The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

Quote from JedRothwell

You seriously do not think Staker and the others know how to measure and estimate evaporation?

Staker said that it was of course very small. My understanding of physics is that it cannot be that for a 67C liquid surface with turbulent air unless the gas has close to the equilibrium partial pressure of water vapour. But if that is true, then the total volume of water vapour is very significant - it would easily be noticed.

So I do not understand what is going on. I could ask Staker but I would rather make sure I had not made some stupid mistake myself first.

FYI my calculation used partial pressure of H2O at 67C = 0.28 atmosphere. That of course means that the volume of water vapour is significant compared with the total volume of H2 and O2. Or, working back, the volume of water evaporated is significant compared with the make-up volume. I got 45g vs 162g though I may have misunderstood the physics a bit. But whether 10, 20, 40, 80g it is large enough to be detected in the make-up volume measurement - which is what I cannot understand.

THH

Could some kind person here please tell me:

In an atmosphere of H2 and O2 (2 Mol H2 to 1 Mol O2) at 1 atmosphere:

(1) What is the equilibrium partial pressure¹ of H2O at 67C? (I got ~ 0.28 atmosphere eyeballing a graph)

(2) What is the equilibrium mass ratio of water vapour mass to total mass H2 and O2? (I got a bit confused so my 0.28 here maybe is wrong)?

In fact I think it should be 0.28 / 0.68 = 0.41? (I am not confident about all this physics² - but as Jed says it is 200 years old so can be worked out).

So that is 66g evaporation.

That causes extra heat about 15% more than the measured excess heat - assuming that recombination exactly equals evaporation which is needed for the make-up volume to be as stated. Of course the actual water vapour pressure can be lower than equilibrium. But, given 46 days to equilibrate, not too much lower!

But I really don't expect this matching recombination. I think there is some anomaly here.

¹ My understanding is that equilibrium partial vapour pressure of any liquid at a given temperature is a constant and independent of the pressure or composition of other gasses in the gas side of the liquid surface.

² I guess the concentration (0.5M - what is this mol/what?)) of LiOD or LiOH will decrease the EPP a bit using Raoult's Law. But not make it zero!

Quote from Storms

I have been trying to understand why no one evaluates my work. Instead, they go to great effort to evaluate what Staker and other people have done. I concluded, no one pays any attention to my work because they can not find any flaws to evaluate. I like to think this is true. Am I kidding myself? If THH can find no flaws, would not my work be the required proof that LENR is real? Just asking.

Could be Ed. But I am biassed towards liking electrolysis work which has a longer history than other types. That is just my personal preference! Also, it takes me so much time to work out any one type of experiment - so I am definitely most comfortable at the moment with electrolysis!

I am (now) glad I was persistent with that analysis of Staker's work. It was very interesting, and, for me as an amateur, educational. It will I guess show:

(1) Maybe I am just all wrong. The evaporation in this experiment is obviously negligible. And the calibration post-experiment was done in a way that rules out leakage into the air-gap of H2 or D2 - which BTW is quite possible.

OR

(2) As I have claimed before I did that - my expectations with LENR experiments are not that the noise analysis, or precision analysis, is wrong. but that possible extra effects that might explain the results are not considered.

(3) It is not easy to think of such extra effects! I started with Staker not having any obvious problem given that the make-up volume exactly matched the electrolysis volume. But, being persistent (slightly obsessive), I continued checking.

(4) Had I been like Jed, I would have assumed that experienced scientists writing papers could never make errors. My point is that the LENR field, to gain the academic credibility it deserves, should never do that, and should fiercely critique all of its results. Preferably before publication.

(5) Even if I am wrong - the paper would be stronger with these effects explicitly shown not to exist. For example, by measuring the water in the output gasses as very small. However it would still be difficult to believe that given what we know of 200 year old gas theory?

(I will go on thinking about it - less embarrassing if I discover my mistakes than if others do!).

Quote from Storms

THH, I have also studied and published information about the electrolytic method. I explored the effect of temperature gradients in the electrolytic cell, the relationship between recombination and applied current, and studied the effect using three different kinds of calorimeters. I have produced both excess energy and tritium. I have also measured the reaction rate between Pd and D2O. I explored three different methods to measure the D/Pd ratio. I have done more background work than anyone, yet this work is ignored. Why?

I am not in any way ignoring that work because of its content (I do not think I have looked at it). For me, it is quite an effort to get into any of these experiments and understand it fully. I am not an expert. That of course is fun, but it means I have limited time and only do it occasionally. I am not comfortable with papers having Tritium measurements because I do not understand all of the issues - e.g. which components of an experiment might carry embedded tritium - what is the possible contribution for tritium in lab air, water, what are the issues measuring tritium.

But, I am comfortable enough with papers doing calorimetry to measure excess heat from electrolysis, both open and closed cell.

When I recover from looking at Staker's work and next have free time I would be glad to look at your work meeting those parameters. Whether that process would lead to any new insights is another matter - I would not expect that!

In the case of Staker's work I think there is some possible new insight - but I am very willing for somone more knowledgeable than me to correct this (with reasons of course - not just a flat statement).

I would point out also that the excess heat measurement was only part of Staker's work - I liked it because of the resistivity measurement of the cathode which surely provides some insight into its state, and the rather speculative but interesting ideas about vacancies. (I know there are many such, and I am not saying I have any view whether those are correct or not). I also like the balancing of input power by varying the current through the electrodes.

Quote from JedRothwell

THH more room to let his imagination roam in his search for nonexistent errors.

That may or may not be true in general. But Jed, in this case, can you comment on whether the issues I raise are nonexistent? With reasons other than "the author was a clever scientist so must have looked at this".

The key thing is how the total evaporation from that 46 day experiment could be very small (< 1g say) when the total exhaust gas from electrolysis is 162g. That implies an incredibly low partial water pressure in the output gas. Is that possible at 67C?

Quote from JedRothwell

To account for evaporation, Fleischmann used to record height above sea level and daily atmospheric pressure. That's going too far! It makes people think it is difficult to measure evaporation and you have to include factors that have a tiny effect.

I understand, but Staker assumed evaporation = 0. Indeed I think he was influenced by his make-up volume measurements showing evaporation = 0. But is that really possible in his open cell experiment with a bubbling liquid surface at 67C? He does make sure that splash-back goes back into the vessel - but the splash-back surface temperature must be inside the calorimetric boundary surely and therefore also at 67C - he has a capillary tube leading the exhaust gas away.

Are you saying evaporation over 56 days of water at 67C has only a tiny effect here? What does your physical intuition tell you? Or your lookup of equilibrium vapour pressure (combined, for precision if you like, with Raoult's Law applied to the 0.5M LioH concentration). You don't need precision, it is pretty obviously larger than 0, and larger than the amount that could be measured by that 140mL syringe (which has a very accurate spec).

Quote from JedRothwell

So yes, you are wrong. If you were to read the literature or learn about calorimetry, instead of waving your hands in empty speculation, you would know that.

Jed. you do realise that to best efforts I worked out the expected evaporation. I did not wave my hands.

Are you telling me that the expected evaporation is 0 or negligible, as Staker assumes? Have you looked at the data in this experiment as I give you (condensed from careful reading of the two papers) in my write-up.

This is now the 7th time I have mentioned it - and you persist in claiming I am doing in it the opposite of what I'm actually doing.

Thus -

• I use 200 year old gas physics Laws to estimate the total amount of water vapour in the exhaust gasses assuming equilibrium. It is large.
• I point out that 46 days is a long time - so at this slow rate of gas evolution, and 67C, It is likely that the actual water vapour pressure will be not too far from the equilibrium water pressure (like maybe 50% or more).
• I am not confident here except that a cannot imagine a 67C cylinder of water in evaporating quite a lot in 46 days given significant turbulence in the water surface. can you? Staker says that "of course" the evaporation is not significant. could you fill in for me why?

Here is some new calculation of the evaporation rate which I assumed was less of a limit than the relative humidity (or equivalently the equilibrium partial pressure) using:

Evaporation from a Water Surface

and

Air - Moisture Holding Capacity vs. Temperature

(at 67C - max moisture content (like EPP but different units) of air is 0.22 kg water/kg dry air)

Using surface area = 1cm2 (0.0001)

max sat humidity ratio = 0.22kg/kg

Humidity ratio of air = 0.11kg/kg (e.g. 50% relative humidity at 67C)

Velocity of air = 1mm/s (0.001)

we get evaportaion = 0.000275kg/h = 0.275g

experiment length = 56 days = 1104 hours

=> evaporation rate for 50% humidity air is such as to allow 303g to evaporate.

But 50% RH air contains only 16g water

So you can see that I was correct - assuming a water surface of 1cm^2 which given bubbles and splash-back liquid is I think on the small side the evaporation rate is higher than the limit from equilibrium vapour pressure.

Ok - previously I was assuming this based on cat bowls and intuition. Now I've proved it. to work out the exact water content from the kinematics you would need to try increasing the relative humidity until the water evaporated matched the total in the air. But 50% ( total mass: 0.11 * 162 = 18g) is enough that evaporation must be considered and would certainly, if the only effect, clearly increase the amount of make-up water.

Quote from JedRothwell

He did not assume anything. He calibrated. Calibration before, during and after the tests with resistance heating. He calls that adding an "energy pulse."

Also, I cannot imagine anyone doing calorimetry at 67 deg C and not including a term for evaporation! You would get the wrong answer during calibration. The error would be obvious. At 20 deg C evaporation would be negligible.

(1) He did calibrate. But that does not alter the inconsistency here. Read the papers.

(2) Don't use your imagination - read the papers. You could also e-mail him - he will say to you, as he did to me, that evaporation is of course negligible.

(Or you could read my write-up - quicker than reading the papers. Since I did read the two papers).

Oh - in view of your flat disbelief I used online calculators to estimate the evaporation rate. My assumption was correct - the limiting evaporation rate is much larger than the rate as determined from the equilibrium partial vapour pressure. See my writeup of the reaction evaporation kinematics here.

What Jed needs to check by reading the papers is:

• liquid temperature = 67C
• experiment time = 46 days
• electrolysis current ~ 444mA
• total exposed liquid surface is ~ 1cm^2 (v approx)

Nothing else is needed to estimate the total mass of water vapour evaporated.

Ok - that 1cm^2 estimate.

The reaction (inner) test-tube is pyrex 20mm outside diameter.

A heavy wall glass test-tube (18mm dia) has 1.8mm walls.

So the inner diameter conservatively (I would guess that normal wall test-tubes would be used to reduce thermal time constant) = 20-3.6mm = 16.4mm

direct surface area = 2.11 cm^2

so my previous estimate was very conservative. The actual liquid surface area is at least double my estimate (electrodes etc will add as much as they take away due to the wet sides).

So the one "hand-wavy" bit of the calculation - the evaporation rate - is now nailed down beyond doubt as much higher than needed to establish the equilibrium vapour pressure in the exhaust gas stream.