wavelength is around 50X lower ( after readinds) than incident light, that means 10/50 does 0,2 µm.

Finally we could conclude that electrons rebound from the surface induced by light possess an higher wavelengh than the hydrogen gas at ambiant temperature.

That means some surface electrons could cross the gas without interact with it.

Only some thoughts , happy to read another reading.

Cydonia

I think we can rule out any effect of light here- a little light can creep in around the edges of the plates of course but since the gap os only 0.1mm it isnt very much. Tomorrow I can drop a lightproof cover over it and see that happens then.

Can someone sum up the current state of this replication? I'm unable to find out if this is positive or negative (for us LENR heads)...

Another little calculation to consider. I'm trying to figure out if we can put some kind of figure on how much power is being generated if we assume a nuclear origin for this phenomenon.

Let's assume for the moment that the voltage generated is like the voltage on a capacitor. Where can the charge generating the voltage come from? Let's image that either it's from charged particles coming directly from the working electrode (not a lot of evidence for this at the moment, cf Stevenson Geiger with the mica window) or from EM radiation from the working electrode that's e.g. knocking electrons off the counter electrode. Either way, the counter electrode charges up based on how many presumed nuclear reactions happening in the working electrode.

Taking Alan Smith setup (because I know it more), the plate area is about 128cm^2, there is an air gap so the relative dielectric constant is essentially 1, separation between plates 0.1mm, voltage about 0.25V.

The charge on the plates (Q) is therefore:

Q = capacitance x voltage = dielectric constant x area x voltage / separation

Q = 8.85x10^-12 x1 x 128x10^-4 x 0.25 / 10^-4 = 2.8x10^-10 C

How many electrons (or lack of electrons) would 2.8x10^-10 C amount to?

Number of electrons (or lack of electrons) = 2.8x10^-10 / 1.6x10^-19 = 1.8x10^9

Let's imagine that each of these corresponds to some nuclear event and let's recall that Alan said the voltage took a few minutes to build up (let's say 3 min... Alan Smith please correct me if I'm wrong here). Then the number of reactions per second would be:

1.8x10^9 / 3x60 = 10x10^6, i.e. 10 million reactions per second

Finally, let's imagine that each reaction gives off 20MeV (not unreasonable for a nuclear reaction). Then this would amount to the following power output:

10x10^6 x 20x10^6 x 1.6x10^-19 = 3.2x10^-5 W = 32 micro watts

I have the sense that micro watts is the right order of magnitude from what's been done by Stevenson and Frank Gordon . Is that right?

If this is indeed cold fusion, then what we have here is a very sensitive diagnostic for measuring it.... i'd say probably far better than calorimetry... not to hate too much on the calorimetry folks.... it's just that calorimetry is too hard for me hehe.

On enough energetic electrons side, as pseudo explanation, we have to know under light so simply IRs , these waves can be enhanced depending of an exact incident angle.

As the surface appeared to be always rough, the global rate could be enough.

Only thoughts

Quote from Alan Smith

Cydonia

I think we can rule out any effect of light here- a little light can creep in around the edges of the plates of course but since the gap os only 0.1mm it isnt very much. Tomorrow I can drop a lightproof cover over it and see that happens then.

Quote from can

Another test which might or might not be useful to others. I tried placing 0.1 mm plastic food wrap between the cathode (after just electrolysis with 0.125M KOH) and the counter-electrode, and it didn't work at all. When I switched back to 0.1 mm mica sheets it worked again (albeit at a lower rate due to fiddling with the electrolyzed/plated surface apparently being deleterious).

A test was performed in this sequence after electrolysis at 2.0A constant current for 2 minutes:

1) Placed 0.1mm mica sheets: -501mV;

2) Removed mica sheets and placed food wrap: 0 mV;

3) Removed food wrap and placed mica sheets: -120mV

I have a personal idea as for why it might have not worked, but perhaps this is just due to electrical/ionic conductivity of the material or some other odd property that I was not aware of?

EDIT: I checked the resistance with the multimeter and it appears to act as an insulator, FWIW (as it should be).

Display More

can I'm reminded of this paper again https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RoutRKreproducib.pdf where some materials blocked radiation and others didn't. They talked about polyester foils not letting stuff through (does food wrap count as polyester 🤷‍♂️) but paper let stuff through. It's all so interesting.

Regarding the possibility of a magnetic effect causing the voltage, I have yet to find an explanation of this fine-scale distortion of the SEM image from a plated sample. The base material is copper and the scale of the distortion suggests presence of a very fine-grained periodic magnetic field at the surface of the sample. The SEM operates correctly with other samples, so it isn't an equipment defect.

can it might be interesting to see if the presence of a nearby static field from a magnet will affect the measured voltage of an active device.

magicsound .

For my sins I (and Russ) have done a lot of work on the effect of magnetism on 'hot and dry' LENR systems. It seems that the best effect is obtained by applying an intermittent field of the same polarity. A constant field didn't help, and an alternating polarity one made things worse. But it's easy to wave a magnet over the top of one of these gadgets. ETA - Remembering only that a changing magnetic flux creates a current.

matt

Quote from matt

Let's imagine that each of these corresponds to some nuclear event and let's recall that Alan said the voltage took a few minutes to build up (let's say 3 min... Alan Smith please correct me if I'm wrong here). Then the number of reactions per second would be:

The voltage builds up very quickly on 'newly released' plates - less than a minute at a guess. After a period of separation that was also around 1 hour after release from the tank (see post #476 a couple of pages back) it took maybe 20 minutes to recover to 0.25V. But in both cases the period of recovery after shorting out the plates was very brief - less than a minute.

To me that suggests that newly released plates may off-gas H2 at a higher rate, which declines over an hour or so in air. In either case once the ionised H2 is available recovery after short circuiting takes a similar time. Running this in an H2 atmosphere is a priority experiment I think.

Quote from barty

Can someone sum up the current state of this replication? I'm unable to find out if this is positive or negative (for us LENR heads)...

Quote from barty

Can someone sum up the current state of this replication? I'm unable to find out if this is positive or negative (for us LENR heads)...

Very positive so far.

Is anyone tested another gas that hydrogen, in order to approve or eliminate this hypothesis ?

Quote from can

I added an impracticably strong hard disk magnet to the active (?) device in air and it didn't change things appreciably. Since it is too strong I couldn't easily add/remove it.

Again I just applied a few minutes of electrolysis in 0.125M KOH, summarily dried the electrolyte and covered the surface with 0.1mm mica sheets, then arranged the electrodes like this:

lenr-forum.com/attachment/18264/

Notes from the brief test, which started with the jar at room temperature

Thanks for the reference which I wasn't aware of. To put it simply and as neutrally as possible, what I am suggesting is that the food wrap material (polyethylene) might be interacting with the hydrogen-related processes occurring on the surface of the just-electrolyzed steel sheet, not directly blocking off radiation.

Display More

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.

Quote from Alan Smith

To me that suggests that newly released plates may off-gas H2 at a higher rate, which declines over an hour or so in air.

This would also be my first thought. H⁺ ions released and recombined at the counter electrode.

On second thought, how would this work in case of a reversed voltage polarity (applying a different metal strip combination)?

B.t.w. how hard would it be to replace the non plated iron by an aluminum strip to obtain the reversed polarity?

Quote from Rob Woudenberg

B.t.w. how hard would it be to replace the non plated iron by an aluminum strip to obtain the reversed polarity?

The 'non-plated' iron in my case is brass - the counter electrode. It could be replaced with aluminium certainly.