Bob Greenyer of MFMP has been arranging the supply of nickel mesh panels with JedRothwell and Dr. Mizuno. The price suggested was $400 plus shipping, and the hope is that supplying mesh already cleaned burnished with Pd by Mizuno helps replicators and the money helps hisresearch efforts. If you are interested in making a purchase, please click on the link below.
When do I hear something back on my desire to receive processed nickel mesh? I filled out the request at serveymonkey.com
All this can be avoided when Mizuno would always run a control at the same temperature.
Of course he would waste some electricity, but any discussion would immediately stop.
The other thing we recommend and do: Do a proper calibration run with a heater that goes up to 3000W (at least 1500W ). There is not need to use the same heater for the calibration as long as the external reactor geometry is the same.
This is exactly what I plan to do and thereby avoid all of the long and quite tedious discussions.
Then the next thing is to take the generated heat and create electricity in sufficient amounts to both run the experiment and power an external light bulb.
Definitely not in contact. That drawing is not very accurate. It is more a schematic than a drawing. But anyway, I am sure the heater is not in contact.
THH: "As P points out convection does not happen here so we have only radiation with a relatively low emissivity."
Why not add an inert gas like Argon to the reactor in order to give convection an opportunity to work in our favor? Why not mount R20 vertically as in the earlier cruciform unit from 2017 in order to create convection currents?
Then we could also plate the inside of the SS cylinder with Nickel to protect against contamination and simultaneously add potential reactor surface. Then plate it with Pd if desired. After all, Mizuno says the more Ni and Pd the better...
When I prepare the equipment should I do it in a glove box? Must the glove box be filled with inert gas?
Display MoreI am new here and cant post outside the Guest forum.
My intention is to replicate Mizuno R20 reactor.
I already have everything. Except I am welding reactor shell during these days.
Then checking vacuum tightness will take several days.
Photos will come soon.
Question - do you think it will play any role if the sheath heater will be placed inside another stainless steel tube?
What if the heater is still at the center but not in Deuterium?
I was considering doing the same thing. The leads to the sheath heater might need some ceramic insulation to withstand the heat.
There is a kind of layman explanation for the large pipe that I like. When you get down to 10-8 or so there are so few gas molecules left in the system that there is no 'suck', no flow. Only gas molecules that wander down the pipe by accident get pumped out. So tyhe bigger the pipe diameter the more chance that a confused molecule will walk down it.
Precisely. It is comments like "When a cell is left with no nickel reactant for several weeks, pressure does not change significantly." This project is going to take a lot of patience.
My first question is why normal vacuum design has been ignored in this case. For example, typically the path from the system to the turbo molecular pump is typically much larger and the reason for this is discussed in detail in books on this subject such as Karl Jousten's Handbook of Vacuum Technology. I am attaching two pictures showing the typical large pipes that the textbooks recommend and experts usually use between the system and the turbo molecular pump. The reason that this is not being used in this particular system is presumably because of heat conduction. The result of using a smaller pipe is a longer waiting time to perform thorough evacuation.
Ideally the RGA should be mounted to monitor the gas inside the reactor itself, not a remote location. Given that the RGA is going to be remote, can we say that it is in second compartment, and that it is the second compartment that is connected to the vacuum pumps and vacuum monitoring? If so, what is the size of that compartment and what is the largest pipe that can be used to connect the reactor and the second compartment?
I would certainly want to discuss the design of this experiment. In fact, the concept of DOE or Design of Experiments should be discussed in any project of this type. We need to identify the critical factors and be prepared to vary them.
Earlier experiments showed that using water cooling didn't work because it took away too much heat or took it away too quickly. Given that, If one of the main goals is to obtain a maximum COP, shouldn't we be varying both the air flow and the radiation paths as critical factors as we head towards the optimization of COP?
Is it complete with all the required pumps and valves? And a calibration certificate? (assuming it isn't new)
I did not find a used one so I thought that I would buy it new.
We just bought a mass-spec and all the vacuum gear. I think I need a lie down in the dark now.
What do you think of my obtaining the Extorr XT100 Residual Gas Analyzer which would provide me with a Pirani vacuum gauge for lower vacuum values and a Bayard-Alpert gauge for the higher vacuum levels. In addition, I get a spectrum analyzer that goes from 1 to 100 amu. That would allow me to see the H2O peak at 18 and the He peak for detecting leaks and also later on, detecting He if the reactor produces any.
Do we really want to focus all the heat in the centre of the reactor? If the fusion reaction is in response to THz infra red stimulation as the evidence suggests, surely a uniform IR irradiation along the length of the reactor mesh region would be more effective? I'm more in favor of the 2m heater having just one bend to fit a 1m long reactor completely lined with Ni/Pd mesh,
This is what would be nice to find out from Mizuno.
Note that most of the heat is now opposite the nickel mesh and it is done without needing to extend the electrical wires to the heater inside the reactor where it is very hot.
The heater rod that I ordered has leads that are only good to 350 deg C. If I place the rod in the center of the reactor opposite the nickel mesh, I would have to design an extension out of ceramic or something like that.
Then I will have to seal the ceramic from vacuum leaks. A lot of problems were solved by Mizuno by his 2 meter heater design. I am assuming that the heater design he uses is easily sealed on the end cap to prevent leaks in the vacuum system.
Does anyone know what kind of connectors he uses and are shown in the picture. I would like to know both the heater connector and the vacuum lead connector. It would be nice to have a reactor that was free of the vacuum and only needed the heater to get it started. I would like to see how easily it restarts after having been run.
Picture the problem of providing a heater that puts most of its heat in the center third of the reactor. To do this, take a 2000 mm heater and fold it back and forth eight folds with each segment being 200 mm long. This leaves a 200 mm lead to reach the end plate.
Display MoreAfter a bit of struggle with the MonotaRO website, I did find the page for the heater Jed specified:
https://www.monotaro.sg/g/03032749/
The manufacturer is Sakaguchi E.H VOC, p/n 1M2500
Choosing 500 watts gives the sheath diameter as 2.8 mm and 2000 mm length. The price is quoted as 149.90 SGD (Singapore Dollars), or US$110.53. Shipping time looks like about 1 week ARO.
** There is no flange on this heater, just the sheath. We need additional details of how it is mounted through the CF end plate in a way that is gas-tight. I would use a Swagelok pass-through but better if Jed can specify a part number and attachment method eg. welded or screw-in.
MonotaRO doesn't seem to ship to USA, and Sakaguchi has no distributor outside of Asia, so substitution seems unavoidable. There's nothing suitable at Omega or McMaster. The search continues...
AlanG
They say that "there are no shipping methods to my address" (USA)
a picture of a heater mounted on the flange would suffice. Apparently, this is the main secret.
Do you think that they are purposefully keeping it secret so only they can reproduce?
There are patents and then there are trade secrets.
In addition to knowing more about the heater configuration, I would like to know more about the successful replication that occurred in Japan. How similar were the parts?
Did he use the same heater? Did he bend it the same way? How about everything else?
It would be valuable to know of any variations that were made and what the results were in detail.
Display Moreif you reckon the only way that the heater affects this reaction is temperature, then you can get the same results from smaller input by having lower heat loss from reactor. Why is this good? Because higher COP is a good idea (other than that it might go unstable). So, for example, for same internals, two layers of insulation instead of one, together with halving the airflow, would halve (roughly) heat loss and therefore allow same temperature - and therefore excess heat signal - for half of the heat in.
So I'd suggest that if you think you are getting say +10W from a 200W input, just drop to 10W input and insulate much better.
Try with higher airflow first just in case you are getting high temperature-dependent heat output (which would be unstable with lower airflow).
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The key issue with this diff cal is that the thermal resistance from each reactor must be the same. That includes radiation and forced convection (if following M). Forced convection can be made similar by exact symmetry. Important to have air gaps relatively large so that tolerances do not vary them by much creating errors in airflow. Radiation depends on emissivity of reactor and the inner surface of the insulation. Make sure this is all the same. Check that the base everywhere has same thermal properties - a large thick block of insulation would do. Check that identical insulation is used everywhere and that the insulation is positioned pushed carefully up to the box so it does not differently block airflow for the two reactors.
THH
Duly noted. BTW, I was rereading Nuclear Transmutation last night and noticed a comment on page xxi: 'When T.H. Huxley learned of the theory of natural selection, he reportedly exclaimed: "Why didn't I think of that!"'
I do not know about Archimedes. J. P. Joule invented the modern version. However, while the problem you cite is real, EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT IT. Everyone who uses that kind of calorimeter does not measure at a single point, and they make sure they get a correctly averaged temperature that is accurate for the entire cell. They always discuss this in the papers. They always tell the reader how and why they are sure the temperature is averaged. There are many different methods. F&P used an array of sensors, and they made sure the electrolyte was well mixed with various tests. Miles put a copper sleeve around the cell and measured externally at several points in the copper. Copper conducts heat well, so the temperature was uniform, but he made sure it was.
In contrast to this, putting a single thermocouple on Mizuno's cell will definitely give you the wrong answer. He said that. He showed that in the figure we added to the Supplement. That's why we added it -- to send that message. This is the wrong approach. I have stated here several times, you cannot use the cell temperature to do calorimetery. On the other hand, you can use it to confirm there is excess heat. During a 50 W calibration it is ~30 deg C. During a 50 W input excess heat run it is ~350 deg C. That's a big difference. That cannot be a mistake. That definitely indicates excess heat. But you cannot use that number to estimate how much heat there is, except within a broad range. It gives a large overestimate.
I will add copper to the design.
Please add two copper gaskets:
Copper Gaskets for ConFlat connections:
ancorp.com/product-category/cf-wire-seal-flanges-and-fittings/hardware-seals/cf-copper-gaskets/
at $51 each.
Oops, I mean $5.10 each.
And the pipe is $148.75
This sounds like a good way to go. My main concern is that what you are doing is really differential thermometry rather than differential calorimetry. So far, so good, but I have discovered that thermocouple are incredibly position-sensitive, a few mm either way can really affect readings. But maybe you can calibrate well enough to overcome that possibility
I will calibrate the units to give equal readings.
Would a 3D CAD tool be helpfull?
I'm not able to provide it, but I would like to sponsor maybe a web based 3D CAD like sketchup.com is providing. Enables collaboration via browser and mobile devices.
I will provide SolidWorks drawings of my unit.
