Sadly after another 24 hours the voltage was down to 429mV, and at 48 hours 120mV
And that is an almost linear reduction, with time. Doesn't seem suggestive of radioactive decay (unless countered by some other non-linearity in the system)
Frank Gordon's "Lattice Energy Converter (LEC)"...replicators workshop
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And that is an almost linear reduction, with time. Doesn't seem suggestive of radioactive decay (unless countered by some other non-linearity in the system)
Rust may be the factor here, even if not quite visible. Repeating the test on the hydrogen atmosphere would probably help. It is indeed interesting that a voltage is seen at all in this setup.
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This is a re-run of the terbium chips in K2CO3 electrolyte. 48 hours electrolysis, 1.3v overpotential and 1W average power. This is 'still damp', just out of the tank. This is a more complex system, far from ideal, and there may be a lot going on. The terbium is sitting on a circular brass electrode inside a stainless steel cup in the bottom of the beaker it was electrolysed in K2Cow/DW. 1.3V however is remarkable. It's currently drying at 60C which will certainly change things a lot.
ETA- and so it did - the final voltage measured at room temperature after 3 hours at 60C is 600mV -
Alan Smith , You are still using a big air gap to measure this voltage or you reduced It to a narrow one? That big air gap on your first attempt with terbium was quite a shocker.
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This is still a big gap -20mm approx, I think to investigate this further would require some terbium sheet. Hard to find at an affordable price.
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Alan Smith Re: hard ferrocerium rod on zinc
I've just noticed that, unlike the measurements on the soft ferrocerium rod, this time the red lead of the meter is connected to the zinc sheet - and so the black lead (off screen) must be connected to the rod. And yet the meter is still showing a negative voltage - suggesting that this time the rod is positive in relation to the zinc. Is this still the case if a glass slide is interspersed between the rod and sheet?
I notice that in the original presentation PDF, at the start of this thread, there is talk of occasional polarity reversals after a period of operation. Maybe your hard rod / zinc sheet setup is heading for a polarity switch, after the graph hits zero volts...
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This is still a big gap -20mm approx, I think to investigate this further would require some terbium sheet. Hard to find at an affordable price.
You made me curious and I Googled Terbium Sheet, and all I can say is “oh sheet”. The only one that I could find with a price attached, without enquire required, was 65.000 yens a piece, roughly USD 450.
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I've just noticed that, unlike the measurements on the soft ferrocerium rod, this time the red lead of the meter is connected to the zinc sheet - and so the black lead (off screen) must be connected to the rod. And yet the meter is still showing a negative voltage - suggesting that this time the rod is positive in relation to the zinc. Is this still the case if a glass slide is interspersed between the rod and sheet?
Polarity switching is a puzzle- but I think oxidation is responsible for the production of (at least) negative ions after some time out of the tank.
I should explain, these experiment are just designed to expand/explore the range of materials that can potentially show the LEC effect- so little time to exhaustively check the parameters of each one (sadly) I'm generally running 4 experiments at once with standardised electrolyte and power levels, staggered that on any given day there are two 'mature' ones 48 hours old to measure and 2 to set up. If anything really interesting arises- I can revisit and do more exhaustive tests later.
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The last electrolysis test- Zirconium cathode in K2CO3 with a carbon anode.
And the Al/Alstill has a little life in it.
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Both Zirconium and Titatium returned a null result after 48 hours electrolysis with vigorous H2 production. A comfort really, since there is no better control than a failed experiment.
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This one is a real puzzler. 'Soft' ferrocerium fire-starter, it produces a voltage at some distance from the anode, and (here's the puzzle) it onlt produces a tiny a voltage when only separated from the counter electrode by a paper towel, but produces a good voltage when separated by a glass microscope slide - which should be impervious to ions.
This picture shows a carbon rod counter-electrode nearest the meter, and just visible in the bottom left corner the ferrocerium working electrode separated from it by a glass slide...but if I put paper between - even 3 or 4 layers, negligible votage.
that meter can give voltages due to rectified ac so you might want to check that said small voltage remains when all is Faraday caged. You might also want to check with a scope, if the electrical stimulus you provide has ac components.
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Re low voltage measurements: what is the specified DC input impedance of the load (maybe just that of your DVM)?
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Has it by chance already been verified whether the experience works even without any point in common contact between the two electrodes?
Materials such as glass (but not only) have the ability to adsorb atomic hydrogen under certain conditions, see for example the experiments of Irving Langmuir. So here we could have a situation where the H-rich cathode somehow produces a current due to their migration to the H-poor surface instead of the ionization of the gas between the two electrodes. It is worth checking carefully.
The atoms of H are neutral and their movement from one part of the system to the other should not cause a current per se, but if also protons emerge from the cathode, this and the observed voltage could be plausible without requiring the production of photons etc.Hi -welcome to the forum. With the LEC we have exhausted all mundane explanations by checking them out in numerous ways it seems, though I have no objection to embracing spillover catalysis as being involved in some way. This project is not mine alone, there are other replicator, both active forum members and lurkers, some of them very well known in the field. While we don't have an explanation that fits all observations. With regard to this being a purely surface phenomenon limited to the cathode this seems unlikely, since a working cell is bi-directionally conductive - since there is no direct contact between electrodes this suggests that ionised gas is the charge carrier. Finally if there is direct contact between electrodes there is no output, voltage is restored rapidly when they are separated, even after repeated short circuiting.
If you would like to know more, I recommend reading back through the thread and looking at the various presentations.
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Looking at this photo, the article "Hydrogen Spillover" comes to mind on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_spillover
Has it by chance already been verified whether the experience works even without any point in common contact between the two electrodes?
Materials such as glass (but not only) have the ability to adsorb atomic hydrogen under certain conditions, see for example the experiments of Irving Langmuir. So here we could have a situation where the H-rich cathode somehow produces a current due to their migration to the H-poor surface instead of the ionization of the gas between the two electrodes. It is worth checking carefully.
The atoms of H are neutral and their movement from one part of the system to the other should not cause a current per se, but if also protons emerge from the cathode, this and the observed voltage could be plausible without requiring the production of photons etc. .
All experiments so far have been done with a dielectric to isolate both electrodes, keeping them in close enough proximity without this is hard to do, I.e, by hand. However if your alternative mechanism could cause voltage, could you predict a boundary of what this voltage could be and how much it would last?
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@Martellino
Spacers tested so far include teflon, teflon coated glass fibre mesh, nylon mesh, glass, silicon rubber, paper, nitrile rubber and Viton (O-Rings) alumina beads and air-spacing up to 45mm.
There are many aspects of the LEC that aren't clear but I think high impedance ion conduction through all those different media seems unlikely.
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Therefore, by positioning the electrodes on two completely independent supports, even at a very close distance to each other (not touching)
I think you mean something like a plastic spacer, an air gap, and then another plastic spacer. But wouldn't both spacers would be in contact with the walls, or whatever holds the equipment together? I am having trouble imagining how this would be shaped.
Here is Di Stefano's cell:
I suppose you have in mind something like this: Turn the cell vertically; remove the spacers; add plastic blocks or something to hold the electrodes in position. The plastic blocks would be indirectly in contact with one another but I guess since they are outside the working electrode that would not matter. Right?
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Hello. As for the surfaces in common contact, I refer to the dielectric spacers used between one electrode and another. In the last few hours I have been taking a quick look at the thread and the messages written in the past months, but it doesn't seem to me that this point has been discussed in much detail.
What I am proposing is a sort of high impedance ion conduction through (directly or not) hydrogen spillover on these spacers, it being understood that there must be some additional mechanism not yet clear for this to be possible.
I am not able to predict the magnitude of the voltage observable through this effect, but it will most likely be proportional to the rate of desorption of hydrogen from the cathode in atomic form and to how much of this is able to migrate to the other electrode by means of a spillover. Therefore, by positioning the electrodes on two completely independent supports, even at a very close distance to each other (not touching), the effect according to this hypothesis will be reduced to zero.
@Martellino , I understood very well what you are referring to. A somewhat similar concern, but not equal, was brought up by user can who did some quick replications and saw voltages that he attributed and proved to be due to insufficient drying of the electrodes before measuring. This was most a problem of his quick experiments and this has been ruled out for the other replications.
Now, getting back to your hypothesis, the reason dielectrics are used Is because keeping things at close distances without the help of something like a dielectric is hard. We are talking of 0,5 millimeter gaps here.
Perhaps the best chance of ruling this out quickly would be provided by Alan Smith ‘s terbium chips LEC which allows a 20 millimeters gap and still produces voltage. 20 millimeters is a gap you can keep by holding things by hand. -
@Martellino Anyway I celebrate you coming here with a new angle, it’s precisely what we encourage, the 45 mm air gap is briefly pictured some pages behind, then the experiment was accidentally interrupted and started again and a 20 mm air gap was seen this time to work.
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In your open cell, the spacers are touching whatever is underneath them. Right? They are not floating in air, like with an air bearing.
In your drawing, it seems like whole thing is exposed to air. Not in a cell container? I don't see how that would work. I don't think that is what you have in mind, but I don't see a container.
I think Alan Smith has been testing things on air with good results, also Stevenson has done it, we all now know that some LECs work in open air, where they don’t work is in vacuum.
edit to add: this is precisely why the main hypothesis is that what causes the effect is some sort of ionization of the gas surrounding the WE. Alan Smith has even tested with some volatile compounds vapors in air, to see the effect of the different ionization potentials of the gases in the voltage generated. -
@Martellino, if you are suggesting that H ions may be transferred through the insulators, I would say that this is not coherent with what we observed: a large number of different insulator materials have been tested and it is very unlikely that all behave the same way. Also, when you apply an external voltage to the LEC you can get a (perfectly symmetric) current in the order of fraction of mA, that are incompatible with ion migration through the insulator.
If you are thinking instead to a superficial conduction mechanism on the dielectrics (either H ions or other contaminants, such as moisture), this is also incompatible with the variety of insulators that have been tested and the amount of current that can be forced.
Moreover, there is a counter-experiment (actually more than one) that demonstrates that the conduction apparently happen via the gas: if you cover the active area (not the insulators) with a thin sheet of plastic or teflon, you get no voltage and no conduction.
