Matt and I did a lot of testing in the lab today. Some puzzling results at times. When I have the data I'll say more about it all. One thing was that we found the best material to use as a spacer - in our case nylon mesh. Like can we discovered that plastic film stops the fun. The closer the metals without touching the higher the MV, short them out and the volts come back instantly
Frank Gordon's "Lattice Energy Converter (LEC)"...replicators workshop
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By the way, there may be theoretical arguments for the conduction effect being the result not of ionization, but instead the migration of superconductive-superfluid hydrogen clusters from the cathode to the anode (e.g. as suggested by Holmlid, who also suggests in this paper that such form of hydrogen may be easily formed from catalytically-active surfaces), but I still doubt this is what was occurring in my case. Some may consider such superfluid form of hydrogen to be the "spillover hydrogen" sometimes mentioned in catalysis.
As supporter of Holmlid's work I was also trying to find any correlations with his work.
Wouldn't a superconductive layer shortcut both electrodes?
Another extreme option would be the transfer of fast charged sub-particles from spontaneous breaking apart UDH triggered by e.g. light. For now, let's exclude these options.
In practice plated metals are applied in many daily products. Strange effects should have been occurring within hours of production very frequently. We see no reporting on this at all.
More experiments are required to narrow down the options for more conventional causes first.
The experiments using mica at the full inner side surface are interesting but do not fully exclude the options of ionized gas since they may also formed at the remaining surface of the plated electrode and still connect this way to the non-plated electrode.
EDIT:
Some random thoughts:
- Did anyone try to measure the mysterious voltage with an oscilloscope? Any (HF) AC effects then can be excluded if only DC is seen with this equipment. Presence of an (HF) AC voltage component could indicate inductive transfer of energy.
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Before that I determined that I was probably just observing a chemical reaction and no LEC effect, I added drops of electrolyte (0.25M KOH) in the 0.1mm gap, wetting the underlying surfaces completely with it. After doing this, voltage spontaneously increased to about 740–750 mV, then only very slowly started decreasing. The voltage achieved was about the same even if just a small portion of the clean counter-electrode touched one of the wetted mica shims.
Other thin spacer materials (I tried electrical tape and clear scotch tape) also worked to at least some extent if they were even just slightly contaminated with electrolyte. However, covering the entire surface of the counter-electrode in contact with the cathode so that no conduction path could be achieved removed the effect.
I de-emphasized most of my previously made comments regarding my tests by putting them under a spoiler tag or striking them off, but I didn't delete them.
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Wouldn't a superconductive layer shortcut both electrodes?
Possibly not, if only tiny amounts of such super material were formed during operation after admitting hydrogen gas. However, this is just a possible speculative explanation; I don't know about other hypotheses.
In practice plated metals are applied in many daily products. Strange effects should have been occurring within hours of production very frequently. We see no reporting on this at all.
Usually, absorption of hydrogen during ordinary electroplating tends to be avoided, so I don't think anomalies will be seen often or regarded as such. I would think that any absorbed excess hydrogen during the plating process will also be lost in relatively short periods after cleaning and drying in the atmosphere, rendering the plated materials eventually inactive. Materials that retain hydrogen may however show blistering or embrittlement, phenomena that are annoying commercially- and industrially-speaking, but that sometimes have been linked to LENR.
More experiments are required to narrow down the options for more conventional causes first.
The experiments using mica at the full inner side surface are interesting but do not fully exclude the options of ionized gas since they may also formed at the remaining surface of the plated electrode and still connect this way to the non-plated electrode.
One path I think is verifying if the same effects can be seen to some extent with just electrolysis and no plating, but on my side I'm almost convinced that no anomaly is to be seen this way despite what I reported earlier on.
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Did anyone try to measure the mysterious voltage with an oscilloscope? Any (HF) AC effects then can be excluded if only DC is seen with this equipment. Presence of an (HF) AC voltage component could indicate inductive transfer of energy.
On my list. Also going to see what happens in a vacuum...and a faraday cage.
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I don't think I have suitable planar samples of aluminium and brass at disposal; I should check tomorrow.
I would expect corrosion and the generation of a voltage if they were touching.
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not touching - but no plastic.
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I'm considering of deleting the previously written comments in order to de-clutter the thread from non-useful information.
Don't do that! No need. You have done a good job marking your doubts. Plus, that is an admirable thing to do. Preserve it for that reason alone.
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We are encouraged and very impressed by the accelerated pace of testing, enthusiasm and expertise by multiple members of the LENR Forum. We would like to add some observations and comments based on experiments that we have conducted.
WRT having wet electrodes and close spacing. If there is a liquid electrolyte path between the electrodes, metal ions can be transported and oxidation/reduction reactions must be taken into account at the electrodes, i.e. battery analysis. In experiments that we conducted some years ago, we produced the hydrogen/deuterium gas in situ by placing about 130 mg of Li that we extracted from a rechargeable battery in the bottom of the cell followed by pulling a vacuum and adding about 1 cc of H2O or D2O. The water reacted with the Li to produce hydrogen or deuterium gas and also LiOH. In some tests, the LiOH expanded to make contact between the WE (Pd) and the CE (Brass) resulting in a battery effect with low internal impedance. We chased this effect for several months before we determined what was happening. Whereas metal ions can transit the electrolyte, they cannot transit the gas. To eliminate this possibility, we now prepare our hydrogen in a separate cell and transfer the gas to the LEC cell.
Our current working hypothesis of the LEC is that the ions are of several different species and that the driving mechanism of the LEC is the concentration gradient that results from the ionization, i.e diffusion. Assuming that the positive ions constitute hydrogen H3+ and H3+ · (H2O)x clusters, (H. R. Carlon, 1980), there is a significant difference in the mobility of these two species. Assuming that the negative ions consist of H2– and free electrons, there is also a large difference in mobility for the negative ion species and their mobility relative to the positive ions. Following KK Darrow’s analysis (1932) that indicates that the LEC voltage derives from the electric field necessary to slow the negative ions and accelerate the positive ions, LEC performance will depend upon the composition of the gas. With regards to the spacing, the solution of the differential equation for the spatial distribution of the ions within the gas indicate that it is composed of two components. A slowly varying component that depends on the electric field distribution within the gas and a rapidly changing exponential distribution near the counter electrode that depends upon the concentration gradient. One way to test this hypothesis is to conduct experiments with different separation distances. The majority of our cylindrical LEC cells have had spacing ranging from about 1 mm to 6 mm. We have also conducted tests using much larger separation distances.
We have also observed pronounced changes in the output of multiple LEC cells, including voltage sign reversal, that occurs as the temperature nears and rises above 100 °C. Recognizing that our current method of preparing the hydrogen still allows for some water vapor in the gas, one possibility for these results could be caused by changes in the relative humidity of the gas which results in more H2O attaching to the positive ions, forming clusters that reduces their mobility and slow down their velocity. (For references, see post #330.) We plan to conduct tests in the near future where we will try to dry the hydrogen gas by freezing out the water vapor before transferring it into the LEC cell.
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Thank you Frank Gordon . I do a lot of work with H2 btw- with another hat on. Zeolite beads are a terrific way of removing water vapour - also cheaper and easier than running a cryo-trap. Zeolite 'molecular sieve' is so thirsty you can use it to dehydrate silica gel at room temperature (so they say).
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Initial test calibration: a ½” (11.1 mm ID) galvanized steel plumbing pipe 250 mm long used for the anode. The cathode was a 250 mm length of ⅜” (9.7 mm OD) copper tubing.The electrode spacing was therefore ~ 0.7 mm. The cathode tube was insulated by wrapping layers of teflon tape at each end. The cathode was lightly sanded and cleaned with solvent, but not plated.
The tubes were placed in the Mizuno reactor and pumped out to about E-5 torr. Then D2 gas was added at about 0.5 bar.
Calibration over several days at room temperature showed a base measurement of 450 to 600 uV, probably due to the Keithley 195A meter being out of calibration. Around 100 uV (rms) of RF was seen by a Tektronix 3054 scope. The 10 megohm scope probes were used for both instruments. No background current measurement was done.
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One path I think is verifying if the same effects can be seen to some extent with just electrolysis and no plating
Yes that would complement another experiment reported by Frank Gordon 's presentation, page 11, where a solid Pd WE did initially not cause any voltage. After plating it with another Pd layer it did (replication by Jean-Paul Biberian).
However this experiment was not performed with a solid WE that was treated with electrolysis without plating.
Hydrogen adsorption by bringing a WE in a (pressurized) gaseous environment may not be the same as hydrogen adsorption initiated by electrolysis.
EDIT1
There is a significant difference in how long the effect lasts as reported by Frank Gordon versus the experiment performed by Stevenson, can and Alan Smith. Pd holds significantly more hydrogen than iron.
This tends to point that adsorbed hydrogen is key in generating the effect.
EDIT2
The reason why plating is suggested as key, may not only be the adsorbed hydrogen but also the use of alkali based electrolytes. To make sure alkali metals play a role or not, plating without electrolytes that contain alkali components may be useful in addition.
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can If you have brass and aluminium try it with no plating at all -and no electrolyte -clean dry, and small spacing. Tell me what you see.
I actually tried this with Al-cladded steel sheet as the counter-electrode and a small brass coin as the cathode, using 0.1mm mica spacers. After electrolysis for a short while (forgot not to use an electrolyte), rinsing in tap water and drying, I get no voltage.
As soon as moisture is introduced (by rinsing the coin, but without drying afterwards), a negative voltage (highest I've seen in the order of -425 mV, although maybe it can raise higher) starts appearing (with the negative multimeter probe on the brass cathode).
EDIT: I put the assembly into the rinse tapwater and the voltage slowly leveled to -470 mV. Seems more or less consistent with values from standard galvanic series tables like this one: https://structx.com/Material_P…s_Corrosion_of_Metals.png
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- Did anyone try to measure the mysterious voltage with an oscilloscope? Any (HF) AC effects then can be excluded if only DC is seen with this equipment. Presence of an (HF) AC voltage component could indicate inductive transfer of energy.
Rob Woudenberg, I observed the voltage with an oscilloscope with 200MHz bandwidth: just plain DC, even after shorting and voltage build-up. No AC components (up to 200MHz) and no impulsive signals (that I somewhat expected) during the observation window. A posteriori, it would be better to monitor the current instead of the voltage...
Before that I determined that I was probably just observing a chemical reaction and no LEC effect, I added drops of electrolyte (0.25M KOH) in the 0.1mm gap, wetting the underlying surfaces completely with it. After doing this, voltage spontaneously increased to about 740–750 mV, then only very slowly started decreasing. The voltage achieved was about the same even if just a small portion of the clean counter-electrode touched one of the wetted mica shims.
can, the phenomenon that generate the voltage is very similar to a plain electrolytical effect. I got quite the same voltage with the same material either using the LEC and (separately) dipping the electrodes in a NaCl solution. So in some of your experiments you may have observed the actual LEC effect. Try to repeat some experiment having care of drying very well all the parts.
One path I think is verifying if the same effects can be seen to some extent with just electrolysis and no plating, but on my side I'm almost convinced that no anomaly is to be seen this way despite what I reported earlier on.
I tryed this some days ago (post #445
no plating (just hydrogen generation on the cathode) => no voltage. Of course also metals without any treatment => no voltage. -
It looks like I didn't read that comments of yours carefully enough. My hypothesis in any case was that possibly a LEC effect could be observed at very small distances (0.1mm) also without plating, which I'm not sure if it has been tested. I have not seen indications of that, but I have not been patient enough to electrolyze a piece for many hours at very low current, however.
I will try repeating my test with HCl that seemed to work better for obtaining a dull plating (start with tap water and then add some HCl, instead of directly 5–10% HCl solution—which I'm running out of anyway).
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The test you did was not the one I meant, but you got the results I would have expected from it.
Please try - Clean and dry, zero electrolysis of any kind, try using a piece of dry open weave plastic or fabric mesh as a spacer. very thin single-layer tissue paper might work.
I suspect your mica sheet was bigger than the coin you used. If you have something like a brass key that will do. The thing is that the separator (also dry) is open to the passage of air and your two metals are as close as possible, but not touching at all.
Check for a voltage, if you see one, short it out and see if it recovers.
ETA- anyone else with a meter, a piece of brass, a piece of aluminium and some open-weave insulating mesh could perhaps try this. I am very interested to know what you see,
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I have no other brass parts I can use. It looks like it's not a very common material here.
If I put the negative terminal on the coin and the positive terminal on the aluminium sheet, using 0.1mm mica sheets, I get something between -1.0 and -2.0 mV depending on location and pressure, using the 200m scale of my multimeter (1 MOhm impedance) with 0.1 mV precision. If I short it out it drops to 0 mV then quickly recovers.
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Regarding the LEC test of the thread, after obtaining a sort of grainy texture (which got for the most part transferred to the paper cloth used for drying) with the same steel pieces used last time and electrolyte with some amount of HCl, I dried the cathode piece, put new 0.1mm mica sheets and a measured a +150mV voltage. This voltage appeared to halve after stacking them to 0.2mm. However, when I used transparent adhesive tape (thickness somewhat greater than 0.1mm but much less than 0.2mm) to mask the counter-electrode (leaving a large section on the middle unmasked), it didn't work at all. I used new mica sheets again and it worked again. The piece rusted quickly and voltage also decreased accordingly.
I don't think I'm observing a LEC effect. If I have to think of a conventional explanation, the voltage I observed might be due to moisture+electrolyte traces evaporating from the piece migrating (or contaminating) easily across mica, but not materials like scotch tape. The coating which prevents the tape from self-sticking when rolled may also repel water/electrolyte to some extent.
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Why don't you try using a piece of dry tissue and the cleanest dryest metal pair you have? You might see a higher voltage than using mica. Direct free passage of gases between dry unplated metals is what I am asking you to try. ETA- warm your metals a little to drive off surface moisture if it helps. If you have no brass try copper.
