The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    You misunderstand. I am not disputing your physics. I am disputing your assertion that I told you the expected evaporation is "0 or negligible," or that Staker believes that. That is preposterous. We would never say that!


    You put idiotic statements into our mouths. You accuse us of saying things we would never dream of saying. And then you say: "Ah, ha! You are wrong because I pretend you said X!" That is annoying. I suggest you address what we actually say, and what Staker and the others actually did, rather than your imaginary version.

    Jed. I do apologise.

    1. Staker told me the evaporation was negligible

    2. His measurement of make-up liquid does not make sense if evaporation is important, because he says in the paper he needed to add exactly the amount needed to make up the electrolysed water.


    I am trying very hard here to be polite and refer you, politely, for the 10th (?) time to read my writeup - or you could read his two papers (referenced in my writeup).


    If you read my writeup even once, you would realise that every single thing you have accused me of is wrong.


    I am now happy that you think the evaporation is not negligible. We agree. Then presumably you think also the recombination is large, or Staker's measurement of the make-up liquid as stated in the paper is wrong? Which?


    I was inferring your belief in negligible evaporation from your other statements which would only be consistent if indeed the evaporation was negligible.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    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.

    I am sure you got it right. No flat disbelief. Even I can use online calculator and get the right answer, and I often get things wrong by two orders of magnitude. That is not the issue we are disputing. The issue is: What did Staker do? Did he do the physics right, and include the correct terms in his calorimetric equations?


    We could ask him, as you suggest. Or we could look at the papers, calibrations, and heat balances. * If he ignored evaporation, or entered the equations wrong, the calibrations would not work. The heat balance would be wildly incorrect. He would know it is wrong. That is why people always calibrate.




    * We could look at his equations which are somewhere, but I forgot where. I spent WEEKS looking at similar equations from Fleishmann, Miles, Mizuno and others. So I do know what terms they include and what the equations mean. But don't ask me to quote the particulars or try to use these equations, because of my aforementioned tendency to get things wrong by two orders of magnitude. My late mother, who used to do things like that in her head or with a slide rule, would be mortified.

    Dear Jed, you are blocking me, so I will ask Alan to forward an e-mail to you re what Staker said. I do not wish to quote private correspondence here on an open forum.


    I agree now with the first part of what you say.


    Would ignoring evaporation prevent the calibration from working? Why? How would he know? It is a correction equal for calibration and active runs.


    However I agree it is a mystery, because he would know it from the make-up volume added, at least in any long experiment (but maybe not in a relatively short calibration).

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Jed. I do apologise.

    1. Staker told me the evaporation was negligible

    He could not have said that. That would be insane. There must be some misunderstanding.


    Perhaps he meant the error in his calculation of evaporation is negligible? Something else?


    I have seen GOBS of data from high temperature open cell calorimetry. Hundreds of pages. Fleischmann sent me a huge stack of spreadsheet printouts, which were later included in one of his books at LENR-CANR.org. At those temperatures, you cannot make sense of the results or calibrations if you assume evaporation is "negligible" meaning "it does not happen." Staker reported the temperature went up to ~80 deg C during an extended excess heat burst. At that temperature, evaporation dominates. You are close to F&P boil off phase, as they show in Fig. 6a here:


    https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf


    Incidentally, the term for evaporation in these hairy equations is listed on p. 20:


    L Enthalpy of evaporation, JK^-1 mol^-1


    L is in all the equations.



    This paper does say L is negligible below 60 deg C, but that does not mean "neglected." It means "small." It ain't neglected if it is in the equation.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Would ignoring evaporation prevent the calibration from working? Why? How would he know?

    The heat balance would not be zero. It would be less than zero.


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    However I agree it is a mystery, because he would know it from the make-up volume added, at least in any long experiment (but maybe not in a relatively short calibration).

    You could tell in 10 minutes at those temperatures. Especially 80 deg C, which is what it reached with the heat burst. The water would disappear at the wrong rate. If you did not notice the water going away too quickly, you would think the energy is vanishing into a black hole, because the water temperature would not be going up 1 deg C per 4.2 joules per gram (4.2 J = one calorie). In other words, the specific heat would look like it has gone haywire. If you assume there is no evaporation, all of the heat has to go into raising the water temperature instead of being carried out as enthalpy.


    I mean a calibration with resistance heating.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    The heat balance would not be zero. It would be less than zero.


    You could tell in 10 minutes at those temperatures. Especially 80 deg C, which is what it reached with the heat burst. The water would disappear at the wrong rate. If you did not notice the water going away too quickly, you would think the energy is vanishing into a black hole, because the water temperature would not be going up 1 deg C per 4.2 joules per gram (4.2 J = one calorie). In other words, the specific heat would look like it has gone haywire. If you assume there is no evaporation, all of the heat has to go into raising the water temperature instead of being carried out as enthalpy.


    I mean a calibration with resistance heating.

    Ok, I am not certain about this, but...


    I agree at 80C water would disappear at wrong rate - but at 67C water disappears slowly at around 1g/day.


    For the specific heat the issue is that he has only 18ml of water and 4 concentric test-tubes with small air-gaps between each one, electrodes, etc making up each cell. So I am not sure you would easily have a handle on the specific heat of the cell, or know from first principles what the calibration curve was supposed to look like. He calibrates (fig 6) up to 45C deltaT - looking at where dots are on the cal curve - which I guess is maybe 70C at mots. So I don't think these errors would be obvious.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    The heat balance would not be zero. It would be less than zero.

    I think you would not know this. You get significant evaporation at elevated temperatures when the (calibration - resistive) input power is >> the power lost from evaporation. At 67C the curve would not be much affected by evaporation, probably < 1%.


    You cannot know what the thermal characteristics of your calorimeter are (well - not in this case) so evaporation just makes it measure a bit cooler than expected, and makes the cal curve slightly convex. But other effects - e.g. convective heat transfer, would also make the temp/power curve slightly convex so I do not think you could tell how much was evaporation.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Staker reported the temperature went up to ~80 deg C during an extended excess heat burst. At that temperature, evaporation dominates.

    And just to say - yes of course. But he stopped this ASAP and did not do calibration up at that high temperature.


    His cal curve (referenced as Fig 19 of my ref [2] - the first of his two papers which describes the calorimetry).


    NB you have to add in room temperature not specified - 25C?


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    So I am not sure you would easily have a handle on the specific heat of the cell, or know from first principles what the calibration curve was supposed to look like.

    The specific heat of water dominates. J. P. Joule and Fleischmann both converted the entire thermal mass into water, for convenience. It is not hard to do that. Metal and glass specific heat is ~10 times lower than water.


    What you do not know as easily, and what the calibration is intended to show, is heat losses from the cell walls. Fleischmann knew that from first principles, and he confirmed it with calibrations. Others make a rough estimate and then measure it. However, if you neglected evaporation, it would look like heat losses from the walls were magically increasing. You would say: "Hey, Stefan and Boltzmann were wrong! Egads, call Vienna!"


    Or, as I said, you would think the heat is vanishing into a black hole.


    Or, if you were at CalTech, you would say, "Huh. The calibration constant has changed. Oh, well, no biggie. We'll just reset it to whatever it is now. Carry on!" And the editors at Nature would say, "Yes! We publish inconstant constants, and let no one stand in our way!"


    No one, in this case, meaning Martin Fleischmann, and what did he know?!? See:


    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJhownaturer.pdf

    One syringe fed heavy water (99.8% D) while a second fed double distilled light water. Since light and heavy water cells were in series, they had the same current, electrolysis rates, and rate of make-up water (set to match each electrolysis iT rate).


    from [1]



    Maintaining electrolyte level in cells used a Harvard Apparatus Model 22 Digital Syringe Pump outfitted with two
    syringes, one with heavy water from Cambridge Isotope with 99.8% D and one with double distilled light water. The
    selectable rate of delivery (between 0.002 µl/h and 55 ml/min) was established by developing a table of instrument
    input settings for each electrolysis current.


    from [2]


    So I guess he just works out for each current the right syringe setting - and this includes evaporation was well as electrolysis? I took the quote from [1] as meaning that the make-up rate matched the electrolysis rate, but [2] half-contradicts this.


    But he nowhere says what evaporation is - and it is difficult to see it not being significant in the heat balance.


    From his POV it does not matter - because he calibrates, so a significant evaporation does not matter. But, if you reckon that the only way you can check recombination is through liquid balance - which he does, and you are not precisely checking evaporation, it is not great.


    He can I guess think that if there were a big difference in recombination between control and active cells the corresponding syringe make-up volume settings would need to be different. BUT - does he know this? I doubt he runs control runs for a long time so the difference in volume from recombination then is much smaller, and maybe not noticeable?


    The point is, he assumes these two factors, recombination and evaporation, are not significant. When although his work may still be safe, it is not at all clear.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    His cal curve (referenced as Fig 19 of my ref [2] - the first of his two papers which describes the calorimetry).


    NB you have to add in room temperature not specified - 25C?

    That goes up to 42 deg C which is cell temp minus room temp. As you say, room temperature is ~25 deg C. So the calibration goes up to ~60 deg C water temperature. I doubt he anticipated it would rise to 80 deg C. I think you can make a good extrapolation of that curve up to 80 deg C. With fizicks.


    Generally speaking, you should calibrate through the full range of expected temperatures. I guess 80 deg C was not expected.


    I don't know what the room temperature is but it has to be kept as stable as possible, best within 0.1 or less. Usually, it is not the room air but a water bath with a precision thermostat. It is best to keep the water a little warmer than ambient room air temperature, which should also be kept stable.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    The specific heat of water dominates. J. P. Joule and Fleischmann both converted the entire thermal mass into water, for convenience. It is not hard to do that. Metal and glass specific heat is ~10 times lower than water.


    What you do not know as easily, and what the calibration is intended to show, is heat losses from the cell walls. Fleischmann knew that from first principles, and he confirmed it with calibrations. Others make a rough estimate and then measure it. However, if you neglected evaporation, it would look like heat losses from the walls were magically increasing. You would say: "Hey, Stefan and Boltzmann were wrong! Egads, call Vienna!"

    Agreed, I was wrong, but the dynamics of his system is not easily going to reveal that relatively small - but v significant over 46 days - amount of evaporation?


    In fact he does measure calorimeter time constants, roughly, but he does not seem very interested in the dynamics.


    His nonlinear calibration curve does indeed show extra heat losses probably from evaporation not convection - and in fact if so this shows that evaporation is significant - but he does not quantify this.


    THH

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    The point is, he assumes these two factors, recombination and evaporation, are not significant.

    No one "assumes" anything like that. I am sure he measured them and confirmed they are not significant. F&P said evaporation is "negligible" below 60 deg C, and indeed it is, as you see in their graph. But, as I said, "negligible" does not mean "neglected" or "okay to neglect." It means "small." Staker, F&P, and every other electrochemist on God's Green Earth will measure both recombination and evaporation with high precision and great care, whether it is mathematically significant or not.


    I believe you are confusing "negligible" with "neglected" and "insignificant mathematically" with "unimportant; not worth measuring." Professional scientists know what must be measured. You can see that in the equations in F&P's paper, and all other papers. They know that even negligible factors must be measured, if for no other reason than because you never know when the excess heat might increase far above expected levels and push the temperature up to 80 deg C.


    You have misunderstood Staker, and F&P. They said "evaporation is negligible" (or "insignificant," which is more or less the same meaning in this context). You thought they meant they were ignoring it. Or they assumed they were right without proving it. They never, ever do that, any more than a programmer complies code and ships it to a customer without testing it. That is simply unthinkable. As you see from their papers, graphs and equations, they measured it, and found it was small below 60 deg C. As predicted by standard physics, and proved by calibration.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    His nonlinear calibration curve does indeed show extra heat losses probably from evaporation not convection - and in fact if so this shows that evaporation is significant - but he does not quantify this.

    It does quantify that if you use Fleischmann's equation, in the paper I referenced above. That equation includes all applicable factors. It is textbook physics. Plug in the textbook values for each term, plug in that curve, and it will tell you what part of those losses are from convection, and what part is from evaporation -- including how much of an effect air pressure from the weather had that day. It includes everything but the phase of the moon and the gravity of Mars. It will predict the curve with high precision.


    It is not "probably from evaporation not convection." It is exactly from both, in some exact ratio, which you can predict from textbook physics, and confirm by matching the curve to those physics. If you get the physics wrong, for example if you do not take into account evaporation, the curve will not match. You will see you did it wrong. If you are CalTech you can ignore that and publish in Nature, but anyone else goes back to Square 1 and does it right.

    Quote from Storms

    I concluded, no one pays any attention to my work because they can not find any flaws to evaluate.


    well the seebeck calorimeter has no recombination... and evaporation..

    its really rather boring to discuss

    no Caltech no "catbowls and intuition"

    but interesting to DIY

    https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEcalorimetr.pdf


    ..I like the idea of painting palladium foil though.

    sounds a lot easier than electrochemistry..

    TM28.15

    Palladium foil.. a bit expensive... maybe Nickel foil?

    I watched the whole video..

    I missed the spot where this was said

    "nuclear reactions suddenly start at above 290C"

    I'll watch it again..Maybe someone can find it ;)

    "

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    After reading the exchange between THH and Jed, my conclusion is that any study that allows this kind of conflict in understanding is useless. The Staker work, like many studies of LENR, is poorly done because it contains too many uncertainties. In my work, I tried to eliminate ambiguities. But instead of my studies being used as proof of LENR, the skeptics focus on studies where they can find "errors". I suspect this is done on purpose because otherwise they would have nothing to complain about and would have to accept LENR as real.


    The LENR effect has now been seen using closed cells in which fluid loss and recombination are not issues. The effect has been seen using direct reaction with D2 gas. And it has been produced using low-energy gas discharge in D2. All of these measurements have used unambiguous calorimetry. Why are these studies not addressed by skeptics? Why do we waste time discussing the bad measurements?

    Quote from Storms

    . I suspect this is done on purpose because otherwise they would have nothing to complain about and would have to accept LENR as real.

    I think in THH's case this is more by accident than by design. But I agree, he does like a badly written paper to get our teeth into.


    Would you post a link to a paper (of yours) you think is the least ambiguous? We could start afresh. I have been looking at the Staker paper today, and it is both densely written and at time a little unclear - to me at least.

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