Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

  • THHuxleynew


    Hi THH, JR wrote to you:

    There is no input power for most of the boil off. That is what the graphs show, and what common sense tells you must be the case. Got that? No Input Power. NO INPUT POWER, for crying out loud. Do you understand what that means? Ascoli does not, but you probably have some knowledge of everyday physics.

    I strongly recommend you to follow his hint, and look at the graphs.


    IMO, the most important graph produced by F&P, and one of the most revealing of the whole CF history, is the one shown in Figure 8 of the F&P's "simplicity paper": https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf .


    Its caption says: "Expansion of the temperature-time portion of Fig 6B during the final period of rapid boiling and evaporation."


    The temperature-time portion starts at about 1,597,000 s, when temperature of the electrolyte is about 86 °C. Then it slowly reaches a maximum temperature of about 101°C, and suddenly drops at 1,657,000 s (at the right end of the horizontal arrow). So the rising part lasts 60,000 s, that is 16h40'.


    You should locate the fig.8 portion into the whole temperature trend of fig.6B. This last shows the voltage too. Before the beginning of fig.8 portion, both temperature and voltage in fig.6B are rising (on average, of course), and both are accelerating their increasing rates. The second derivative is positive for both curves.


    Voltage increases due to increasing of resistance of circuit, but, as known, in electrolyte the resistivity decreases on increasing temperature because viscosity of electrolyte decreases. So the resistance can only increase for the phenomenon highlighted by Lonchampt, that is build up of deposits on electrodes. This slow phenomenon explain the needing for F&P to run very long experiments.


    On the other hand, electrolyte temperature increases because cell must dissipate more extra heat by means of radiative losses, which vary with the 4th power of temperature.


    F&P calculated the radiative losses at boiling point. On page 16, they wrote that, at 101°C, the cell loses 6,700 J in 600 s, i.e. 11.1 W, toward an ambient at 20°C. Therefore, at 86 °C, at the beginning of fig.8, the radiative dissipation is about 8.5 W. So, at a constant current of 0.5 A, the radiative losses, in the portion shown on fig.8, accounts for a voltage difference ranging from 17 to 22.2 V, that is 18.5 to 23.7 V after having included the 1.54 V absorbed by the electrolysis. But fig.6B shows that, in this final boil-off period, voltage skyrockets well above 25 V. Where does it go all this extra power?


    Only a tiny fraction of it can be stored as sensible heat in the electrolyte, because its temperature is already close to the boiling point, and it increases more and more slowly, by levelling its trend. As a consequence, as clearly shown by fig.8, the second derivative of temperature is negative, while the second derivative of voltage continues to be positive for a while, until voltage reaches the maximum allowed value of 100 V, that is 50 W. Nearly 40 W more than the radiative losses in that period!


    Again, where does it go all this extra power?


    Well, the answer is simple: it generates steam!


    Evaporation is the only way in which the F&P cell can dissipate the extra heat produced by the electrolyte current during "the final period of rapid boiling and evaporation". But this period doesn't last 600 s, as F&P assumed in their calculation at page 16, it actually lasted many hours as shown by the levelling trend of the curve in their fig.8. Probably yet at the beginning of the curve, at 1,597,000 s, but surely at 1,620,000 s (that is 10 hours before dry out(*)), water is evaporating at the cathode surface. It means that the cathode temperature is above boiling point, hence it is higher than the electrolyte's. And this over temperature surely increases with the increasing of the extra power.


    In conclusion, if you look carefully at fig.8 of the F&P "simplicity paper", and interpret it correctly, you can desume that:

    - there have been input power for ALL of the boil off (not only for most of it);

    - this input power is largely sufficient to explain the dry out of the cell (no excess heat is required);

    - the temperature of the cathode rises well above the electrolyte's.


    (*) Please, pay attention, the dry out doesn't happen in the instant indicated by F&P on fig.8, in fact the vertical arrows are misplaced, the dry out happens when temperature drops.

  • Reproduce the experiment, produce a similar effect without LENR and I will be very impressed -until then it's just your anonymous opinion against that of 2 distinguished scientists whose work has been replicated independently many times.

  • Reproduce the experiment, produce a similar effect without LENR and I will be very impressed

    I'm not equipped to reproduce the F&P experiment, and, in any case, a reproduction by me has no possibility to impress who strongly believes that F&P were right.


    Three years ago, when Team Google asked the opinion of this community for suggesting an experiment to be conducted, I strongly recommended to reproduce the "1992 boil-off experiment" of F&P (1). A Team Google replication would have been very impressive, but my suggestion was not accepted.


    Quote

    until then it's just your anonymous opinion against that of 2 distinguished scientists whose work has been replicated independently many times.


    Well, it's not a matter of anonymity, as shown by the reactions to the THH posts in this thread.


    There is a well precise order in the credibility of the arguments which have been used in debating the reality of the F&P effect. Starting from the most important:

    - 1st level: the experimental evidences provided by F&P;

    - 2nd level: the F&P opinion;

    - …

    - last level: my finger.


    I 'm aware that my anonymous opinion counts nothing, but my anonymous finger is pointing to the 1st level of credibility and says: please, look carefully at the experimental evidences, interpret them correctly and you will see that they are in conflict with the F&P opinion!


    I know that most people here will not look at my finger, that's why I've addressed my last post to THH. May be he'll let us know what is his opinion about the interpretation of Figure 8 of the F&P's "simplicity paper".


    (1) RE: Team Google wants your opinion: "What is the highest priority experiment the LENR community wants to see conducted?"

  • I've been kindly asked not to post "about the boil-off" in other threads (*), so I will "restraint" my answers in this "[my] own thread", … as long as it remains open. :)

    (*) RE: LENR FAQ (for skeptics)


    And based on his imaginative interpretation of a grainy old video. That's it. Would you accept evidence of this quality as evidence for UFO's?

    My interpretation of the presence of mostly foam in the cells, shown in what you call "a grainy old video", was confirmed by at least one other LENR member, who provided, in native language, an accurate description of what he saw there (1). Is this description imaginative too?


    As for the quality of the videos (2,3), a few years ago they were considered (4) a "proof of excess heat [is] palpable or visible. In the F&P video, you can see that the electrolyte has boiled off, so there can be no current and no heating."


    And even more specifically (5): "You don't need Fleischmann, Miles or anyone else. You can see for yourself. I mean that literally. Look a good copy of the boil off experiment video and you will see." Or, again (6): "You can see the proof yourself, right there in the video. You can also see that 30 W of electrolysis does not even boil the water. You can see a great deal, …"


    Definitively, the time-lapse video was considered the capital proof to resolve any doubt about LENR reality (7): "You doubt that was the case? LOOK AT THE VIDEO."


    Then, suddenly, after the coming out of the "foam issue", the time-lapse video "unfortunately" became (8) "an old VHS video, and it is a copy of a copy, so the quality is degraded and the picture is blurry, but you can still see when the boil off events begin and end."


    Anyway, regardless of the opinions on video's quality, the 2 main claims of F&P are wrong due to evidence provided by F&P themselves and not affected by any degradation.


    In particular, as already explained here above (9), a thorough interpretation of Fig.8 of their "Simplicity Paper" shows that boiling has started many hours before the boil-off events identified by F&P .


    The same Fig.8 also shows that the second main claim of F&P were wrong too. They mispositioned the arrows indicating the instants of half and full dryness of the cell. This error can be easily verified by anybody by comparing the time reported on the video frames with the time axis of Fig.8, as explained in (10). The times on the video frames are clearly legible independently by any supposed degradation of the video.


    It is evident that F&P failed in synchronizing the time-lapse video with the temperature recording. This is a paramount error! It generated the subsequent decennial mythology about the so called "Heat After Death" phenomena.


    (1) RE: FP's experiments discussion

    (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBAIIZU6Oj8

    (3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn9K1Hvw434

    (4) RE: Validity of LENR Science...[split]

    (5) RE: FP's experiments discussion

    (6) RE: FP's experiments discussion

    (7) RE: FP's experiments discussion

    (8) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreviewofth.pdf

    (9) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

    (10) https://imgur.com/X2q1TWv

  • I'm not equipped to reproduce the F&P experiment, and, in any case, a reproduction by me has no possibility to impress who strongly believes that F&P were right.

    I never asked you to do that. I would like you to perform an experiment where a realistic electrode of similar form in an aqueous -preferably lithium hydroxide and light water- electrolyte gets hot enough to boil the electrolyte - even for a few seconds- after the power goes off. It would be important to know the bulk temperature of the electrode itself, since as I have said many times, it's the electrolyte that heats up more than the electrodes, because it's in the electrolyte the power is dissipated. That would be something I have never seen.


    This is a kitchen table experiment. not requiring high technnology, I am sure your hot fusion lab could run it.

  • I never asked you to do that. I would like you to perform an experiment where a realistic electrode of similar form in an aqueous -preferably lithium hydroxide and light water- electrolyte gets hot enough to boil the electrolyte - even for a few seconds- after the power goes off. It would be important to know the bulk temperature of the electrode itself, since as I have said many times, it's the electrolyte that heats up more than the electrodes, because it's in the electrolyte the power is dissipated. That would be something I have never seen.


    This is a kitchen table experiment. not requiring high technnology, I am sure your hot fusion lab could run it.

    I have no fusion lab, neither cold nor hot.


    My basic knowledge in physics is sufficient to understand what Fig.8 of F&P's "Simplicity Paper" implies: the leveling of the curve toward the horizontal, at the same time as voltage (and power) are increasing more and more rapidly, means that the system is losing heat by evaporation. Do you agree on this?


    Now, since the bulk temperature of water remained below the boiling point for many hours, this means that locally, somewhere in the system, this temperature was exceeding the boiling point. The only point where this could have happened was the cathode surface. The reason is simple. The current lines are concentrated on this surface, so there is a huge increase in the current density and in the consequent volumetric heat release by joule effect. The diameter of the F&P cathode was 2 mm, its height 12.5 mm, so its surface was about 1/10 (Order of Magnitude-OM) of the average section of the electrolytic current. Due to the quadratic relationship between current density and joule heating, on the cathode surface the juole heating density was on average 100 times (OM) larger than elsewhere in the cell.


    As evaporation began, bubbles formed on the cathode surface which further reduced its wetted surface, so that the local heating density increased more and more.


    The wetted area, and therefore the heating release, was mostly concentrated on the bottom of the cathode, where the palladium rod was wedged into the plastic support, because this is the point where liquid water, coming from the relatively colder walls, converges to replace the evaporated water.


    Furthermore, in the very last period of boiling-off, when the level of residual liquid was very low, the lower portion of cathode was the only part which could have been in touch with liquid, for obvious reasons. When the liquid electrolyte reduced to a thin layer, the local joule heating density became thousands times greater than the initial bulk density.


    To this geometric effect must be added the effect due to the deposits on the cathode surface, that, as already said (1), were found by Lonchampt as the cause of the progressively increase of the overvoltage.


    So, no wonder for what F&P claimed in their "Simplicity Paper": "the Kel-F supports of the electrodes at the base of the cells melt so that the local temperature must exceed 300ºC." This phenomenon can be satisfactorily explained by conventional physics.


    All the wonder is concentrated in the previous claim: " following the boiling to dryness and the open-circuiting of the cells, the cells nevertheless remain at high temperature for prolonged periods of time, Fig 8;"


    This is completely untrue! Cell 2 started cooling immediately after the cell dried. F&P made a big mistake: they shifted the time of the time-lapse video by more than 2 hours (2). This is a fact, not an opinion! Anyone can verify it for themselves. In this case, it is not even necessary to know the basics of physics, all you need is to know how to perform a couple of elementary time conversions.


    Have you never checked this evident fact? It's very simple. Just watch the F&P video (3), write down the times (hh:mm) on the right of the blue arrows which appear along Cell 2, convert these instants into elapsed time in seconds starting from 00:00:00 of April 11, 1992 (consider that the boiling off of Cell2 occurs during the 20th day of the experiment). Put these elapsed times on the x axis of Fig.8 of F&P's "Simplicity Paper" (4), and you will see for yourself that F&P had misplaced the vertical arrows by more than 2 hours!


    It takes a maximum of 10 minutes. It doesn't require a lab, not even a kitchen table, just your PC. I'm sure you are able to do a time conversion. Why don't you do it?


    (1) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

    (2) https://imgur.com/X2q1TWv

    (3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBAIIZU6Oj8

    (4) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf

  • I never asked you to do that. I would like you to perform an experiment where a realistic electrode of similar form in an aqueous -preferably lithium hydroxide and light water- electrolyte gets hot enough to boil the electrolyte - even for a few seconds- after the power goes off. It would be important to know the bulk temperature of the electrode itself, since as I have said many times, it's the electrolyte that heats up more than the electrodes, because it's in the electrolyte the power is dissipated. That would be something I have never seen.


    This is a kitchen table experiment. not requiring high technnology, I am sure your hot fusion lab could run it.

    F&P (and many others) working with D/Pd electrolysis observed things they could not explain.


    The LENR argument for variable replication results is that these are difficult experiments where without the exact materials you may not get the (FPHE) outcome.


    Shanahan argues that unusual effects which could lead to local near-electrode heating result from surface interactions on electrodes, and are variable and surface dependent.


    Given that these two explanations: unusual local heating (not LENR) and unusual heat effect (LENR) both have the same presumed cause - strange things happening on Pd electrodes - what you are asking ascoli to demonstrate is as difficult as a similar replicated demonstration of excess heat.


    Mysteries often happen when several different unexpected things coincidentally happen. No skeptic denies that these Pd/H or Pd/D electrolysis systems are complex, and no-one sensible would rule out unexpected chemistry. Ascoli (with a bit of Shanahan mixed in if need be) has a purely chemical explanation for the boil-off observations here.


    And to question one assumption:


    [Alan]

    It would be important to know the bulk temperature of the electrode itself, since as I have said many times, it's the electrolyte that heats up more than the electrodes, because it's in the electrolyte the power is dissipated. That would be something I have never seen.


    Ascoli has a perfect explanation for electrodes heating up which fits (1) you have never seen it and (2) it happens towards the end of long F&P electrolysis runs. F - a very experienced electrochemist - thought the FPHE was anomalous: perhaps he made assumptions similar to those you are making? Expertise can blind people to novel effects.


    (1) during electrolysis over a long period of Pd with D (or sometimes H) solid or semi-solid residue can build up around the electrode

    (2) this residue could have a resistivity higher than that of the electrolyte

    (2a) a similar mechanism showing increased local to electrode resistivity as the electrolyte heats up would be bubble-formation on electrode surface (I gave the calcs above) this would make power dissipated immediately around the electrode per cc higher than in bulk electrolyte

    (2b) ATER is yet another mechanism that would heat up the electrode more than the bulk electrolyte

    (3) in this case a portion of the power normally dissipated in the electrolyte would be dissipated in this layer.

    (3a) worth remembering that with no power dissipated in the electrode bulk, for a long run, the electrode bulk temperature will equilibrate to the electrode surface temperature.

    (4) this would heat up the electrode more than the electrolyte

    (5) not much extra temperature is needed for the electrolyte close to the electrode to boil id the electrolyte is at a temperature close to 100C anyway.

    (6) this sequence of events, or something like it, explains the boil-off observations with power applied.


    [ascoli]

    Anyway, regardless of the opinions on video's quality, the 2 main claims of F&P are wrong due to evidence provided by F&P themselves and not affected by any degradation.


    In particular, as already explained here above (9), a thorough interpretation of Fig.8 of their "Simplicity Paper" shows that boiling has started many hours before the boil-off events identified by F&P .


    Ascoli's comments here seem plausible to me: they do not imply deliberate malfeasance, just mistakes of the type that ahyone can make and that are more likely when the experimenter (as here) as a very fixed and clear view that large excess heat is likely from these experiments. If you expect heat after death you do not double-check (as mots would) when a mislabelled graph shows heat after death!


    The same Fig.8 also shows that the second main claim of F&P were wrong too. They mispositioned the arrows indicating the instants of half and full dryness of the cell. This error can be easily verified by anybody by comparing the time reported on the video frames with the time axis of Fig.8, as explained in (10). The times on the video frames are clearly legible independently by any supposed degradation of the video.


    It is evident that F&P failed in synchronizing the time-lapse video with the temperature recording. This is a paramount error! It generated the subsequent decennial mythology about the so called "Heat After Death" phenomena.



    I suggest, Alan, that you as an expert here are making assumptions, just as F might have done, based on your experience. The specific special conditions of this experiment could invalidate those assumptions through some combination of the above steps, or through some LENR nuclear reactions. The above steps would seem more plausible (if not understood) to anyone who did not a priori think (equally not understood) LENR effects were widespread.


    THH





  • How on earth did you dream up all this nonsense?


    What is the possible chemical nature of this hypothesised high-resistance coating on the cathode in a D2O/LiOD system? Never seen that happen in possibly 50 trials. If I had my notebooks here I could tell you exactly.

    Since in your example this coating reduces current flow the system would cool down. It is exactly the same as having a smaller electrode.

    Also- since this imaginary coating is intimate contact with the electrolyte it would also be cooled to electrolyte temperature- even if by some magic the electrode could heat up. The only magic I can think of is LENR magic.

    I have often had problems with coating build-up on the electrodes in plating and cleaning tanks, in every case the current drops off very quickly. So no joule heating of anything, because there is less current flow.

    Of course the bulk electrode temperature and the electrolyte temperature equilibrate over time. And stay there while current flows, but not after. However, that means nothing. I only mentioned 'bulk electrode temperature' because it is easier to measure than surface temperature in the presence of an electrolyte.
    Since Ascoli -according to you- could not possibly reproduce any of these effects while adhering however loosely to the F&P protocols I am calling it nonsense. Because it cannot be done. He knows it, you know it too.


    And before you start on again about constant current versus constant voltage PSU's I am pretty sure that only in extremes would that make any difference - and F&P would be very wary of extremes.

  • Since in your example this coating reduces current flow the system would cool down. It is exactly the same as having a smaller electrode.

    Alan. No in both cases.


    I have often had problems with coating build-up on the electrodes in plating and cleaning tanks, in every case the current drops off very quickly.


    So you agree that a high resistance coating can form :). In your case that coating causes the current to drop.


    These (F&P) cells are driven constant current.


    That means = V*I = R^2*I.


    Increasing resistance at the electrodes (bubbles, or my you think fictitious but also appear to have observed high resistivity coating) increases the total inter-electrode resistance.


    Under constant voltage electrolysis current decreases - sure.


    Under constant-current electrolysis the current cannot decrease, instead the voltage increases to drive the same current through the higher resistance. I checked the F&P paper - it is clear they use CC. Of course that also means power input increases which is why you get the runaway boil-off.


    Did this happen to the F&P boil-off cell? Yes. See voltage trace in Figure 6B of https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf


    While I admit to being a rubbish chemist (A long time ago I got a grade 1 A-level - I guess same as A* now or something) but it was not my favourite science subject and I have done no chemistry since then. But stuff to do with electricity - I've done that. I guess it means I am half-qualified with this electrochemistry stuff.


    Best wishes, THH

  • And before you start on again about constant current versus constant voltage PSU's I am pretty sure that only in extremes would that make any difference - and F&P would be very wary of extremes.

    1. The boil-off conditions obviously were extreme. In fact I have always criticised that bit of their work - non-equilibrium, complex to analyse, etc. They should not be drawing any conclusions from it.


    2. I don't know how they achieved constant current - there are many ways - but it is no more extreme (as a way to run the cell) than constant voltage.

    You can see from 6B that the voltage increases over the experiment from approx 7v at the start of the 500mA portion of the run up to 5X that or more (there is a voltage asymptote). The caption for figure 6 makes it clear that the cell is driven constant current (500mA for all the time except a short initial segment). 1.5v is the electrolysis potential so the power input goes up by a slightly larger factor than the cell voltage (more than 5X). For constant voltage the power would decrease by roughly 5X if you had the same cell conditions (which you would not of course). So just to be clear a factor of 25 is a big difference in power in at the end is a big difference.


    BTW the voltage asymptote I guess is because as the cell boils off the cell resistance gets larger due to loss of electrolyte - but it is difficult to disentangle the 3 possible effects:

    • lower electrolyte level
    • more bubbles close to the electrode
    • gunk on electrode

    THH

  • What is the possible chemical nature of this hypothesised high-resistance coating on the cathode in a D2O/LiOD system? Never seen that happen in possibly 50 trials. If I had my notebooks here I could tell you exactly.

    Since in your example this coating reduces current flow the system would cool down. It is exactly the same as having a smaller electrode.

    Whatever its nature, something happens in F&P experiments which progressively increases the voltage across the cells. Since the current is constant, this voltage increase reflects an increase in the electric resistance, and since the electrolyte resistivity decreases with temperature, it also means that all the extra resistance is concentrated in the electrodes, more precisely on their surface. Indeed, Lonchampt wrote (1): "We have observed deposits on the electrodes after electrolysis, which, in our opinion, have a determining role in the excess heat generation." And thereafter, he added in a scheme: "Such deposits result in overvoltage".


    Certainly, Lonchampt replications are closer to the F&P original experiment than your trials, and better documented.


    In the "1992 boil-off experiment", the voltage increased up to 100 V, about ten times the base voltage, as you can see from Fig.6 in the "Simplicity Paper" (2). This is the "rail voltage" for this kind of F&P experiments, as explicitly confirmed in the "Heat After Death" paper (3): "We have then adopted the procedure of allowing the cells to boil to dryness. For these conditions the galvanostats are driven to the rail voltage (100 V) …" Therefore at a constant current of 0.5 A, the heating power can reach 50 W. This power is almost entirely (more than 80%) dissipated on the electrode surface.


    At the end of boil-off, when the thickness of the liquid layer is less than the cathode height, this power concentrates in the bottom part of electrodes. No wonder that the support of the electrodes has melted as stated by F&P in the "Simplicity Paper". We should just wonder of F&P's wonder.


    So- a whole 17.5 watts. Couldn't do a lot of boiling with that.

    As just said, the maximum power dissipated in the cells was much higher, up to 50 W. After subtracting the 11 W lost to the ambient (see page 16 of the "Simplicity Paper"), up to almost 40 W were still available in the final phase to boil-off all the water.


    However, much less power was required to do that. Again on page 16 of the "Simplicity Paper", F&P estimated that a total energy of 102,500 J was required to transform all the electrolyte into vapor. As already explained (4), Fig.8 of the same paper tells us that evaporation began at least 60,000 seconds before the dry out of cell 2, therefore less than 2 W on average were sufficient to evaporate all the heavy water contained in the cell.


    Conclusion, for those who want to look at the information contained in the documents provided by F&P and interpret them correctly, there is ample room to conventionally explain the melting of the electrode support and the evaporation of all the electrolyte in the "1992 boil-off experiment", without invoking any magic LENR


    BTW – Did you check if the positions of the vertical arrows in Fig.8 of the "Simplicity Paper" were correct or wrong?


    (1) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LonchamptGreproducti.pdf

    (2) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf

    (3) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/PonsSheatafterd.pdf

    (4) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

  • So- a whole 17.5 watts. Couldn't do a lot of boiling with that.


    In the "1992 boil-off experiment", the voltage increased up to 100 V, about ten times the base voltage, as you can see from Fig.6 in the "Simplicity Paper" (2). This is the "rail voltage" for this kind of F&P experiments, as explicitly confirmed in the "Heat After Death" paper (3): "We have then adopted the procedure of allowing the cells to boil to dryness. For these conditions the galvanostats are driven to the rail voltage (100 V) …

    I defer here to Ascoli's better research. I was giving a cautious estimate - the graph shows an asymptote that goes way above 35V. Ascoli has found info from F&P that validates his claim of 100V.


    For 100V we have about 50W.


    Whether 50W or 17.5W boiling will occur if the electrode is > 100C - which we have (ascoli and I. independently) shown will happen.


    It is always difficult to estimate how much water is boiled off based on how things look: what we see is not the water vapour, but the condensed droplets. Again, in boiling electrolyte, what we see is the roiling (sic) which depends on many different things separate from power. We have 2200kJ/kc => 2200J/cc (approx) => 1.5cc boiled off per minute to maintain thermal equilibrium.


    At the end, as ascoli says, the low level of the electrolyte makes that level of boil-off impossible and temperature rises till the electrode melts.


    All we are pointing out is that this apparently very impressive demonstration of high excess heat generated, like all magician's tricks, has a perfectly good physical explanation. I am not here likening F&P to magicians. That real magician is the laws of physics in the real world which continually surprise us.

  • So, towards the end of this experiment all the water in the cell had evaporated, in which case the cell resistance would be almost infinite and there would be no current flow and no joule heating.

  • So, towards the end of this experiment all the water in the cell had evaporated, in which case the cell resistance would be almost infinite and there would be no current flow and no joule heating.

    Well, there would be moist gunk at the bottom, probably. I am very reluctant to speculate about the exact characteristics except that it would conduct at least a bit, and the power pushed into it would depend on the applied voltage (how good is F&P's constant current source).


    You can detect the "power in reduces" endpoint from F&P's graphs. As long as the voltage is going up we can suppose the cell is still being driven constant current and therefore the power will be increasing. When the voltage reaches a plateau it is likely that total resistance will go on increasing, and at that point power in will start decreasing.


    F&P's graphs do not go beyond the CC point (we never see a plateau in voltage).


    THH


    PS - if the electrode melts fully, making an air gap between the top of the electrode and the last bits of electrolyte, that would mark the end of the experiment at which point no more input power!

    PPS - if the melted electrode touched (via adjacent high resistance layers) the other electrode then the h50W or so of power input would continue until it melted further.

  • Again on page 16 of the "Simplicity Paper", F&P estimated that a total energy of 102,500 J was required to transform all the electrolyte into vapor

    at 2200J/cc that is 50cc. Assuming 50% evaporation before the final phase we need to boil 25cc which at 50W would take about 20min. Very rough calcs obviously, but it shows you 50W is enough to boil this system! (OK - replace that with ascoli's 40W - it makes no difference).


    In fact 17.5W is enough to boil the last half of the water in less than 30 min. Not a lot of boiling?


    PS - EDITED to change misnamed units (sorry)

  • Conclusion, for those who want to look at the information contained in the documents provided by F&P and interpret them correctly, there is ample room to conventionally explain the melting of the electrode support and the evaporation of all the electrolyte in the "1992 boil-off experiment", without invoking any magic LENR

    Ascoli is 100%, irrefutably, correct in this statement. I do not agree that all of his hypotheses are known correct - this one, as the details above show, is.


    The fact that many people would assume this not true - until they did the calculations - just shows that we need to be careful drawing conclusions from experiments that apparently show excess heat.

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