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

Quote from Alan Smith

Equally important to note that this system will NOT work in a vacuum, but will start to work again if normal pressure is restored - further support for the ionised gas theory.

Alan Smith, it is very important to verify if a current can be forced in vacuum by applying an external voltage (in one direction AND in the opposite). If no current is detected, or a very weak current compared to when the gas is present, we can safely conclude that the "ionising radiation" is electromagnetic in nature (e.g. soft X-rays) and not made by charged particles. If a current is detected, it would probably be unidirectional (as in a diode), meaning that charged particle are emitted by the WE. Well, there are for sure more accurate interpretations, but this is a good starting point to understand what's going on.

Quote from Stevenson

Alan Smith, it is very important to verify if a current can be forced in vacuum by applying an external voltage (in one direction AND in the opposite). If no current is detected, or a very weak current compared to when the gas is present, we can safely conclude that the "ionising radiation" is electromagnetic in nature (e.g. soft X-rays) and not made by charged particles. If a current is detected, it would probably be unidirectional (as in a diode), meaning that charged particle are emitted by the WE. Well, there are for sure more accurate interpretations, but this is a good starting point to understand what's going on.

You are entirely correct.

BTW, an email from FrankG suggested he sees strong links with photo-electric effect. I see what he's getting at (correctly) of course, but in the video i wanted to make it clear that this was not just some kind of solar panel. I should have been more specific, but for things like a 'show and tell' I always lean towards the accessible rather than than the purely technical. My bad!

Interesting and possibly relevant paper.

Cellucci, F., et al. X-Ray, Heat Excess and 4He in the Electrochemical Confinement of Deuterium in Palladium ICCF-6 1996. Lake Toya, Hokkaido,Japan:

Abstract

The energy balance between heat excess and 4He in the gas phase has been found reasonably satisfied even if the low levels of4He found do not give the necessary confidence to state definitely that we are dealing with the fusion of deuterons to give4He. In the melted cathode, whose data are reported here, 4He was not found at the achieved sensitivity. X-ray film, positioned at 50 mm from the cell, roughly gave the image of the cathode through spots. The energy of the radiation and the total energy associated to it have been, respectively, evaluated as (89±1) keV and (12.0 ± 0.4) kJ.This value is 0.5% of the energy measured by calorimetry in the same interval of time.

x_ray_heat_excess_and_4He_in_the_electro.pdf

Test cell #5 seems to have worked. The plot below shows the voltage and power vs load. Today I pumped out the cell after overnight dwell at 1 megohm load, during which the voltage dropped to 366 mV. With pumping, the voltage declined starting at 50 Torr and reached 50 uV at 2 Torr. It took several hours to reach 10E-4 Torr and ~5 uV, possibly slowed by retained water or H coming out of the plating. Then I added H2 at 1 bar, but the cell is now sleeping or dead, less than 1 mV after a couple of hours.

Quote from magicsound

Test cell #5 seems to have worked.

Great news! The plot is really good and perfeclty aligned with other results we have seen. As expected (due to the dimensions of your device) the internal resistance is quite low. This means it is able to provide a greater current compared to other (smaller) devices. The long vacuum probably desorbed the hydrogen from the plating layer, so the device will not easily return to its working state.

How the plating was done this time?

magicsound Congratulations. Great persistence. What do you see as your next steps?

Quote from magicsound

Then I added H2 at 1 bar, but the cell is now sleeping or dead, less than 1 mV after a couple of hours.

What about adding slight amounts of water, then pumping it out again?

Quote from Stevenson

The long vacuum probably desorbed the hydrogen from the plating layer, so the device will not easily return to its working state.

Could try to reload this WE by means of electrolysis of water as a cathode.

Quote from Rob Woudenberg

Could try to reload this WE by means of electrolysis of water as a cathode.

This is something I wanted to try with my device (but didn't had time).

Quote from Stevenson

How the plating was done this time?

Following Alan Smith's suggestion, I used 25 grams each of Iron Sulphate and Sodium Citrate, buffered with 50 ml of Ammonia (20% concentration), all in 1 liter of distilled water. Magnetic stirring was used at slow speed for the entire plating period.

After a couple of hours at 1 volt / 80 mA, I set it to 3 volts with current limiting at 220 mA and continuing for about 80 hours. The resulting Iron layer was well-adhered but with rough surface as shown in the images below. The second image shows the cell installed in the vacuum chamber, looking through the clear acrylic Conflat flange.

Nice work Alan. I have another plate in the tank right now btw , running at 2.5V and 0.15A. This one was started on monday and will run until (at least) Friday.

I have been pondering something about the use of HCl with brass or iron cathodes. This was because Stevenson gave us the voltage data for his plates - which were brass. For a lot of the time the voltages he was using were below the Faraday limit so could not possibly break down water into H2/O2. I found this puzzling.

HCl will chemically attack iron or brass with the evolution of hydrogen. In the case of brass you can see the colour change since it preferentially leaches out the zinc component of the alloy, leaving copper behind- the colour goes from golden to rosy pink. I do suspect the HCl method is good in that chemical hydrogen is produced at the cathode surface underneath the plating, which together with electrolytic water breakdown -= H2 deposition from both sides. Also, my long ago Chemistry tutor told me that the hydrogen produced by the action of HCl on Zinc is monatomic - but he may have been wrong about that. I know that Frank Gordon has used zinc galvanised pipes as electrodes- this may also be important.

I am thinking of running another plate with an airstone in the tank (porous stone used in conjunction with a pump to aerate aquaria) connected in this case to a hydrogen generator. H2 is not very soluble in water but it might help to have a cloud of microscopic H2 bubbles being attracted to the cathode

This might be useful for anybody working down near 'the noise'

Post

RE: THE USEFUL BOOK THREAD

PRINCIPLES OF ELECTRICAL MEASUREMENT S Tumanski Warsaw University of Technology, Poland. 485pp.

..... it can be difficult to find a book that includes a
complete guide on the techniques used in taking electrical measurements.
The reason for this is rather obvious –modern measuring requires knowledge
of many interdisciplinary topics such as computer techniques, electronics,
signal processing, micro- and nanotechnology, artificial intelligence
methods, etc. It is practically impossible for one author…

Alan Smith

Oct 7th 2021

I found this interesting (and quite old) paper about iron plating:

https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/18/jresv18n5p535_A1b.pdf

Contrary to the "traditional" recipe (the one based on sulphate, also suggested by Alan), here FeCl2 + HCl is used in order to obtain a good plating with an increased current density and a faster deposition speed.

Well, it appears that electrchemistry is not a science, it seems to be more a mix between art and cooking...

Thank you - great reading. On the topic of electro-chemistry, it is a black art and like all occult matters, best studied by the light of the moon.

Re this replication. Forgive me for asking newbie questions - but sometimes a from the start summary can be helpful anyway.

The anomalous behaviour here, as I understand it, is that a closed gas tube with two electrodes acts as a low voltage low current source. I can understand low voltage source - but the surprise is that it conducts at all, even a little bit - because gasses should be good insulators unless ionised, and ionisation requires high voltages. (There are known surface configurations that will ionise at lower volatges but that is still 10V or so to sustain and a few 100V to start)?

In addition the OP said ionisaing radiation had been detected. I take that with a pinch of salt if low level since false positives are quite easy - unless it was very clear (higher level). But, if it was very clear, I guess you would all be taking about it?

So - if the above is not missing the point - which it may be - the thing to explain is how those low currents could flow through a gas cell.

THH

Low X rays emitted.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Re this replication. Forgive me for asking newbie questions - but sometimes a from the start summary can be helpful anyway.

The anomalous behaviour here, as I understand it, is that a closed gas tube with two electrodes acts as a low voltage low current source. I can understand low voltage source - but the surprise is that it conducts at all, even a little bit - because gasses should be good insulators unless ionised, and ionisation requires high voltages. (There are known surface configurations that will ionise at lower volatges but that is still 10V or so to sustain and a few 100V to start)?

In addition the OP said ionisaing radiation had been detected. I take that with a pinch of salt if low level since false positives are quite easy - unless it was very clear (higher level). But, if it was very clear, I guess you would all be taking about it?

So - if the above is not missing the point - which it may be - the thing to explain is how those low currents could flow through a gas cell.

THH

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Quote from THHuxleynew

So - if the above is not missing the point - which it may be - the thing to explain is how those low currents could flow through a gas cell.

Exactly.

This is a look at the state of the art a month back.

Assisi IWAHLM 2021 presentation final.pdf

Quote from Alan Smith

Exactly.

This is a look at the state of the art a month back.

Assisi IWAHLM 2021 presentation final.pdf

One of the useful things about that large plate area replication is that scaling issues can be considered.

The current flowing may have a definite scaling with plate area, and plate separation. That could help inform possible mechanisms.

These mechanisms will also scale with the cell voltage. For example, we could work out the expected I/V characteristics and scaling from ionised particles emitted from a plate that move a given average distance through the hydrogen before coming to rest.

I have a vague idea for mechanism. I'm not material scientist and this is possibly way off beam. Suppose the flaky deposited surface contains nanoparticles that are loose and can be released from the surface. The mechanisms for this could leave a charge on the particle. A continuous stream of such particles could provide the mystery current. For example, the continued diffusion of hydrogen into the Pd surface could create structural changes that sometimes released particles.

THH

Thinking about scaling, a single cell that, without changing plates, could have place separation adjusted would provide interesting information on scaling: how does voltage/resistance vary with separation?

Another issue. Is the cell accurately represented (at a given time, when it is relatively stable) by a voltage source in series with a resistor? Or is there non-linearity - if so what is its shape? V/I curves with current out of the cell both positive and negative would provide useful information. Some mechanisms would give different resistances in the two directions, acting as a rectifier. V/I curves at significantly larger voltages - say up to 10V, would help narrow down what the conduction mechanism actually was.

Apologies if this is all known / has already been done.

THH

Quote from THHuxleynew

Thinking about scaling, a single cell that, without changing plates, could have place separation adjusted would provide interesting information on scaling: how does voltage/resistance vary with separation?

Another issue. Is the cell accurately represented (at a given time, when it is relatively stable) by a voltage source in series with a resistor? Or is there non-linearity - if so what is its shape? V/I curves with current out of the cell both positive and negative would provide useful information. Some mechanisms would give different resistances in the two directions, acting as a rectifier. V/I curves at significantly larger voltages - say up to 10V, would help narrow down what the conduction mechanism actually was.

Apologies if this is all known / has already been done.

THH

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THHuxleynew , if you want to get up to speed, and have a perspective from an skeptical point of view, I encourage you to read posts of Stevenson within this thread, he did a series of dummy cell measurements that set the baseline, and then proceeded with an iron plated co deposited experiment that worked well until the iron rusted.

Also the paper from Rout, Srinivasan et al about x ray fogging by hydrogen loaded Pd is highly recommended. Has been posted several times in this thread.