You are just blowing smoke. But never mind, so long as you enjoy it.
Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?
- JedRothwell
- Closed
-
-
I'd welcome your stating where the above argument is incorrect? Your answer now is a bit vague. Your previous (substantive) points have all been shown incorrect.
-
Your previous (substantive) points have all been shown incorrect.
No- you proffered alternative arguments. Not the same thing.
-
Ok - there is some misunderstanding here.
(1) You argued: 17.5W (40W) is too low to boil this cell
(2) You argued: a high resistivity film would decrease power dissipated
Which of those arguments do you now maintain, and what is your answer to:
(1R)
CC => higher resistance gives high power in
Fig 6B shows drive must have been CC
F&P say drive is CC
(2R)
40W will boil half of the electrolyte in 20 min
You could maintain your (1) and (2) either by refuting (1R) and (2R), or by showing that they do not themselves contradict your (1) and (2).
Most people I think would agree:
- Arguments about electrical power in come from V=IR and the observed voltage trace and agreed physics (a high resistivity film forms).
- The fact of a resistive layer must heat up the electrode
- 40W is clearly enough to boil this cell given it makes half the water go away in 20min.
THH
PS EDITED based on corrections from ascoli, Alan below.
-
at 2200J/cc that is 50cc. Assuming 50% evaporation before the final phase we need to boil 25cc which at 50W would take about 20s.
Please, pay attention, as for your calculation, it would have been about 20 minutes, not seconds!
2200 J/cc * 25 cc = 55000 J
55000 J / 50 W = 1100 s = 18.3 min
Anyway, evaporation starts many hours before the final phase, so there is a plenty of time and energy to explain the boil off of all the liquid.
BTW, do you agree that temperature curve in Fig.8 of the "Simplicity Paper" shows that the system is losing heat by evaporation since the beginning of the period shown in the figure? Which other reason could explain the decreasing of its inclination, while the voltage (i.e. power) is still increasing more and more?
-
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.
Please, beware also here.
F&P didn't claim that the electrode melted, they just wrote 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."
The Kel-F support of the electrodes melted, not the electrodes.
-
The Kel-F support of the electrodes melted, not the electrodes
Kel-F being commonly used as a conductive heating element of course.
-
Sorry ascoli - you are right: I did a conversion to minutes and then forgot I had done it! Apologies.
So we have 20 min to boil this cell from 50% level down to 0 at 50W - but, as you say - the actual time in the final "runaway" part can be much less because by then a lot of the water has boiled off.
And, Alan and Ascolfi - yes again apologies I realised after writing that it was the support that melted, not the electrode. I did not change it because it does not much alter the argument...
It does make melting it rather easier however: 400C as opposed to 1400C!
THH
-
Kel-F being commonly used as a conductive heating element of course.
Kel-F - as I'm sure you know is an insulator. However it would be in direct contact with a bit of Palladium heated up to 400C by that 40W. If it works for soldering irons (at only 15W for a cheap one) it should work for palladium electrodes!
-
Kel-F being commonly used as a conductive heating element of course.
I don't know what are you alluding to. As just said by THH, you perfectly know that Kel-F is a non-conductive thermoplastic material: https://dielectricmfg.com/knowledge-base/kel-f/ .
BTW: did you check the position of the vertical arrow on Fig.8 (*)?
It would have taken 10 minutes, but I help you a little more. All you have to do is to convert in seconds these two times: 19 days + 3 hours + 26 minutes and 19 days + 3 hours + 47 minutes. Then find the position of these two values on the x-axis of Fig.8.
(*) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?
-
Kel-F - as I'm sure you know is an insulator. However it would be in direct contact with a bit of Palladium heated up to 400C by that 40W. If it works for soldering irons (at only 15W for a cheap one) it should work for palladium electrodes
Next time you have a moment, try attaching a wire to a good dieletric in the bottom of an empty glass beaker. Tell me how many volts it takes to melt it.
-
Next time you have a moment, try attaching a wire to a good dieletric in the bottom of an empty glass beaker. Tell me how many volts it takes to melt it.
This has nothing to do with the F&P experiments we are talking about.
In the "1992 boil-off experiment", some water always remained over the Kel-F support until the temperature began to decrease due to the opening of electrolytic circuit after the cell dried.
In the very last period before complete dry out, all the current flowed through a thin layer of electrolyte wetting a tiny portion of the electrodes surface at the bottom of the cell, where the electrodes were inserted into the Kel-F support. More than 80% of the joule dissipation were concentrated on this tiny portion of the electrodes.
The voltage limit of 100 volts adopted by F&P, multiplied by the constant current of 0.5 A, gives 50 W, 80% is 40 W, more than enough to locally heat the electrodes to a temperature above the melting point of the Kel-F support.
There is nothing of extraordinary in this behavior.
-
There is nothing of extraordinary in this behavior.
That is about as specious an argument as it is possible to create. That is in itself extraordinary. The cell is dry when it suits some arguments, and wet when it suits others. A kind of 'half-full / half empty' debate.
-
That is about as specious an argument as it is possible to create. That is in itself extraordinary. The cell is dry when it suits some arguments, and wet when it suits others. A kind of 'half-full / half empty' debate.
Which arguments does it need to be dry for?
The argument here is that it needs to be wet enough for that CC power to be pushed into the electrode until the support melts.
You may not have met this in your experience because you have perhaps not run cells run to boil-off with a 50W + 100V CC drive.
In terms of the basic physics it looks entirely reasonable.
-
Ascoli's attempts to discredit an entire field of research are simultaneously sad and laughable. Without an experiment effort to replicate this with any reasonable facsimile of the F&P cell you are both just hand waving - supported only by Ascoli's vivid imagination and cherry-picked scenarios. You have it seems never experimented with or worked with electrolytic systems, perhaps Ascoli never has either. I don't know.
On the other side of this story, I have faith in F&P's skill and probity, and the huge body of experimental evidence from others showing that XSH in Pd/D systems is a genuine phenomenon.
-
Ascoli's attempts to discredit an entire field of research are simultaneously sad and laughable. Without an experiment effort to replicate this with any reasonable facsimile of the F&P cell you are both just hand waving - supported only by Ascoli's vivid imagination and cherry-picked scenarios. You have it seems never experimented with or worked with electrolytic systems, perhaps Ascoli never has either. I don't know.
I confirm, I've never worked with electrolytic systems, but what does it matter in this case? Claims by F&P and by all their CF epigones are not directed only to people well trained in the art.
F&P announced their achievements in a press conference aimed to impress the entire world, magnified their successes in very popular TV programs, published their experimental results in publicly available scientific papers, their researches benefitted of a lot a money from many private and governmental institutions of many Countries, including mine. Anybody is authorized to pose questions about their claimed results and public evidences.
Now, it happens that the most important diagram in their most important paper about their most important experiment looks to be wrong. The result of the "1992 boil-off experiment" are reported in the so called "Simplicity Paper" (1), and Fig.8 is mentioned at the end as a prove of the reality of their claims: "… the cells nevertheless remain at high temperature for prolonged periods of time, Fig 8;".
But you don't need to be a well trained electrochemist to see that the vertical arrow in this Fig.8 is mispositioned. It's not true that the "Cell remains at high temperature for 3 hours", as written by F&P on the figure.
QuoteOn the other side of this story, I have faith in F&P's skill and probity, and the huge body of experimental evidence from others showing that XSH in Pd/D systems is a genuine phenomenon.
Does this faith prevent you to make a simple time conversion to check the position of the vertical arrow on the above Fig.8?
Let me say that this doesn't look as a scientific behavior.
(1) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf
-
This is a waste of my time to be honest. I am not about to be drawn into the discussion of what exactly that video shows, it has very very little to do with the whole body of evidence that LENR is real. Find another argument if you like, but for me pursuing a couple of hand wavers on a tandem is a waste of breath.
-
This is a waste of my time to be honest. I am not about to be drawn into the discussion of what exactly that video shows, it has very very little to do with the whole body of evidence that LENR is real. Find another argument if you like, but for me pursuing a couple of hand wavers on a tandem is a waste of breath.
Actually, in this case, I urged you to look at a diagram, the one shown in Fig.8 of the F&P's "Simplicity Paper", rather than any video. It would have required a tiny portion of the time you have devoted in these last days to reply to my posts.
But, ok, I understand your position. Yours is one of most effective answers that can be included in the FAQ for skeptics proposed by Rob, section: last resources.
As for the little importance which you devote to any video, let me remind you that this thread started because I asked JedRothwell to explain this statement of him (1): "Whereas a close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons cell showed that the cathode was producing heat, the anode was not, and the bubbles were all from boiling, which was definitive proof of anomalous excess heat."
So, it looks that sometimes F&P's videos provide the "definitive proof of anomalous excess heat", some other times they "ha[ve] very very little to do with the whole body of evidence that LENR is real".
Anyway, thank you for discussing with me.
-
Ascoli's attempts to discredit an entire field of research are simultaneously sad and laughable. Without an experiment effort to replicate this with any reasonable facsimile of the F&P cell you are both just hand waving - supported only by Ascoli's vivid imagination and cherry-picked scenarios. You have it seems never experimented with or worked with electrolytic systems, perhaps Ascoli never has either. I don't know.
On the other side of this story, I have faith in F&P's skill and probity, and the huge body of experimental evidence from others showing that XSH in Pd/D systems is a genuine phenomenon.
OK, I am going to leave out motivations, other than my own.
As you probably realise, my motivation is purely that I like the individual elements of every argument to be well understood. Where they do not hold, or hold under assumptions, I want that clear. I am slightly on the OCD spectrum in this regard. I just do not like to leave arguments where they seem resolvable but are not yet agreed.
In this case:
(1) I'm not trying to discredit anyone: nor do I feel that noting errors or inconsistencies in a paper discredits a scientist - rather it is a helpful and constructive process which even in the absence of reply (not possible in this case) helps to improve the quality of teh paper when read by others.
(2) I'm trying to clarify why this one experiment is cited as so important (I don't think it is - would not be high on my list).
(3) I'm trying to discover what is the strong evidence for excess heat from it (for me - as it is written up - it does not look as strong as McKubre).
Now the only matter I am discussing here is whether the fast boil--off, followed by the electrode support melting, is evidence of excess heat, rather than the natural result of 50W input power. being dissipated mostly in an electrode.
It seems clear to me that the mechanism Ascoli suggests can produce the observations in the video - without excess heat. I'd like to understand why, if it is not clear to anyone else.
Of course, no-one can rule out excess heat. Also, this one only one part of the picture (and the least reliable, because uncontrolled boil-off) there is also the question of the open-cell calorimetry.
Best wishes, THH
-
The fact of a resistive layer must heat up the electrode
Tom, when you post this as a serious argument I give up.
