He actually addressed this today (Gee, I wonder why
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Is there any truth to this?
There is:
can
Verified User
- Member since Jan 20th 2017
Posts by can
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Can you clarify what you mean exactly with control reactor?
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@THEDEBATEISUSELESS
Apparently this is going to be a calorimetric test, so a control reactor isn't really strictly required, in my opinion. Calibrations are of course welcome.
To be honest what bugs me off the most is the past and ongoing relationship between MFMP and "me356"; just thinking of the implications makes my stomach hurt. The suggestion in another thread was that if MFMP shows that his results are true maybe he can get patent protection.
How are people NOT going to see this as an "indipendent" test? -
They have a work-in-progress document on their testing plan here:
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I've attempted a transcription of that section.
External Content youtu.beContent embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.[0:51:50] Me356 is somewhere in Eastern Europe. He's an absolutely fantastic intelligent guy, we hope to be testing his 10 times greater than input technology; he's got a 10x10x5 cm controller that is able to be, you know, monitoring, you can control the reactor by wi-fi or online... this is because of his expertise from his other business. So, he will have the best New Fire controller in the business. But he actually seems to have one of the best technologies. He had one of the reactors running for I think 3 1/2 months between last year and this year; and he's now got a sort of commercial, sort of fabricated design.
These are SEM images of his earlier technology and he is deliberately not going to use Nickel and Hydrogen, because there are so many patents out there in this technology. So he went through all the transition metals which are capable of taking part in this process because of their interaction of the D-subshell orbitals; so he's not using that but he does say it's cheap. Like, 6 months of power, you'll get from like a few cents for the fuel load, and he's got a 7 grams fuel load. So it can't be Palladium, it can't be Gold, it can't be... you know, it's going to be cheap. So I suspect it's something like Titanium or Manganese or whatever... Chromium.
His objective is first, having verified, then he's going to send to an official verification body, then he's going to do a three-way replication - this is what the plan is so far - then a 100-way replication, which we have a philantropic donor that says he will fund that, and then from that bit point -- uh, you know, the greed bug might hit, but it might not [laughs] and he says the commitment has always been he would release the technology, but at that point it's everywhere so it can't be stopped, and that's the idea. -
Nope, it was different experiment. Not all experiments must be the same just because they mentioned the use of Ni200 wire.
Right. Eventually I found that, it wasn't one of the "public" experiments. It's not clear how he prepared the wire or what else was done.
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He has a method of treating nickel wire (basic Ni200 vaping wire) so that it becomes highly embrittled and capable of absorbing and desorbing so much hydrogen in a short period of time that the resistance can go up and down by 40%.
What else such a method could be - if not the hydrogen ion implantation with high voltage under silent hydrogen plasma discharge? Go figure....
What are you both talking about? That one with a Ni200 wire was a "fast experiment" with seemingly no preparation whatsoever, only a directly heated nickel wire wound around an alumina rod and LiAlH4.
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This is the model I have in mind, in reference to the discussion in the past few pages:
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Could the wetted Li boiling actually cause a "precipitation" of the H- onto the Ni surface?
After giving a bit more thought to this: boiling can generally remove a large fraction of gases dissolved in liquids. This should occur with metals too, although their behavior with gas solubility is different than liquids like water.
I've found the graph below which shows the solubility of hydrogen in Al over a wide temperature range at atmospheric pressure. It increases until somewhere below the boiling point, then it markedly drops. Li may behave similarly assuming that some H remains in solution after all the LiH is decomposed, but I don't know if it would precipitate out directly as H-.
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@THEDEBATEISUSELESS
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. If the principles of operation that are applicable to Nickel can also be applied to other transition metals, it only means that the reaction is not specific to Nickel, so it's not really "moving away" from it.
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Even the EDS analyses of the ash have confirmed a small dissolution of Ni in the Li-Al alloy - I believe less than 5% atomic ratio. And, it is likely that the nanoscale features of carbonyl Ni granule surface that are the first dissolved. Boiling of the Li probably also means that Ni will condense out of the Li-Al-Ni solution, perhaps as new nanoscale features on the surface of the Ni powder particles. It is an interesting conjecture.
Since Ni and Al do alloy together and that Ni has a limited but significant solubility in Li, it's not unexpected that it would eventually dissolve in the LiAl solution to some extent. Tests that explored the possibility of condensation of Ni particles from evaporating Li or even Li-Al in a low pressure hydrogen atmosphere would be interesting, but I suspect this would be much simpler and cleaner in execution (leaving just solid Ni particles at the temperatures/pressures of interest) with Ni-Li only or with Ni-Li and a rather limited atom fraction of Al. I imagine that the process would be more useful if it could produce various phases of solid NiAl rather than some Ni and mostly liquid Al.
Needless to say, nobody, most probably not even the reported successful ones, has performed experiments looking at this aspect in particular.
The electron donor concept is interesting, particularly for a neutral metal gas vapor + hydrogen. I don't know if this is important or not. Me356's input can only be taken as speculation at the moment because his work has not been substantiated (yet). MFMP will be allowed to evaluate one of Me356's devices as a black box. Me356's input will be taken more seriously once it is proved that he does have something working.
Piantelli himself writes in one of his patent (that I previously linked) that the electron donor material is one of many possible ways to ionize the hydrogen adsorbed on the metal surface (and increase H- production. For Dufour this is a way for obtaining his own shrunken hydrogen, the pico-hydride), and lists it along things like irradiation with various kinds of radiation or radiofrequencies. It's not like I'm inventing a novel theory of operation or solely relying on the 'me356 says'.
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Quote from BobHiggins
Gettering is commonly used to describe removal of oxygen from gas - usually residual oxygen in what should be a high vacuum. The liquid Al may very effectively strip the oxide from the Ni surface, which would not really be gettering, but rather an oxygen exchange reaction.
Now I get what you meant; I thought you were using the term liberally also meaning the stripping of the oxides from the surface.QuoteIt may be that this NiO -> Al2O3 oxygen exchange reaction (exothermic, thermodynamically preferred) is what allows the Li-Al-H to wet to the Ni powder surface. This wetting of the Li-Al-H has been seen in Parkhomov's SEMs and the Lugano SEMs. If you believe that either of these were active experiments, then the wetting at least does not prevent the LENR from occurring.
Here I'm really holding onto the very specific, practical observation from me356 that the Al in LAH throttles back the reaction, and that the reaction can start once Li reaches the evaporation temperature, depending on pressure, which may be advantageously lowered. This is in contradiction with the idea that a LiAl layer/coating wetting the Ni particles is required or anyhow beneficial, or anyway that there has to be a permanent coating. Li may temporarily coat the Ni while it's in liquid form, although I suppose without wetting it. Some Ni may get dissolved into it.
I remember reading that Ni is one of the metals which dissolves the most in liquid lithium (EDIT to clarify: without forming an alloy. See the abstract in this ref.). If lithium evaporates, any dissolved Ni would precipitate from it. However this corrosive action also means that any sort of previously performed surface treatment would get quickly destroyed. Liquid metals, in particular of alkali metal compounds, tend to all be rather corrosive and difficult to handle. This is a further reason why I find rather odd that Piantelli would have agreed with this idea since he goes great lengths preserving the integrity of his carefully prepared nano/micro structures, putting aside the fact that his reaction is with hydrogen atoms adsorbed on a transition metal, and not dissolved within an alloy.
QuotePerhaps wetting and Li boiling are both valuable. Could the wetted Li boiling actually cause a "precipitation" of the H- onto the Ni surface?
I don't know whether the H- precipitates. I have tried to not involve researcher-specific theories when coming with possible ideas for the next experiment(s). I could cite Holmlid for examples of "H precipitation" that may occur for example with decomposing excited alkali atoms.
More broadly speaking, Piantelli and Dufour et al are saying that these alkali atoms donate electrons to the hydrogen atoms adsorbed on the transition metal. If they're in a vapor/gaseous form, they would create an electron-rich atmosphere capable of either exciting or ionizing those atoms to some extent, as well as those in the atmosphere.QuoteI have heard the molten LiAlH4 described as being "foamy" - from the bubbling out of the H2. We have seen that inside the reactor tube that the melted LiAlH4 coats the reactor tube all the way around almost completely uniformly; supporting this idea of foaming of Li-Al-H liquid. In such case, it would be hard to prevent the mixing without a separator of some kind. And it also means that mixing of the powders for some kind of uniform blend is not really necessary.
I don't know. If this is the case it would probably not even harm to deliberately try to not homogenously mix the usual Ni+LAH powder.QuoteIn the case of Piantelli's description of an opposed alkali metal surface, it is his "afterburner" or XH enhancer. Piantelli says that the Ni-H LENR produces a lot of 6MeV protons that are ejected from the Ni. He added the Li to get extra energy from the 6MeV protons - more than would be obtained by simply thermalizing the 6MeV proton kinetic energy. In Piantelli's case, the Li is not complicit in causing the LENR in the Ni, and produces no XH by itself unless the Ni is producing the LENR generated 6MeV protons. From this Piantelli perspective of what is happening in the separated alkali metal, it is hard to decide how use of the Li will enhance the underlying Ni-H LENR.
I'm aware of that other embodiment, but in the very specific example that i cited, the alkali substrate (preferably comprising cesium) is operating and specifically being used as an "electron donor material", with no reference to what they call "secondary nuclear reactions" in an earlier patent. These secondary nuclear reactions would happen with any material within the range of the protons emitted by the Ni in the Piantelli process. The Lithium there was for aneutronic, useful fusion energy. -
Indeed I would be hesitant too to take an isolated null result in support of this hypothesis. Maybe there can be quicker/simpler ways to test it in "standard" experiments with Ni (hopefully treated for increased surface area) and small amounts of LAH(+Li).
Instead of homogeneously mixing the Li(+LiAlH4?) and the Ni together as it's usually done, one could have the former placed on the bottom of the tube and the latter very loosely compacted (leaving macroscopic gaps) on top of it. Refer to the diagram below for a clearer explanation of what I define "bottom". In this way the amount of liquid alkali/alkali hydride/alloy actually in contact with the porous Ni powder is reduced, while still being at a close enough distance that nascent (atomic) hydrogen decomposing from it can reach much of the powder - which may or may not be useful. At a low enough pressure and/or high enough temperature when the Li starts evaporating (if there's any free in the charge), the vapors should start permeating through the large gaps that have been initially left in the loosely compacted Ni powder, which will for the most part at least initially be coating-free.
To avoid an immediate reaction of the more concentrated alkali metal with the ceramic tube it might be an idea to use some sort of metal foil as an improvised boat to contain this part of the fuel, or use a SS fuel container.
The assumption in the past 2.5 years (almost) of mostly failed replications has been that the starting mixture has to be homogeneously mixed. What if it doesn't have to?
Note that by doing this there won't be direct gettering of oxides from the surface of the transition metal, but on the other hand this shouldn't be a problem if a vacuum pump to perform some cleaning cycles of hydrogen admission and vacuum application is available.
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This is the "other" embodiment from one of Piantelli's patents that I previously mentioned, which may be relevant to the recent discussions including wetting coatings and gaseous alkali. I've added some emphasis to the text and color/annotation to the relevant figure to make it a bit clearer.
Here Piantelli has two opposing surfaces, one with the transition metal nano/micro (or "right-sized") structures, and another at least partially composed of an electron-donor material (an alkali metal, preferably cesium). There is a gap between both surfaces where hydrogen can "be contained or flow", and the closer these surfaces get to each other the higher the reaction rate gets in turn, with the reaction here being the production of H-.
It's implied that both surfaces can be heated separately. The reliefs are drawn in an exaggerated manner ("are enhanced").
Given the variable distance between the opposing surfaces and the way the reliefs are drawn, isn't it more plausible that the intended interaction here between hydrogen, both gaseous in the gap and adsorbed on the transition metal surface of the active core, and the alkali metal is in the vapor phase?
If cesium can easily decompose from its oxides at elevated temperature, wouldn't it be more practical here if it wasn't in an elemental form but rather some sort of oxide? The triangular reliefs on the bottom substrate are indeed drawn exaggerated, but if the cesium was in the form of a liquid metal, how would it be able to remain contained on their surface?
Disregarding what Piantelli actually thinks of the reaction, wouldn't the usage of the alkali in the form of vapors be more consistent with what others (including also me356) have described being useful?
EDIT: given the information posted so far, I guess the bottom line is: could one possible reason why only some people have success with Ni-LAH replications while many others do not, be that you do not want a coating and that the way the powder is mixed could affect the result significantly? Following what Piantelli suggests above, one might want to have them close to each other, perhaps even very close to each other, but not actually in contact/forming a coating on the particles.
I honestly believe that the suggestion during the MFMP visit in January 2015 that according to him a LiAl coating would be a good idea was either the result of a misunderstanding/mistranslation, or he didn't give too much thought to it and actually referred to this patent instead.
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[validation plan] I remembered it different; then, back to square one.
I was thinking of the oxides on the surface of the Ni powder more than those in the internal atmosphere. I don't think there's much preventing for the latter to use cycles of vacuum and hydrogen admission at elevated temperature/pressure before the actual experiment begins; of course you wouldn't want to choose pressures/temperatures that allowed the vacuum pump to start drawing in alkali metal vapors, which could be a more significant problem once you start using cesium in elemental form.On a related note, in the email from Parkhomov recently quoted by Alan Smith there is mention of a cleaning procedure besides the initial bakeout, performed at elevated temperature with Ni and LiAlH4 present at the same time:
Quote[...] Successful experiments were carried out both with a mixture of nickel with LiAlH4 and with pure nickel saturated with hydrogen gas. Pumping out air with a fore-vacuum pump, filling with hydrogen to a pressure close to atmospheric, holding at a temperature of 200-300 oC for several hours to purify nickel from the oxide, pumping out to remove the formed water, refilling with hydrogen, saturation of nickel with hydrogen at a temperature of 300-400 oC for several hours and after that a smooth increase temperature to 1200-1300 оС. After the release of excess heat, it may be necessary to reduce the power of the electric heating. The pressure in the reactor chamber is kept close to atmospheric pressure........Alexander Parkhomov
BobHiggins (#348)
Luckily, only reading channel/energy information from these binary files is simple. Many useful things can be done with this data. Extracting other information requires mainly tedious work.
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It's great to know that you've already ordered the materials, but I hope you've done so because you're seeing potential in replicating what other researchers have reported and/or suggesting, and not only because I said so in this thread. I don't exactly like playing with others' money.
You're right about the Lithium oxide decomposing with temperature. Indeed one of the probable reasons why scientists like Holmlid can use some form of alkali oxide instead of the alkali metal in elemental form is that it decomposes with temperature. Alkali metals higher on the periodic table would decompose from their oxides even quicker. As a side note, according to Holmlid (if you care) alkali atoms decomposing from transition metal oxides can do it tendentially in an excited state, which supposedly helps the reaction.
In one of his patents Piantelli has an "electron donor material" composed of a substrate/support containing alkali metals (preferably Cesium); given how one of the embodiments is supposed to work (one different than what I showed last time) and that this metal melts at a very low temperature I doubt it's in the apparatus an elemental form, but rather as an oxide or mixture of oxides. At a high enough temperature and/or low enough pressure it should be able to start emitting alkali atoms in sufficient quantity to increase the reaction as reported, almost as if the alkali metal was available in the gaseous state. In this form it would be much more manageable from a materials durability standpoint and controllability, although it would probably have to be closer to the structured/prepared transition metal surface to provide the claimed benefits.
(EDIT/reworded: as for oxide gettering, that could be a an issue if you relied on it, but it also depends on how the oxides gettered this way decomposed and if they get displaced away in the process - I'm not sure how to answer here. With the possibility of manually performing as many vacuum/hydrogen cycles as wanted to clean the reaction environment at elevated pressure and temperature, is it actually required?)
This being said, this would only be one part of the system and some other things (triggering? etc) that are needed to make it work reliably are mostly unknown. Me356 (who didn't report using other alkali metals than Lithium, although there's no reason why they shouldn't work) made this intentionally cryptical statement some time back:
me356: Reactor parameters [part 2]Quotethere are usually at least two problems. One which nearly nobody is doing, but is done by a successfull replicators (if done, chances of getting excess heat is probably 90% higher) and second that all unsuccessfull replicators are unaware. Second one is not mentioned in any replication report and even not all successfull replicators might be aware of this. But you can still find at least a hint in one report. This mean, that everything you will need was already told in the reports. No one is replicating exactly. But doing so is really hard.
It would be useful if he could clarify what he actually meant here. I don't know if you can ask Bob Greenyer if me356 could provide a clear answer to this.
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Quote from BobHiggins
Thanks for the interesting suggestion and collected tips from ME356. While some Al is desirable for gettering the oxygen, it is not clear, as you point out that the 1:1 Li-Al ratio is preferred. Parkhomov surmised that LiAlH4 was used from the Lugano analyses, but none of those measurements indicate a 1:1 ratio of Li-Al. Measuring the Li is hard and assaying the ratio is hard. So, the Lugano reactor may well have had a different Li-Al ratio than 1:1 and the 1:1 only really comes from Parkhomov. This is test-able. Perhaps the easiest way to change the Li-Al ratio is to include LiH in addition to the LiAlH4. I can set the pressure low to basically whatever I want using my programmable back pressure regulator. Without Al, the Li will not wet to the Ni (only an observation).
For what it's worth he recommended in one post that using only pure lithium in the beginning to at least start obtaining something could be a good idea if external hydrogen admission is available, as apparently it provides the strongest reaction, at the cost of long-term reliability of reactor materials. So, that could be the starting point, which would also simplify the reaction from the point of view of kinetics.
If I am correct, elemental lithium should also be quite reactive with any oxide present. Pure lithium and other alkali metals are often sold in mineral oil for the reason that they can spontaneously combust in air. Actually, in pure form lithium metal may even be too reactive and start attacking the alumina tubes which so far have proven to act fine with LiAlH4 only. Me356 has indeed mentioned that this can be problem, and others who used larger amounts of Li in the mixture with ceramic tubes have witnessed failures as well.
It might be interesting to mention again that the at the time promising GlowStick 5.2 and GlowStick 5.3 experiments used extra Li in the fuel mixture.
QuoteIt is also pretty hard to get to high enough temperatures to have Li vapor when the heat is being supplied with a heater coil. If, instead, the heat is being supplied as a plasma discharge, the temperatures can easily reach the Li boiling point (almost guaranteed to) while remaining below the Al boiling point (2700C). Additionally, plasma discharge tubes can have a hot center plasma even while the tube itself has its envelope cooled with water, relieving the problem of the apparatus melting. This begins to sound like the case of the dusty plasma of Suhas or even (I hate to say it) Rossi's QuarkX.
In absence of a vacuum system it is indeed hard. If one is available then it's possible to decrease that point to a significantly lower temperature that won't destroy the apparatus right away. For what it's worth, me356 has suggested that "with the right equipment" it's possible to obtain excess heat even at 450°C, implying (in retrospect) if the Li is able to evaporate at that temperature. You would need a pressure of 0.1 Pa to achieve this (and a turbopump).
QuoteI am working on a plasma apparatus now for a next round of experiments (with water cooling and flow calorimetry). In the mean time, I will see if I can acquire some LiH or other Li. I will have to check... I may have a small sample of the nano-encapsulated Li.
As far as I recall some people have had issues with that passivated nano-Li powder. Apparently, since it's passivated with CO2, it can end up being depending on batch quality, mostly lithium carbonate and not being able to absorb significant amounts of hydrogen or volatilize like pure Li. It would also free up CO2 at high temperature.
It's been suggested that using a Li wire as a lithium source is fine, indicating that at least in this form it doesn't even need to be intimately mixed with the Ni powder, although it probably depends on reactor geometry. Perhaps it could even come from small strip cut from a Li battery cathode.
Good luck with the plasma system. I guess the focus will soon move away from powder/gas systems. -
In reference to my previous comment, here are some selected me356 posts where he suggests that the Al in LiAlH4 throttles back the reaction, which apparently works more aggressively using only Li. He also suggests here and elsewhere that the boiling temperature of lithium must be reached for the reaction to start and that it can be useful to decrease pressure so that this happens. This seems to go against the idea that a coating has to be present on the particles. Merely doing this is not enough however; he's often stressed that that the powder has to be treated for high surface area (he writes to "improve hydrogenation") and that some sort of triggering/impulsive action must be present, but he's always left out some critical details in the description, something that many have lamented.
Since he reports to be quite successful and that he has a line of private communication with some MFMP members (who, again, will test one of his reactors soon) I find puzzling that much of what he's suggested is not being applied in the experiments. On the other hand he seems to have often tried/applied what others have suggested to MFMP.
https://www.lenr-forum.com/for…n/?postID=16705#post16705
QuoteTo achieve excess heat even with lower temperatures it is important to keep pressure as low as possible (less than 1 milibar of hydrogen) with no impurities, Clean nickel and chamber as much as possible with hydrogen and vacuum pump even at high temperatures before triggering the reaction. Boiling point of lithium must be achieved to start Cat. Remember that boiling point is function of the pressure.
LiAlH4 is not necessary (only pure Li is fine), but it will rather make reaction more stable (not that agressive) because of Al.
Remember that the reaction can go out of control in just 1 second, temperature can increase by hundreds °C suddenly.
me356: Reactor parameters [part 1]
QuoteDisplay More[...]
1. Nickel, Lithium and H2. But different combinations will work. Even trace amount of lithium can be enough.
3. All and repeatedly.
6. I believe that LiAlH4 can work in a few ways - you can get stable output. Aluminium is throttling the reaction, especially in a higher temperatures can be benefit. All in all lithium is very reactive and will react with the chamber sooner or later.
7. I believe that LiH is not needed at all. It can be good to maintain reaction stable (turn it on and off when needed). But similar thing can be done also with LiAlH4 (due to fully reversible reaction).
8. Li as vapor will work.
me356: Reactor parameters [part 1]
QuoteI recommend so that the pressure is around 1 bar absolute - without external control it is not too easy. Because of safety and reactor integrity it is good to keep pressure low. Then you have to decrease it before triggering excess heat.
Normally the problem is, that LiAlH4 will give you too much hydrogen, on the other hand you have not too much Lithium for the reaction. So you have to wait very long time if you have no additional pressure control until the pressure is low enough - can take hours - weeks if it is a wrong ratio.
To allow reversible reaction of LAH that will give you good "control" you need more Lithium - this is very dependent on the composition of LAH.
Alternatively you will lack aluminium if the reaction is too strong if too much of pure lithium was needed to add (but I guess that this is acceptable for the first tests).
I recommend to not use LAH at all for the first tests if you have an external pressure control.
me356: Reactor parameters [part 2]
QuoteTo make it work, you will need Lithium in vicinity or in a direct contact with Nickel. If LiAlH4 is used only for supplying hydrogen, you can use whatever else, but the reaction will be just Ni-H. Yes, removing aluminium will make the reaction stronger.
As a side note, Max Temple on E-Cat World has done a good job collecting many (but not all) of his most interesting posts, even providing referencing links (the initial version didn't, I found this out yesterday): http://www.e-catworld.com/2017…356-taught-us-max-temple/
On the other hand some time ago for my own convenience I have organized several of his more recent question-answers (à la Rossi) in a more readable format. It's sort of "raw" and not exactly publication-worthy, but I can still provide it if needed (see attached document).
I would have preferred to not resort to the "me356 says", but if information from conventional researchers (Piantelli included) is not a convincing enough argument against the liquid LiAl coating on the particles, perhaps what this person is suggesting (both directly and indirectly) is.
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I can offer an additional anecdotal point of view on the subject.
me356, whose latest reactor is going to be tested/validated soon by MFMP members, has claimed a few times that the Al in LiAlH4 has a kind of quenching effect on the reaction, which can also work purely with Ni and Li. I can bring you references if needed.
This information, coupled with the fact that as you're saying Al is necessary to obtain this coating on the Ni (also given that intuitively speaking, unlike Li it won't evaporate away with temperature) makes me inclined to think that the Li-Al coating has the opposite effect on the reaction than assumed so far.
Indeed if what is important according to others is that alkali metal vapors can get in contact with the hydrogen atoms adsorbed on the transition metal, then you don't want any coating there. -
I'm sorry. I don't recall correctly lab experiments during high school, it has passed several years. That's why I always ask for corrections.
The electrolysis of salt water produces chlorine gas, which is smelly and toxic.
