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

Thx, I'll have a look. There is no conflict really between skeptical and non-skeptical because either way you are trying to understand it!

Update for LEC cell #5: full details are available at https://tinyurl.com/69z7sn3e

After overnight dwell at 1 megohm load, during which the voltage dropped only slightly, to 366 mV, the cell was pumped out using the installed vacuum system. 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. H2 was added at 1 bar, but the cell voltage did not return.

After 24 hours the cell resistance was measured to be just 5 ohms, so it was disassembled for inspection. Fragments of the Iron layer had detached from the brass cathode surface and the resulting metallic particles had shorted the cell. It seems possible that this resulted from expansion of entrapped water and/or gas when vacuum was applied.

Brushing lightly with a wire brush removed much of the remaining plated Iron, showing that adhesion of the plating was not perfect. Most of the residue was collected with a magnet. Some non-magnetic rust residue was also present, confirming a significant amount of water had probably been trapped under or inside the plated surface. A thin layer of Iron remained well-adhered to some parts of the surface.

Regarding Huxley's comments, it's clear from the results above that electrolytic effects within these cells can be easily misinterpreted as a LEC effect. In particular, with the presence of Iron and entrapped water, physical disturbance or growth of the plated layer seems unavoidable. Some further testing of this potential problem is now underway in my lab.

magicsound

The routine methods to improve adhesion of plating are to clean/degrease the plate thoroughly- often an acid pickle is used for this followed by a wipe with solvent. I'm sure you have done this though.

The second thing is to raise the voltage above the norm for the first few minutes- called the 'strike voltage'. Hard for me to give any values for this, since it is at some level craft and not science.

Quote from Alan Smith

I'm sure you have done this though

Yes. For test6 I washed a new cathode tube in solvent, then pickled for 60 sec in 20% HCl and rinsed.

The plating solution was 16 g ferrous sulphate, 16 g sodium citrate and 18 ml 20% ammonia in 1 liter. A smooth coating of Iron was achieved after 18 hours at 1.35 Volts 180 mA. The cathode tube was rinsed and dried carefully with hot air, then a few visible areas of loose Iron powder were removed with a soft brush prior to assembling the cell.

This cell showed no activity above the bias current of the measurement device (180 mV at 10 megohms). Vacuum was applied after several hours, reaching 10E-4 Torr in about 30 minutes, without the difficulty seen in test5. Hydrogen was then added at 2 bar. After 24 hours there was no change in the cell voltage.

Quote from THHuxleynew

The mechanisms for this could leave a charge on the particle. A continuous stream of such particles could provide the mystery current.

This kind of mechanism would allow a unidirectional current only (like in a diode). Instead the LEC is capable of conducting current in both directions, when an external voltage is applied. This current is linear up to a certain value, than start to saturate. This is exactly what would be expected from a ionised gas (where both positive and negative charges are present).

There is also 'polarity reversal' to consider- Both Frank G and I have seen this happen spontaneously and suddenly.

Quote from Alan Smith

There is also 'polarity reversal' to consider- Both Frank G and I have seen this happen spontaneously and suddenly.

Hello Alan,

I thought this beahvior was linked to the cell temperature. Isn't it?

Quote from Arnaud

Hello Alan,

I thought this beahvior was linked to the cell temperature. Isn't it?

Hi Arnaud, Frank Gordon did indeed mention it in relation to raised cell temperature, but I have seen (1 time only) spontaneous reversal of the voltage.

Today I finally made a "reload" test: I tryed to load with electrolytic hydrogen my old LEC (the one that produced the effect in June, but then exausted due to hydrogen unloading and/or oxidation).

I placed the old WE in tap water together with an iron wire. The WE was used as a cathode, while the iron wire as the anode. I applied 2.0 V DC and the current slowly increased to about 20 mA. These current and voltage was maintained for 4 hours. A quiet, continuous and uniform hydrogen evolution was visible on the cathode all the time. After 4 hours I took out the WE, rinsed and accurately dryed it and inserted it into the CE.

No voltage was generated.

Previously, I tryed to load a simple and clean iron rod with hydrogen without additional plating, obtaining the same result (I wrote a short post on that). This is a further confirmation that the codeposition is essential to get the effect.

Apart from the primary result, this test was also useful as an additional control experiment: a procedure that was almost identical to the one that allowed to obtain the working LEC (comprising all the wet/dirty stuff, cleaning, rinsing, drying etc.) do not produced any voltage. This is an additional indication that the effect was not due to moisture, wetting, impurities or similar artifacts.

I've just ordered some zinc sheet - plan is to plate with zinc and then overplate with Iron in an acidic electrolyte. Still pondering the idea of chemical co-deposition.

Iron oxide in various forms can chemisorb significant amounts of water which cannot really just be dried with a towel or removed with mild temperatures. That the voltage effect shows up with the (easily oxidized) iron deposition layer but not without one does not really rule out, on its own, that water is not involved.

EDIT: by the way, on a related note:

Quote from Dr Richard

Why not just use 240 V AC mains? Two Fe plate electrodes etc? For LENR reactors all we need is Holmlid's catalysts and a large chunk of reactor ingredients rather than going down to nanoscales. Thin wires etc etc.will not build up sufficient reactant protons or neutrons for creating a critical mass.. I despair of the ignorance here in basic nuclear physics.

Speaking of those iron oxide catalysts, in this open access paper the reduction of iron oxide (+potassium in some form) under hydrogen at a few mbar and increasing temperatures was studied: Reducibility of potassium-promoted iron oxide under hydrogen conditions (iastate.edu)

It was found that a weight reduction in the material upon heating observed up to 300–550 °C was mainly due to loss of surface hydroxyls, i.e. chemisorbed water as –OH groups. While this is for hematite for which this effect will be strong, water chemisorption will also occur with other iron oxide types, e.g. FeO. Here is one of the first hits on a web search just as a starting point: Water adsorption on an iron oxide surface - ScienceDirect .

Quote from can

Iron oxide in various forms can chemisorb significant amounts of water which cannot really just be dried with a towel or removed with mild temperatures. That the voltage effect shows up with the (easily oxidized) iron deposition layer but not without one does not really rule out, on its own, that water is not involved.

No doubt that the rought iron [oxide] layer will keep a significant amount of water. The point is that it is not sufficient to produce the effect. I specifically tested in the past to just wet the expired WE, and yesterday to electrolytically reload it (the ferrous deposition was still in place). No "vital signs" were visible. BTW, I suspect the moisture/humidity can even be harful to the effect, especially when in the gas, because it could limit the ionization.

Stevenson

Not completely related to the water adsorption properties of iron oxide (although I was more suggesting possible moisture-inducing artifacts as I observed in my own crude tests), but among your tests have you also tried to deliberately form a thick oxide layer on the active electrode and then loading it with hydrogen in the cell?

Iron oxide has known catalytic properties. The deposited iron will start oxidizing almost immediately especially if the deposition done with chloride solution, and probably even faster if it's rough, so there's a chance that what one might actually want for the effect is an iron oxide deposition layer with hydrogen diffusing through it.

Quote from can

there's a chance that what one might actually want for the effect is an iron oxide deposition layer with hydrogen diffusing through it.

The magnetite I see forming has almost zero adhesion- it washes off

Alan Smith

But some of the remaining fine iron will no doubt oxidize, and washing off wasn't even mentioned by Frank Gordon with the Fe-on-Fe procedure (using FeCl2 plating solution), which could be assumed it promotes further oxidation also inside the cell from the residual oxygen and moisture.

Post

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

Thanks James. Regarding the question about treatment to apply to the working electrode after plating with Fe? I just tap it on a paper towel to knock some of the water off or lightly touch it with a paper towel and at most, let it dry for a couple minutes before inserting it into a larger pipe. I didn't want to wait too long because of oxidation on the iron. The codeposition protocol seems to be flexible. I used 0.1 M FeCl2 4H20 in distilled H2O. I would start with a current of…

Frank Gordon

Jun 5th 2021

Quote

Regarding the question about treatment to apply to the working electrode after plating with Fe? I just tap it on a paper towel to knock some of the water off or lightly touch it with a paper towel and at most, let it dry for a couple minutes before inserting it into a larger pipe. I didn't want to wait too long because of oxidation on the iron. The codeposition protocol seems to be flexible. I used 0.1 M FeCl2 4H20 in distilled H2O. I would start with a current of approximately 50 µA/cm² for 30 minutes. Then increase it to approximately 100 µA/cm² for an additional approximately 30 minutes. The current was then increased to approximately 2 mA/cm² for times ranging from 4 hours to one day or more. One of the electrodes actually worked after 4 hours but I codeposited some more iron just in case.

can

Good thinking but Frank has often run his plates hot, and they still work, in a hydrogen atmosphere punctuated by spells under vacuum -and he washes the electrolyte off and dries them too. I don't think water vapour would survive in that environment for very long.

Using the alkaline system you see very little corrosion, no surprise since pure iron is very resistant to oxidation -there is an English expression 'old iron never rusts' which refers to iron items made before the Bessemer process made low carbon steel cheap enough for everyday use.

If you have doubts , try again, be more patient with the electrolysis, and if you have no suitable plates why not try a 50 €c coin - it has some zinc content which might be useful if you use an acid electrolyte. They are made of “Nordic gold”, which is in fact an alloy consisting of copper, aluminium, zinc and tin. This alloy gives the coin its characteristic rich gold colour.

Alan Smith

To clarify, the catalytic iron oxide idea is separate from the one that involving moisture.

Basically I was saying that if it isn't a moisture/electrolyte residue-caused electrolytic artifact (which is what I saw with my tests), there's a chance that iron oxide in some form could be involved, since it will be easily formed under certain plating conditions and it's a known catalyst also used by other researchers. So, I was asking Stevenson if among his numerous tests he's also tried using a thick iron oxide layer directly for the working electrode instead of one spontaneously (accidentally) formed.

I haven't tried an alkaline plating solution yet, but iron deposition layers formed with citric acid did not seem to rust. I haven't made other tests recently mainly because I cannot discern a real LEC effect from an electrolytic artifact with the experimental conditions I've been employing. I would need a proper testing setup and environment, but since Frank Gordon reported a succesful test with Fe-on-Fe I assumed that a steel baseplate (instead of brass) could also be used, which would simplify things up.

Somewhat unrelated: metallic iron/steel oxidizes quickly by wetting with a moderately concentrated caustic solution (NaOH or KOH) and heating to 250-300 °C or somewhat more until it is dry.

The only thing I can suggest is reading Leif Holmlid's papers again.

Quote from Dr Richard

The only thing I can suggest is reading Leif Holmlid's papers again.

The only thing in common with these LEC experiments that I can think of, besides the possibility that iron oxide is involved, is that the iron oxide catalysts he has used emit with heating potassium ions and easily ionizable excited potassium atoms, and occasionally these have been observed as a current using a small accelerating voltage (using a "surface ionization detector"). However, this is in a very good vacuum and with currents in the order of nanoamperes at several hundred °C and I think relatively very large gaps.

I don't recall reading if this has ever been done for H atoms, but when hydrogen is adsorbed, the excitation state of the K atoms would be transferred to H atoms and molecules in desorption.

Quote from can

but among your tests have you also tried to deliberately form a thick oxide layer on the active electrode and then loading it with hydrogen in the cell?

Yes, some post-expiring experiments that I run where done with an iron oxide layer formed (not "thick" though) and hydrogen, either wet and dry. The experiment I run yesterday was done with the iron/iron oxide layer in place, and it was for sure loaded to some extent with hydrogen.

Quote from Dr Richard

The only thing I can suggest is reading Leif Holmlid's papers again.

In my opinion Holmid's papers and patents do not provide sufficient details to allow a replication (not even to understand an apply the basic concepts, frankly speaking). This is the reason why nobody has ever replicated his findings. BTW also Mills' work always suffered from the same problem.