Posts by can

Alan Smith

The idea for the proposed protocol (still involving some form of Ni and Li as required) is to at least initially use much lower pressures, perhaps something like 100 mbar maximum. The main reason for this is reducing the decomposition temperature of LiH, but the side effect is that the Li will start evaporating earlier. At this pressure the boiling point of Li is 1064°C. My source is this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…f_the_elements_(data_page) (CRC data).

Preferably no obstacles would be present between its source and the fuel, like for example felt plugs as used in the recent "Cravens" experiment (lithium would react with them). On the other hand, since according to the previous explanation bringing in contact large amounts of liquid lithium with the fuel would not be desirable, something would have to be conceived to keep it confined in starting location before it starts evaporating.

The recent email from Parkhomov you cited doesn't seem to describe something much different than what has been tried so far by other people, but there's nothing about fuel proportions and the mixing procedure, as well as how it's inserted into the reactor. I don't expect illuminating information on that aspect, but perhaps it could be worth asking him more details about it. I recall that ages ago it was speculated that he mixed Ni and LiAlH4 with some other impurities, whether inadvertently or not. I also remember that he himself initially also thought that using a lower amount of LiAlH4 relatively to the rest of the powder could have been beneficial.

I do think that perhaps it could be an idea to mix a bit less Li/LiAlH4 together with the Ni, while somewhat increasing its total amount in the initial charge by doing as described in the previous comments.

For what it's worth, the MFMP GS5.2 and GS5.3, which apparently showed odd anomalies during the temperature/pressure cyclings, used 80% Ni (1 gram), 12% LiAlH4 and 8% Nano Li, but they were all mixed together.

BobHiggins

The reasoning behind asking if you were going to use a new tube for every experiment was that it's conceivable that at a low enough pressure and high temperatures the lithium previously reacted with the tube could start "boiling off" from the inner surfaces and permeate the inner atmosphere to some extent, even if no elemental lithium is initially present in the fuel powder for the ongoing experiment. So, if the previously highlighted hypothesis by Dufour et al is true, a "used" tube may be more "active" than a new one.

Actually I think this is how the electron-donor alkali substrate that I cited several pages ago from one of Piantelli's patents would be working. It would probably be more efficient when heated (it's shown as a separate component, so why not?). In general, Dufour's hypothesis where the alkali vapors would provide electrons to the hydrogen atoms adsorbed on the transition metal and supposedly ionize and/or excite them does not seem too different from what Piantelli also says in his patent(s) on the subject.

If this is how it works, then a used tube could possibly be able to show excess heat by itself just with hydrogen gas, as its inner walls will also contain transition metal impurities from the previous experiment. It's admittedly an unlikely hypothesis on top of another, but how would one be able to discern in this case if a previously used tube showing an apparent gain even when "empty" is really just showing an artifact?

I find worth noting that for all intents and purposes Leif Holmlid's Fe2O3-K catalysts are broadly speaking supposed to operate in a similar manner. When heated, the volatile potassium alkali content of the catalyst forms a sort of "cloud" that can excite the hydrogen atoms dissociated on the surface of the catalyst and in its close vicinity. When the hydrogen atoms desorb from the catalyst, for example with a flow of hydrogen through it, they easily can get involved in the reaction Holmlid observes (which also requires a transition metal surface).

I realize that the hypothesis where the reaction requires alkali atoms to be present in the environment in the form of a low density gas is far from your liquid Li-Al layer hypothesis; actually I think such a layer would work against it, in addition of quickly smoothing away any high surface treatment the underlying metal may have initially come up with. You might indeed want a little bit of lithium there so that when the hydride decomposes it can provide excited atomic hydrogen gas (and eventually, also gaseous alkali atoms) directly close to the surface, but not so much that the transition metal surface gets completely covered and the small surface features eventually destroyed.

In this context it might therefore be desirable to add lithium (or other alkali metal hydrides) somewhat away from the reaction area, in order to enhance the gettering-release of hydrogen during the temperature cycling described in a previous comment and in general allowing more gaseous alkali atoms to be present in the atmosphere at higher temperatures, but without directly (not immediately, at least) affecting/covering the catalytic powder you chose to use.

This is my 2c.

BobHiggins

I've thought of easy, non-intrusive changes to the protocol only. Did you have something else in mind when you asked for protocol suggestions?

Parkhomov's Ni powder and LiAlH4 were used for the MFMP GlowStick GS4:

http://www.quantumheat.org/ind…log/502-glowstick-gs4-run

Quote

The fuel will be Ni and LiAlH4, 10:1 by mass. Both powders were supplied by Alexander Parkhomov.

EDIT: by the way, do you use or plan using new alumina tubes for every new experiment, or do you reuse old ones?

BobHiggins

I would try to focus on the reversible Li-hydride reaction. When the hydride decomposes hydrogen gets released in an atomic form and likely also in a reactive, short lived excited or ionized state. There have been interesting results in past MFMP experiments while playing with that reaction, so this could be one reason for exploring it out.

According to the literature LiH forms quickly around 550°C and decomposes completely above 950°C, at atmospheric pressure. The idea would be cycling temperatures through these two thresholds, taking into account that internal temperature will be somewhat higher than the reported tube temperature (I'm assuming).

I would try to not use excessively high temperatures right away, for example the initial cycling range may be 500-800°C. After a certain amount of time, this could be gradually increased for example to 550-950°C, then perhaps 600-1200°C or above. The point here is maximizing at all times H uptake and release into/from the Li but also to not immediately sinter the Ni powder.

At a lower pressure it will take a lower temperature to decompose the LiH to a large extent, so a possible idea could be staying well below 1 bar, perhaps even as low as 100-200 mbar or less when all the H is decomposed. This will also have the advantage of volatilizing the lithium earlier. Clearly, the previously mentioned temperature cycling ranges depend on the target maximum pressure. According to the graph below, for LiH to decompose at roughly 800°C the maximum pressure must be no higher than about 200 mbar.

As a side note, Dufour et al some time ago have claimed small amounts of excess heat from a Fe-Na-H system. Their explanation here could be an incentive to try experimenting lower pressures: http://www.iscmns.org/work11/17%20Dufour.pdf

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[...] For the reaction to occur, electrons must be present in the reacting medium, where hydrogen is adsorbed on the metal (transition metals, like iron, adsorb hydrogen).Electrons are available when the vapor of an alkaline metal like sodium or lithium is present in the reacting medium and if the temperature is sufficiently high.

Here is a graph of the entire experiment using the latest uploaded data.

Here's the latest data; it seems the most interesting thing was pretty much the pressure decrease, but no excess heating nor increase in gamma counts have showed.

The former may as well be a small leak.

Update:

1000°C step and pressure still decreasing, albeit slowly at the moment:

BobHiggins

To clarify, I wasn't implying that the dissociation of the hydrogen molecules on the internal surfaces and subsequent diffusion would be exothermic or that it occurs spontaneously.

On an unrelated note, below is attached (.pdf) the latest graph with the most recent data from the current experiment. Pressure didn't increase very much for the latest (900°C) power step. Is deuterium being bled off?

The latest data shows a pressure drop occurring during the 500 °C temperature step. It appears that pressure would have continued decreasing more before the next power increase.

In defects slightly bigger than lattice vacancies that perhaps could be more properly defined as nanopores, wouldn't adsorption and dissociation of the hydrogen molecules on the internal surfaces still be able to occur, allowing the atoms to eventually leave the environment?

I know this might sound rather naïve, but could a sort of water hammer effect occur if hydrogen was to impulsively flow through these vacancies? Pressure transients could potentially be much larger than steady state pressure.

Attached is the 14-hour graph updated with the latest hour of data.

Attached is a graph of the last 14 hours of data, from the newly uploaded csv files. I've temporarily limited the pressure range in the chart to 16-20 psiA.

I find the long term decrease in maximum pressure following the fixed up-down temperature steps interesting. Unfortunately the rigid nature of these experiments doesn't allow to look more into it right away.

BobHiggins

I think one possible benefit of this thin Pd layer is that the pressure of hydrogen trapped defects and pores at the interface between Pd and Ni can be very high, if hydrogen permeates through the Pd layer. It's not exactly 100% related but I'm aware that hollow thin palladium cathodes can achieve very large internal pressures when they're made to absorb hydrogen, so I'm thinking that perhaps a similar effect (on a micro/nano scale) could be achieved in gas experiments.

Quote from BobHiggins

This experiment also has a few cycles between 190°C and 350°C which Dennis identified as critical loading temperatures for the Pd

Here are pressure vs atomic ratio isotherms for Pd-H, from http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02667685. From this graph it appears that at 1 bar (red line) best loading would be achieved roughly below 150°C. Above this temperature at this pressure the H/Pd ratio becomes very low. I guess you could verify this by monitoring hydrogen pressure in the chamber. However, to be fair, this is for bulk samples and doesn't account for the increased pressure in pores and lattice defects.

BobHiggins

If you don't want to transfer files while they're still being modified, perhaps additional commands could be added to your script so that when a new file gets created the old one gets moved/copied in the synced Google folder.

Here's the latest composite graph showing about 7 hours of data.

I've been busy with completely different things lately and I haven't had enough time and dedication to improve the previously used graphing system or make it automated. I tried plugging in the new .csv data files and calibration values into the old script and so far it seems to work. I'll try to post updates regularly but this time I cannot guarantee that I will always be able to.

Here's the last three hours of data or so.

C-14 seems to be one of the few pure beta emitters produced by neutron activation. Another common one is Ni-63 (produced from Ni-62, which made some wonder if it was used in some cases in LENR for this reason).

I remember about that; if I'm correct the idea was that the particles would start moving under the influence of the rotating magnetic field, as in an electric motor. I'm not sure if that would also work with a single coil/phase however. For what I proposed on the other hand the particles would preferably have to be embedded in a dielectric material, which is not what gets typically done in these replications. This idea isn't new: for example I believe that Brian Ahern in his rejected patent had something similar, but with nanoparticles embedded in zirconia. Water was also used in some embodiments.

EDIT: here's Brian Ahern's abandoned patent application, linked here mainly in reference to the dielectric matrix as in practice he did something different than these replications:

US 20110233061 A1 - Amplification of energetic reactions

I guess the challenge would be keeping all the particles electrically separated and preventing them from sintering, not an easy task. I asked because I tried searching some information about it and found that for the previously mentioned Fe-Ni material a frequency of about 1-2 kHz would have a skin depth in the range of the radius of the metal particles typically used in these experiments. Recalling that there have been suggestions in the past of frequencies along this range being used in more successful experiments I was wondering if there could be any benefit in matching the skin depth effect with particle size.

But it's just a simple thought I had and any correlation with that piece information is likely coincidental.

Not an expert: would the skin effect in induction heating occur on every particle individually or all of them as a whole? I would guess the latter, but I'm not sure.