Display MorePlating trials with 5% HCl are going well.
This was the anode at the start..
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This was the anode after 72 hours...still there, just.
The cathode has a good coat of iron, overlaid with loosely adhered black iron oxide...
Looks like this test was a success. Tomorrow I'll test for the LEC effect.
Alan Smith - that's very happy news indeed!
Display MoreThis could be useful too, although it's not as terse:
ELECTRODEPOSITION OF IRON AND IRON ALLOYS
Masanobu Izaki
From "Modern Electroplating", Fifth Edition
Thanks so much can - these resources look great
This was some Fe plating onto brass from the ferrous sulphate solution
Looks a lot more like iron. Alan Smith and I tried to look for voltage and current in a H2 atmosphere but didn't see any. The set-up was like this (below pic is from the acid plating from last post, but same set-up for this sample)
Brass counter electrode and teflon+glass mesh in between.
I've not go the time to write more detail but I'll put more in time. For now I just wanted to let you know that we are still working on it and hope to be able to get some better results soon.
.Fantastic news! You two are writing history!
Thanks for your encouragement. Might take a bit longer to rewrite history, but Alan Smith and I will try our best 
What was the trick? As far as I could tell from past tests, if the HCl concentration was too high, the iron would be dissolved away from the cathode at low currents.
Turns out that I got excited a bit too soon.
This was immediately after taking it out of the bath... looks nice and dark... i.e. some Fe.
Below was after doing some rinsing (and admittedly a bit of manhandling). Looking at this now after coming back from the lab it doesn't look so much like Fe but more Cu. Alan Smith - seems consistent with what we were seeing when we tried a second time before we left - what do you think?
Stevenson, It's really interesting that you were able to get plating so easily. Alan and myself have tried to match the concentration you specified in your report but not joy so far. We also tried to match the current density too. We are doing it it a much bigger jar... can that really make such a difference?
Electroplating is still a bit of a dark art to me right now... perhaps I should stick to physics haha.
Alan Smith and I finally having some luck with the Iron plating using Stevenson HCl method.
See animation on Giphy here https://media.giphy.com/media/k0ijmtPgNPEAOJO0CL/giphy.gif
Display MoreAnother test which might or might not be useful to others. I tried placing 0.1 mm plastic food wrap between the cathode (after just electrolysis with 0.125M KOH) and the counter-electrode, and it didn't work at all. When I switched back to 0.1 mm mica sheets it worked again (albeit at a lower rate due to fiddling with the electrolyzed/plated surface apparently being deleterious).
A test was performed in this sequence after electrolysis at 2.0A constant current for 2 minutes:
1) Placed 0.1mm mica sheets: -501mV;
2) Removed mica sheets and placed food wrap: 0 mV;
3) Removed food wrap and placed mica sheets: -120mV
I have a personal idea as for why it might have not worked, but perhaps this is just due to electrical/ionic conductivity of the material or some other odd property that I was not aware of?
EDIT: I checked the resistance with the multimeter and it appears to act as an insulator, FWIW (as it should be).
can I'm reminded of this paper again https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RoutRKreproducib.pdf where some materials blocked radiation and others didn't. They talked about polyester foils not letting stuff through (does food wrap count as polyester 🤷♂️) but paper let stuff through. It's all so interesting.
Another little calculation to consider. I'm trying to figure out if we can put some kind of figure on how much power is being generated if we assume a nuclear origin for this phenomenon.
Let's assume for the moment that the voltage generated is like the voltage on a capacitor. Where can the charge generating the voltage come from? Let's image that either it's from charged particles coming directly from the working electrode (not a lot of evidence for this at the moment, cf Stevenson Geiger with the mica window) or from EM radiation from the working electrode that's e.g. knocking electrons off the counter electrode. Either way, the counter electrode charges up based on how many presumed nuclear reactions happening in the working electrode.
Taking Alan Smith setup (because I know it more), the plate area is about 128cm^2, there is an air gap so the relative dielectric constant is essentially 1, separation between plates 0.1mm, voltage about 0.25V.
The charge on the plates (Q) is therefore:
Q = capacitance x voltage = dielectric constant x area x voltage / separation
Q = 8.85x10^-12 x1 x 128x10^-4 x 0.25 / 10^-4 = 2.8x10^-10 C
How many electrons (or lack of electrons) would 2.8x10^-10 C amount to?
Number of electrons (or lack of electrons) = 2.8x10^-10 / 1.6x10^-19 = 1.8x10^9
Let's imagine that each of these corresponds to some nuclear event and let's recall that Alan said the voltage took a few minutes to build up (let's say 3 min... Alan Smith please correct me if I'm wrong here). Then the number of reactions per second would be:
1.8x10^9 / 3x60 = 10x10^6, i.e. 10 million reactions per second
Finally, let's imagine that each reaction gives off 20MeV (not unreasonable for a nuclear reaction). Then this would amount to the following power output:
10x10^6 x 20x10^6 x 1.6x10^-19 = 3.2x10^-5 W = 32 micro watts
I have the sense that micro watts is the right order of magnitude from what's been done by Stevenson and Frank Gordon . Is that right?
If this is indeed cold fusion, then what we have here is a very sensitive diagnostic for measuring it.... i'd say probably far better than calorimetry... not to hate too much on the calorimetry folks.... it's just that calorimetry is too hard for me hehe.
Hi Matt! I was aware of these peculiarities of alpha particles, so in my experiment I placed an end-window Geiger tube (the LND712) within 1 mm from the plated WE
Stevenson Ah, I forgot you had a mica window. Thanks for the reminder
The better way to test this is by making some experiments in vacuum (or very low pressure) by applying and electric field to an intermediate grid (like in a triode)
❤️
Stevenson suggested a kind of EM radiation which seems more likely than He4 i think.
Now expecting a pseudo nuclear reaction is relevant in the context of great loading pressures as Mc Kubre had demonstrated.
Or regarding the surface events way, light is the trigger, as demonstrated Cravens by lasers.
Also a question what could be the magic behind your He4, the hydrogen shrinkage as nkodama proposed or the always fashion Holmlid ? other ?
Thanks for your questions Cydonia. I don't have answers for you I'm afraid. I have very little interest in speculating on mechanisms at this point. I'm still trying to see whether something nuclear makes sense at all. My approach is to therefore try and apply some known models to the data coming out of these experiments and see if things make sense. I'm not wedded to alpha emission, but it was simple enough to make a calculation about. I'm happy to entertain EM - feel free to write some notes on that from which we can put some numbers into.
Display MoreFor what it's worth, I'm currently repeating another test this time using 0.125M KOH (so far at 0.5A constant current). The distance-dependent voltage effect still works, and of course no plating is occurring under these conditions.
I got a few times in a row measurements similar to the "after a while" numbers I posted earlier, i.e. approximately:
0.1 mm = 460 mV
0.2 mm = 42 mV
0.3 mm = did not work
However when voltage at 0.1mm dropped to about 150 mV I couldn't manage to measure anything at 0.2 mm. If the signal only proportionally decreased over time, I would have expected to measure values around 10 mV. Again, take this information with a pinch of salt since the mica sheets may have some variations, and results may change depending on consistency of measurements/plates and sheet location and so on. I observed a similar behavior earlier on, though.
Thanks can . Yes, no worries, I've got plenty of salt to throw around 🤣 .
Using the numbers you just gave would give a mean free path of 0.1mm - same ballpark.
I'm curious to see with Alan Smith in the coming weeks whether our bigger plates show similar distance relationships.
Display MoreTried again. 1A constant current. Voltage was about 31V initially, dropping to 24V after a few minutes and after agitating the jar. The solution started cold, which could also be a factor. In any case, it still worked.
1 spacer (0.1mm) = 624 mV
2 spacers (0.2mm) = 315 mV
3 spacers (0.3mm) = did not work
EDIT: After a while
1 spacer (0.1mm) = 370 mV
2 spacers (0.2mm) = 40 mV
It seems as if the more time passes the lower the useful distance is, but it's difficult to make the distance consistent under my testing conditions, so take these results with a pinch of salt.
I thought I'd see whether I could extract an energy for the hypothesised radiation from this data... assuming alpha particles.
In the absence of a more reliable text on range of alpha particles in air (I'll do some more digging on that later) I found this lecture and on slide 19 they show this image:
If I use 0.3mm = 0.03cm as the range and then rearrange the formula then I get an energy of 0.2 MeV.
If I use 0.2mm = 0.02cm as the range and then rearrange the formula then I get an energy of 0.16 MeV.
I also thought I'd try and find a sort of mean free path for the radiation in air using a simple exponential attenuation model, i.e:
Voltage at some distance = Voltage at zero distance X exp (- distance / mean free path)
I will write this more compactly as:
V = V0 e^(- D/L)
We have two readings so a lovely pair of simultaneous equations to solve 🤓 :
624 = V0 e^( - 0.1 / L) ------- eq 1
315 = V0 e^( - 0.2 / L) ------- eq 2
Dividing eq 1 by eq 2 we get:
1.98 = e^( -0.1 / L) / e^(-0.2 / L) = e^ (0.1 / L) ---- eq 3
logging both sides of eq 3 gives
log(1.98) = 0.1 / L and so:
mean free path L = 0.1 / log(1.98) = 0.14mm
I'm not sure how to reconcile this analysis with the "EDIT: After a while" numbers, but I thought it was an interesting exercise to do anyway.
I roughtly calculated the time constant of the circuit: about 100pF * 10MOhm it is in the range of ms, so if you were able to steadly reading the voltage, it was not due to a transient magnetic or electric induction phenomenon. However it is really difficult to figure out how the voltage can be generated even with the mica insulation. If this is confirmed it may imply that the "radiation" is not made by particles but is electromagnetic in nature.
Hi Stevenson 👋 and happy Sunday 😁 . From this source in section "Detection of Alpha Radiation using Geiger-Mueller Counter - End-Window type" they say:
"The window is usually made of mica"
and then they say:
"ideally a source of alpha radiation should be less than 10mm from the detector due to attenuation in air"
Superficially (I need to read more about mica), it seems that with a 0.1mm mica slide between the plates that alpha radiation could get through. Couldn't the voltage then just be due to the working electrode emitting alpha and then depositing that alpha onto the other plate. A charge difference would then build up which would then be measured as voltage.
Thanks so much for compiling that Stevenson 🙏
Thanks for clarifying Stevenson . I appreciate you taking the time. Might I also ask, is your documentation of your replication available as a PDF or other doc? I saw a few posts in this thread but would be great to have access to it offline so I can make sure I'm fully up to speed with your work (thanks for taking the time to replicate btw)
Hello Frank Gordon . I'm just getting up to speed with your work and catching up with all the conversation here. It's all very interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.
If I understand correctly, then the surprising thing about your experiments is not that there is voltage, but that the gas is being ionised. The hypothesis that I see being discussed here to explain that ionisation is that there is some unexpected radiation coming off the "working" electrode and that this radiation is ionising the gas.
My immediate thought is - has any attempt been made to study the radiation coming off the co-deposited "working" electrode more directly? I saw a similar question earlier in the thread but couldn't see any reply to it (sorry if I missed that). For example, presumably we could just take flat sheet of material, do the co-deposition as you described earlier and then put the co-deposited material in vacuum with a geiger counter (or another well understood radiation detector, or some radiographic film) in front of it and see that we find. Perhaps this is naive but it seems like a simpler set-up that might help us get some more direct measurements of any radiation.
What do you think?
thanks so much Curbina, I appreciate you pointing me in the right direction . I must confess, I lost track of a lot of updates on the forum during lockdown - my fault.
matt, I am really glad you are not discouraged. What can I recommend? taking a closer look to the papers published within 1990-1995 in several journals, that worked with Ni-H systems and reported significant excess heat. Some of those are from Mills.
What I am personally doing is focusing in something easier and less controversial to measure than excess heat. LEN Transmutations in liquid phase, there's no much publications about, but measuring dissolved ions concentrations is much more easier, conclusive, and prone to do mass balances, than measuring excess heat, which, no matter how well you do it, is always controversial.
What one always have to keep in mind is that there's no such thing as a "simple experiment" when it comes to LENR.
Thanks Curbina , I appreciate that. Do you have any specific papers in mind - the LENR literature is a bit of a minefield lol
Curbina - definitely not giving up any time soon 💪. It was always a bit of a long shot with this set-up - time to regroup.
Fascinating Curbina , thanks for the links. I have been sent “the 4th phase of water“ book by someone else recently too - just need to make some time to read it....so many books to read these days.
Surely you are not using a stainless steel clad TC with the stainless in the electrolyte. Use a TC in a glass tube with a few drops of mineral oil for thermal transfer.
You may also be seeing some RF pick up from the TC wires. Check by reading the TC near but outside the container and make sure the TC is shielded and grounded.
Hi oldguy , thanks for your message. I'm actually doing gas experiments not electrolysis. The link Alan shared is me making an electrolyte to go into a deuterium generator. I'll then use the deuterium gas that's produced in my experiments.
