Two experiments I am considering are: 1) many cycles from 190C - 400C - 190C ... I might even do that without reloading fuel; and 2) an experiment with Ni, Li (no LAH), and a hydrocarbon.
Happy to hear suggestions with rationale.
BobHiggins
MFMP
- Member since Oct 13th 2014
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Posts by BobHiggins
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@David Fojt
I don't think it is necessary to avoid the LAH to limit the pressure, just regulate it (to exhaust) above the desired maximum pressure. If you use LiH instead, you just won't get as much gas. Interestingly, it seems A. Parkhomov's latest experiments have been showing XH without any Li at all and with the same carbonyl Ni powder he has been using. I think a report is coming on this at Asti. I think Me356 has also said that the Li was not needed. If the Li is not needed in the reaction, perhaps it would be better to eliminate the Al which will cause the Li to not wet to the Ni (argument to use pure LiH as you suggest). I believe Me356 also said that the Al detracts from the XH.
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Bob have you calculated the maximum pressure you could reach with powder's quantity you fill in relation with dead volume then without any event also ?
Hi David. The pressure could get high - to >1000 PSIA if all of the H2 was released from the hydride. However, what really occurs is that as the pressure goes up, and at a given temperature, an equilibrium is reached, and all of the H2 is not released from the hydride. While I haven't run and experiment that would let the pressure go up to that high pressure equilibrium, I cite the !Bang experiment that had no regulator - it exploded. What I saw in this experiment is that a lot of gas was initially released and I had the pressure limited to 90 PSIA by back pressure regulator venting. After the pressure fell below 90 PSIA, the valve was completely closed and all of the remaining pressure change was caused by absorption.
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Here is an updated plot (finally!). The data consists of 120k samples (and it is not done), but excel really only wants to have 32k points in the plot for each curve. I had to calculate a sparse data set and make adjustments in some cases because points were being missed, particularly in the sensing of the excitation current waveform. Now resolved. I also cropped a lot of the transients out of the graph of COP. The reactor still has a couple of cooling hours of data yet to go. Here is the overall curve:
Unfortunately, while there are interesting features in the experiment, there appears to have been no excess heat. There was tremendous absorption between 350°C (~Ni's curie point) and 650°C; so much absorption that it went from 90 PSIA to 0 PSIA (vacuum). Then the pressure rebounded and sharply fell all by itself. In the settled portions the COP was always 1.0. There was no evidence that the stimulation induced any LENR. The radiation detection from the SI-8B pancake detector (GM) seems to have a broad reduction when the H2 was totally absorbed while the scintillator showed no variation. Note that the GM tube is sensitive down to about 5 keV while the scintillator does not register much below 30 keV. The GM count variation is significant (meaning not noise) and mysteriously occurred right in the dip of the absorption.
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Have been making these plots in excel and I am having trouble adding more data. That's why it is taking so long to get another plot.
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Next update in time:
It is strange how the pressure went to 0 by 600°C, then shot up at 700°C as the LiH and Al melted. Then the pressure rose rapidly and dropped like a rock at 750°C with no other event - the valve has been closed (regulating at 90 PSIA) since above140°C. That precipitous fall in pressure was not the valve opening - it is still set to regulate at 90 PSIA. At 1000°C, the regulation pressure will be set to 9 PSIA, but the expectation is that the pressure will already be at or below this value.
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My mistake, I must have been thinking of my data plot.
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Here is an updated plot of the same section that includes more of the sensors. Next I will add in the next segments of time.
In this time segment, you can now see where the excitations occurred. Also, the filtered radiation channels have been added.
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There is a scheduled excitation burst at 500, 600, 700, 800, 900°C, and then at 1000°C there are multiple bursts per temperature plateau. I am going to add an excitation curve and a radiations curve to the suite shortly and you will be able to see where the excitation bursts occur.
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Alan, you are correct that the MFMP running display did have the continuous integrated energy from the start - both input and output. It was from examining those and looking at the calculated running average COP graph that I determined the the COP graph looked wrong. I downloaded the raw data and calculated the average COP myself, and the MFMP graph was wrong.
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Here is the plot for the first 18 segments:
The COP calculation is based on back calculation from the current temperature, current power in, and the PvT curve calculated in the calibration run. The COP is only valid where the temperature is settled, and relies upon the fact that the input power is nearly constant.
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@THH : Heaters are normally of Ohmic nature (Strict linear COP) ... May be you use inductive ones.. or the wrong tools...
"Linear COP" makes no sense. Heaters operated in a burst mode can show bursts of COP, even to infinity, due to the delay between input power burst and output heat pulse. By the time the output heat is measured, the input power has been changed to low, causing an apparent "instantaneous COP" to be >1. That is why the instantaneous COP is meaningless. This behavior was evident in the Me356 test data because of his pulsed heating of the reactor. Also, it appears that the running average COP, a last minute calculated addition to the graphs, was computed wrong as well (see the follow-up calculated running average COP that I posted).
Me356 has said that the reactor that was tested was a first prototype of a boxed up reactor - one that he could allow for a black box test because it was enclosed. He said this first prototype reactor had not been previously tested, and it turned out not to be prepared for MFMP testing.
I worked for many years in a research department in a large corporation. Every year we had to present our research status to the senior leadership of the company. There was a colleague that prepared wonderful demonstrations for every year's meeting. Then at the last minute, when the presentation was live, the demonstration invariably failed. He had the worst luck. It seemed that even if the demo was a success 100% of the time in rehearsals before the meeting, it was still likely to fail live for the CEO. None of us had any doubt that the technology being demonstrated worked. It was simply not ready for production, and not even ready for reliable demo. Such is the nature of research and high technology. Such gremlins are particularly prevalent in LENR.
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The experiment is progressing perfectly under automation. The system is at 600°C. Interestingly, without venting, absorption in the system has taken the pressure from its previous limit at 90 PSIA to 1 PSIA (vacuum) all on its own. I am going to try to get a plot to post soon.
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@David Fojt
I think you mean Suhas. I think that would belong in a different thread.
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Alan Goldwater's GCA was modified to use a LND pancake detector.
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What magnetic field value do you expect to achieve?
What dead volume will you have ?
Yes, my dead volume is small, more like Parkhomov.
Regarding your comment about the Ni. Are you suggesting using multiple Ni forms so that each experiment searches multiple Ni forms? Or did you have some other thought?
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I started the experiment. Of course, the temperature climb will be slow and boring. The first of the DAQ files should be in the Google drive in about 40 minutes. The magnetic field stimulations will begin at 500°C.
The fuel load is pretty light at only 0.85 grams because of all of the Li volume. I only fill the 2" end of the closed alumina tube - so, I am filling by volume. This 0.85 grams contains about 0.72 g of the Hunter Chemical AH50 Ni powder that has been (as the previous experiment) etched in ultrasonic 15% HCl at 50°C for 10 minutes. The fuel also has 0.08g of LiAlH4 and 0.05g of Li metal.
Based on my experiments with handling the Li metal, I think that people running experiments with an increased Li concentration should consider adding the metal rather than finding an exotic way to handle the Li into their reactor (like the nano-encapsulated Li). It is just going to melt and become part of the solution anyway at low temperature.
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Hi Bob, do you have plans for assymetric waveforms? Suhas use sharp up and slow down, like a saw.
That sounds like a sawtooth. In Suhas' case that is a direct DC stimulation of the dusty plasma. The current flow will be even more sharp, because as the voltage rises, there will be no conduction and then suddenly the plasma will form, the resistance will drop, the current will go up, and the voltage will fall sharply. It is a different drive system. At the moment we don't know if he is adequately measuring either his input power or his output heat. If MFMP does measure a COP big enough to not be a mistake, there will be a lot of people building reactors of this type.
In my case, I have a limited bandwidth to drive the coil due to its inductance which I must resonate to get more current to flow (without resonance, the current would be about 17x lower and the magnetic field lower by a similar factor). In this experiment the sine magnetic field will be applied in sort of a hammering set of bursts. Each stimulation will provide 6 bursts of high current sine wave 3 seconds long.
I have already started collecting components to build both microwave stimulated dusty plasma and DC stimulated dusty plasma reactors.
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eros I have no real plans to test either at this point. I would be happy to consider testing them going forward, particularly if others have some success with those materials.
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What magnetic field value do you expect to achieve?
What dead volume will you have ?
Each magnetic field stimulation will comprise 6 x [3 seconds on, 2 seconds off] of 4 kHz sine wave current with about 4.5-5 amperes of current in the coil. I expect this to produce a sine wave magnetic field having peaks of +/-140 gauss. The dead volume is only about 1cc. Initially I will soak in the 100°C-140°C range under vacuum to dry out the system. Then I will heat with the back pressure regulator set at 90 PSIA (6 barA) pretty much all the way to 1000°C. I have extended the time between 400-600°C where some H2 absorption was taking place in the last run as Arnaud suggested. There are several times where I turn off the heat and turn it back on as a stimulation. Also, at the end, when the reactor is at 1200°C, I will pump down to 2 PSIA to see what happens as the Li may begin to boil.
