I'm using the software-defined USB RF receiver (Nooelec NESDR SMArt V4) at the minimum gain setting and the signal is already sufficiently strong to almost saturate it at that range, at least at relatively close distances. The dynamic range with it is only about 35–40 dB, far from that of a professional/stand-alone RF spectrum analyzer, and the signal will not get much higher on the Y axis than what is observed in the screenshots posted.
Will keep in mind about the tip when I'll try other antenna types in the future, though.
I found a more detailed way to assess the effect on my DSL connection of the plasma reaction. It looks like it might not be simply affecting the router, but the phone line itself.
When the plasma reaction is on and producing significant noise, there's an increase in noise mainly in the 22–30 MHz DSL band (more information here), which causes a loss of SNR. This is visible in the SNR graph provided by my router. See the red line in the upper graph here, showing the minimum SNR values reached:
This was the RF spectrum in the 24–1000 MHz range measured with a whip antenna close to the jar, first extended to 30 cm, then fully extended. I think the antenna response plays a significant role in the overall signal shape, so it's difficult to say if the peaks observed, in isolation, could be interesting:
Still no peaks standing out from the Geiger counter. I forgot to take note of all the short testing sessions here:
I made a brief test using previously prepared electrolyte solution but this time RF noise did not seem to be particularly intense, judging by the response from nearby loudspeakers. I am wondering if the several Kg (25–30) of computer parts put in front of the setup are also shielding the RF emissions to some extent. They still caused disturbances strong enough to affect my DSL internet connection in some way, however ("unrecoverable errors").
There did not seem to be strong peaks standing out from the average in Geiger data. The colored sections denote the testing periods:
You can put the entire board inside. You can even flatten the lead cylinder a bit if you want to save space!
At that point I think it would not be wrapped particularly efficiently. A "sarcophagus" made of steel bricks/bars might do a better job and easily allow to add several centimeters of shielding material without too much monetary commitment. I'm still not sure if it would be worth the expense, however, given the results observed.
Getting lead sheet and rolling it into a cylinder around the Geiger tube might be simpler for "pancake" -type GM tubes, but not with cylindrical GM tubes like the one I have.
You meant doing something along these lines, correct?
About a year and a half ago I asked for a quote by a local vendor for 100x100x50 mm lead bricks and the price was 35 euro/brick, which I deemed too much given that I would have needed 5-6 bricks, at the least.
Steel/iron might be significantly less expensive than copper while only being 10–15% less dense. Perhaps I might end up getting some steel bricks/ingots for shielding purposes, but I highly suspect that it would be wasted monetary effort, given that the rather intense RF produced by the plasma reaction would prevent strong conclusions on the origin of any observed signal.
This being said, I tried adding some more shielding material in the form of obsolete computer equipment (steel, etc), and this is as low as I can get with reasonable effort. The vertical lines denote when I added shielding (I did it in two batches):
As for the actual tests, now I have to wait for the next occasion when I can potentially cause issues with nearby equipment without complaints by other people.
Those are the normal fluctuations I'm getting with standard background readings at my location. The recorded radiation level is even slightly lowered than usual (roughly about 10 CPM) because I added a small depleted VRLA battery behind the Geiger counter.
I just tried adding some more shielding in the form of steel plates but it did not seem to affect the signal too much (perhaps about 5 CPM? It's the data to the right of the red dashed line in the graph below), although more time is needed to make sure.
In any case, even without shielding, if there is any significant short-term emission from the reaction, it should at least be visible in the data, as the counts would add up to those of the background. That basically nothing is being observed makes me think that either the signal is too small or too brief to be properly recorded by my Geiger counter (or that there is no reaction to be recorded with it).
If there was some sort of guarantee that ionizing emission is being emitted together with RF emission, it would be much easier to just measure the latter—as I've mainly been doing so far—to crudely gauge reaction intensity.
Just thought it would be interesting to point out that the as-received tungsten wire looks smooth and dark, while the cathode piece previously immersed in the acetone+KOH aqueous solution looks dull and metal-bright.
Here is a less compressed view of the period between 12:45 and 14:15 UTC, during which I had some DSL failure events following plasma discharge testing with the freshly-arrived tungsten wire. The main issue here is that there were no statistically significant changes, even if some of the events could be speculatively attributed to peaks in the data.
This is all the Geiger data recorded so far.
I cannot afford putting 2.5 k$ into a gamma spectrometer unfortunately, although I do imagine it would be way more sensitive than the GM counter I'm using. Besides, so far these have been ultra-low-budget tests made out of curiosity just to see if anything unusual could be observed with cheap equipment and materials.
EDIT: as an additional data point, below is a graph showing DSL line statistics. Today there were many "synchronization events" in roughly the period of testing. In the past few days I haven't made any testing. Last time I made them was last Sunday (I wrote a report in a previous comment).
Sorry, I don't understand. Very different from what?
For what it's worth, I tried looking at the router log and marking the times when the internet connection failed in the Geiger counter graph below. The events, which are correlated to the testing performed, do not seem to be associated with clear changes in recorded radiation level.
I just found that the latest glow discharge electrolysis tests with the 0.45mm tungsten wire are causing my DSL internet connection to fail at the router level, probably due to the strong RF interference. The DSL router is two rooms away from the testing location.
Unfortunately, since it's a shared Internet connection, this is going to limit the amount of testing I can do, unless I add a Faraday cage around the experimental setup.
I used 38g tap water + 1.5g acetone + 2 ml 0.1M KOH (pre-prepared) and 750V (open-circuit voltage; it decreases under load but I haven't measured it yet). KOH was added in two 1ml batches and RF noise (audible from loudspeakers I have in my proximity) ramped up substantially after the second one, although the first was apparently already sufficient to cause issues with my router, judging by its event log.
I finally received tungsten wire for more testing with cathodic contact glow discharge electrolysis (CGDE). It turned out to have a diameter of 0.45mm rather than 0.35mm. Out of the box it appears as a dark but shiny wire. It's a rather hard material which takes some effort to cut. The best way to use electrically connect short sections of such rigid wires in my case has been wrapping copper wire around it and the supporting welding rod.
Compared to 28ga Ni200 wire, which already seemed to perform well, this tungsten wire appears to produce strong RF noise right away. A condition for this to happen is that the wire becomes incandescent. I used the same solution I prepared last time, which initially had about 50 ml of tap water, 1 ml of 0.1M KOH solution and 2% weight acetone. These values have likely changed with use but they are not critical.
With this solution the immersed tungsten wire portion remains quite clean, while the portion above the water surface slowly oxidized and becomes dark. Below is after a brief test:
The higher the temperature, the stronger the RF, but at very high temperature the wire appears to get eroded very quickly. The tip becomes very sharp in the process:
When the wire is allowed to reach very high temperatures (e.g. by increasing current density), it starts blinking bright white as observed earlier on, but it also gets eroded very quickly in the process. So this mode of operation is probably best avoided.
I haven't made very extensive tests yet, but in the past hour (since I began testing) I have not noticed any serious increase in background gamma emissions.
Below is a video of a testing session of a few minutes. At about 1:54 I set the camera exposure to a fixed setting:
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Here I am only thinking that the microbubbles produced by ultrasonic agitation could possibly make the plasma reaction much easier to start, since what is normally required for it to start is the formation of a gas/water vapor sheath around the active electrode (this implies that with cold water it will not work very well, or not work at all). Cavitation must be likely already occurring to some extent close to the electrode, particularly when it gets incandescent.
As for pH: during electrolysis or electrolytic glow plasma, positive charges/ions may accumulate in large amounts close to the cathode (and viceversa); possibly this could affect local measurements. While looking for a reference for this I found this paper which also mentions about OH. radical production as loosely suggested by Mondaini. The authors employ a variation of the plasma experiments described in this thread, however (plasma above the electrolyte surface):
We experimentally investigated some of initial reactions in liquid induced by electron or positive ion irradiation from atmospheric pressure dc glow discharge in contact with liquid. The local change of pH in the solution was visualized using pH indicator. OH radical generation yield in liquid was observed by chemical probe method. Possible reaction process was qualitatively discussed.
For what it's worth, this researcher observed a lower power consumption during anodic electrolytic plasma after injecting air in the solution. I haven't read the papers in detail yet, but my guess is that similar methods may work for cathodic plasma as well, and with other gases:
Personally I think it could be interesting to see the effect of ultrasonics on the reaction, but at the moment I have no idea of where to start in order to assemble a cheap system to test this.
There's a risk however that the ultrasonic transducer could emit much stronger RF than the actual reaction, and that it might cause acetone (which appears to be beneficial in small amounts) to outgas quickly from the solution.
The performance appears to be mostly determined by the conditions at the interface between the electrolyte solution and the immersed active electrode. I don't think an argon atmosphere above the water surface on its own would be particularly helpful here unless perhaps the gas was finely bubbled in the solution. However, perhaps running the experiment at a reduced pressure could help water evaporate faster and make the reaction easier to observe; or possibly ultrasonic agitation could help forming a gas sheath around the electrode and starting the reaction quicker too.
For clarity, by the way, what I'm seeking is not simply the electrolytic glow plasma reaction commonly observed, but conditions where strong(er) RF emissions are produced. Oxidized electrodes do work to varying extents in producing a plasma reaction, but not in producing intense RF emission, not even when incandescent. I should point out however this could be a peculiarity of the power supply I'm using.
Sometime this week I should be receiving 0.35mm tungsten wire to test, by the way.
Just wanted to report that following a brief test with a rather diluted HCl solution (just a few small drops in about 50ml water, but no acetone addition) using a Ni cathode it appears that oxidation in general and not just the material, makes the intense RF emission associated with current instability more difficult to observe.
Initially the fresh 28ga Ni wire seemed to work rather well, producing continuous noise on nearby equipment (loudspeakers), but as soon as it started becoming incandescent from the reaction, oxidizing in the process, the effect disappeared. With HCl this was clearer, because it leaves chloride residues on the surface that seem to strongly increase oxidation especially after drying in the atmosphere. A more or less uniform, visibly light green NiO layer was formed on the cathode.
Assuming—of course—that this RF emission is actually the desired outcome and that I'm not getting sidetracked toward a fruitless path, then it is clear that metals that do not readily oxidize nor form a strong oxide layer will work better in general, following what I mentioned in my previous comment on the reactivity series of the elements.
Similarly, conditions that prevent oxidation—e.g. 2–3 wt% acetone addition—will also promote the effect.
As for gamma emission, so far with my setup I haven't observed statistically significant departures from background levels that could be ascribed to the testing performed.
The examiner evidently wants inside the patent application all the information and operating steps required to confirm with the described apparatus that an ultra-dense state of hydrogen is indeed produced and accumulated, not to be redirected to papers written by the applicant or his coworkers. To be fair, for novel subject matter not described by anybody else that seems a reasonable request; the examiner is not outright saying that the invention cannot work because it violates known physics.
I think elsewhere a point was made that the application cites results showing time-of-flight times suggesting relativistic particles (muons, etc), but I think it can be anticipated that on their own these may not be considered sufficient evidence of an ultra-dense hydrogen state being produced.
It's not just the visual appearance, the entire text (almost) was reworded too. I tried doing the same for the rest of section 1 as I was reading it, although it could still use some improvement (see attachment).
This was just a test to check out how different wording and layout could greatly improve the work and its public perception.Typesetting and proofchecking the entire booklet might be a too big of a task at the moment.
I rendered that using a standard LaTeX distribution on Linux. On Windows, a popular LaTeX distribution is MikTeX. It's freely-available open source software. LaTeX syntax and behavior might take a while to learn for the uninitiated, however. For the references I use JabRef, also free and open source software..
I'm wondering if in general terms the suitability for the plasma electrolysis reaction has to do with the reactivity series of the elements.
Putting aside that copper would probably perform very well if it wasn't for its low melting point, subjectively speaking, the relative performance observed with the materials tested so far seems to more or less reflect the position on the table.
Al (FeCrAl) = Ti < Fe (carbon steel) < Ni < Cu < W
If this was the case, precious metals would work best, although the tests could end up being very expensive under the testing conditions I'm using.
Gupta et al in this paper (EDIT: paywalled) suggest that among Pt, Ta, W, graphite, Pt worked best, so it could be roughly consistent with the above idea. They do point out however that factors like oxide thickness, porosity and so on may be affecting the results.
In any case, in 10-14 days I should have some 0.35mm tungsten wire. The last test made with the 0.25mm one from a broken halogen lamp, and the apparent performance of the 1mm rod in producing RF emission compared to other materials are worth a further check.
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