Posts by FreethinkerLenr2

Quote from me356

I am thinking about getting excess heat.. I believe that to achieve it, we need contant pressure change.

Following steps should be performed periodically:
1. load hydrogen with nickel (slow process)
2. release hydrogen from nickel as fast as possible (theoretically fast process)

During hydrogen release we can observe excess heat if the pressure change derivation is high enough until nickel absorb hydrogen again.

The problem is, we don't know how to release hydrogen from nickel correctly. At least after latest experiments I know how to absorb hydrogen by nickel quite well.

My theory is, that this is only caused by abnormal temperature change and possibly EM stimulation. Thus the heater should be as close as possible to the fuel, because thermal transfer is faster too.
Hydrogen release from nickel can be easier, if Nickel has already enough hydrogen in it and/or if the temperature is higher. Thus few cycles of hydrogenation may be necessary.

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I noticed ( see figure 4 and 7 in https://docs.google.com/docume…dxmOoX4FRhZOu6pnGNCFEBdho ) that when I had a dramatic drop in temperature, the pressure increased. It did it at time of death, twice, but it also happen a bit before death, once, making it a bit more interesting. It could be the core melting due to arcing, and degassing, but for the singular event before the first death one can speculate...

Post mortem on my first active reactor.
https://docs.google.com/docume…trx4xp0s/edit?usp=sharing

Quote from Longview

I bet someone does.

Recall my post earlier on the Ocean Optics device, from some suppliers at around $599 US. I have seen those advertised for about 15 years, so there should be some even in surplus auctions at universities. The interface to a PC might be somewhat archaic, but that is how they were originally brought to market. I forget the standard now, but it was basically on a card "way back then".

I see this link below to a quite good window "Amtir-1" (60% t) at 1.5 to 10, and drops nicely from to about 55% from 11 out to 13 um. I did not see the temperature tolerance. Some windows in the IR cannot stand much heat at all. Other IR windows are linked there, calcium fluoride good out to about 20 um with a mp of 1,419 deg. C, and cadmium telluride good out to 30 um and mp of 1,092 deg C. I would at least check the prices. If necessary, make an appeal for assistance...

(Warning the melting points for each was from the "never-to-be-trusted-online-encyclopedia", and also may not correlate well to operation as a window... although the temperature maximum on the calcium fluoride looks promising--- I should not have to remind that both CaF and CdTe are very likely extremely toxic. Mill, grind, dissolve or fire with the greatest respect, please).

http://www.janis.com/products/…owTransmissionCurves.aspx

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I appreciate your tenacity. Thanks for the link, BTW. I checked them out. As did I Oceans (have done so before), they have a nice line of products.

BUT:

I have an established scope, and will execute in that scope. When that scope has come to an end, I will evaluate and contemplate options. Until then I will stay on target. That means, no window, no spectrometer, no vaccum pumping or inert gas filling of the reactor, or any other idea that stray to far away from the current setup. Only minor mods to secure reaching the target.

But your ideas are excellent. Sorry for being such a bore.

Quote from Mats002

I think you are going along the right track, but I would be careful about conclusions from temperature readings. Was 120°C inside or outside core? How was it measured? Hot spots/cold spots not only from the heater coil, but also locally inside the fuel material itself could be very different from any reading with a TC.

If the cause for pressure decrease is not H packed into the lattice of Ni, but because of surface SPP and Rydberg matter formation then - as learned from Svein and Axil - the process we want to trigger is extremely fast and local. Debye temp for Ni (~178°C) can be a threshold that must be passed, but the average/slow and by that integrated temp readings of a TC or even a pyrometer is far from the true temp in each small spot of the Ni micro powder.

Note that the Debye temperature for Ni probably is pressure dependent, eg.

Magnetic Susceptibility of Superconductors and Other Spin Systems:

https://books.google.se/books?id=_KwACAAAQBAJ&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=debye+temperature+pressure+dependence&source=bl&ots=g2MbmNS76O&sig=qrdGRHl56mXZlPB4xXYc0UyhH8A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEkQ6AEwCGoVChMI9pKev5eoxwIVChUsCh0FrQ6d#v=onepage&q=debye%20temperature%20pressure%20dependence&f=false

Quote from Mats002

Good idea with a window into the core. Not only will it give better/new measurements, but also opens a way to stimulate/trigger active sites with laser pulses, which might be an option equal to heat pulse or EM stimulation.

But for now, I have full respect and understanding for replicating closer to Lugano/Parkhomov, having some good results in that realm first.

Thanks.

As I wrote Longview above, I contemplated a window of sapphire at one end, which could be used to stimulate with a laser of appropriate wavelength. My intent of doing spectroscopy, and you stimulation proposal, I guess, both require for the fuel powder to be present in the alumni tube and not enclosed in a SS tube as my current setup is using.

But nevertheless food for thought.

Quote from Longview

Nice videos, FreeThinker. It really makes it clear how dedicated you are to doing it right. And the battery story, humorous but what a lesson to us all.

I mentioned sometime back the possible use of a sapphire rod. Actually there are fairly cheap sapphire windows:

http://www.edmundoptics.com/op…ws/sapphire-windows/1904/

They claim good transmissivity from 200 to 5,500 nm (0.2 to 5.5 um). Your bright yellow is producing a lot of energy in the mid visible, that is 500 nm, and of course a lot more in the longer wavelenths including "mid-IR". By the way, I strongly recommend you wear ordinarly oxy-acetylene welding googles when looking at your reactor.... lenses of eyes are fairly routine to replace now, but not retinas!

One could close off your opening allowing much closer positioning for the pyrometer / IR photometer using such a window (assuming the IR transmission was good through the photodiode's spectral range--or even a true pyrometer... Anyway, a sapphire window could be attached at the outside surface of your firebrick, occluding the "hole" or maybe even at another position in the "hole" to create a double walled conduction and convection block. An Al2O3 tube with two sapphire window ends and an evacuated interior would likely be better than a solid rod-- far less conductive and far broader spectral transmissivity, and perhaps cheaper than a sapphire rod. Such an "IR / Vis / UV light pipe", cemented right into the "hole" itself should allow very close image coupling to your IR scope. The much thinner pair of end panes would attenuate less of the thermal signal than a solid rod, regardless of the spectrum. The idea being to get the optical / pyrometric device to "see" only the inside of the reactor rather than a bunch of additional cold brick with a little hot spot.

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Thanks.

I have considered sapphire glass in my double end open variant of the tube with the purpose of doing crude spectroscopy, but the special size requirements made them costly, believe minimum order was 10, not to mention the challenge of making a spectrometry, for my special interest in UV. Final kill, apart from cost and lead time was that sapphire would not cut it as it attenuates quickly at 200nm and the breakpoint is really quality related and the producer did not want to give me full spec on the pieces. Anybody has a high resolution spectrometer in 100-400(or about)nm lying about in the basement? No?

BTW the special range for the Voltcraft Pyro is 8-14um.

Hi,

I have posted a couple of new videos. I am doing calibration runs right now using the modified test bed. I'll get back when I have some interesting graphs and data to write about.

On a more fun note.
Modified test bed

Quote from Longview

Let me suggest that some effort should be put into making the heat capacity of the contents of a "dummy'" / "mock" / "null control" as close to the experimental reactor as possible. Of course the phase change evident in FreeThinker's recent meltdown, would make some of that difficult-- but at least the goal should be passive thermal equivalence. One might have argon as a replacement of the hydrogen. So an equivalent molar weight of nickel, and perhaps a fused lithium aluminum alloy and argon at the heat capacity equivalent to the missing hydrogen. It takes a bit of chemical calculation. If anyone is interested, I will try to work up some numbers for others to critique.

Done with a fair degree of care, such a paired experiment would answer many critics and many critical questions.

By the way, the resistance of the two heaters should be exactly the same, and should remain the same up through operating temperature. Further, any corrosion is likely to be an experimental confound and at least should be made as nearly equal as possible. I believe the precise resistance numbers should also help monitor the health of the heater wires through a trial, and through any series of trials.

For sure, the best way to do a dummy would be to mimic the real situation as closely as possible.

As I am now committed to a certain path in the choices I have made, some things are easier than other to modify. I will not use argon gas in the near future, and I may consider a double setup with a dummy and active reactor, but that too is a change in testbed setup that make it be something for the future.

I do have limited time and funds for this effort, and is now committed to get the current setup stable with surface temperatures at 1000C. Calibrating with Al2O3 sawoff dust at 1 bar, and do the same with LAH and Al2O3 would provide enough to secure a clear determination of anomalous heat on the scale seen in Lugano and by Parkhomov in the real runs, especially if occurring over hours.

I am still looking into the outcome of the previous run with Ni and LAH. When I yesterday was back in my garage lab, I checked the pressure in the reactor, and it was still under pressure. My intention was to put on a new coil and run some more, but is was not possible. The coil was melted in some spots and had fused with the Alumina. I opened up the reactor, or rather had to smash it and found the core tube and the fuel melted in a slightly twisted way. I have attached a picture.

I have reshaped my testbed so it now have insulation around the reactor, also done a change in measurements of the current, and have not yet seen the strange spikes in power, in the data. I am running calibration runs currently for the modified testbed. More to come when available.

Quote from Tarun

An extra reactor can be made and the two heater coils can be connected in series, doubling the resistance.
The other reactor can be empty (or filled with alumina powder), and can serve as a control.
I think Denis had such a setup.

Yes. This is clearly also an option. Will consider this setup as well.

Quote from Ecco the Dolphin

On some blog discussions it's been suggested that nickel does not have any significant hydrogen adsorption capability [1] and that the bulk absorption of hydrogen at atmospheric pressure is very small compared to Palladium, with a maximum H/Ni atomic ratio of about 0.001 at 1500°C [2, 3]. Putting aside any possible correlation with observed LENR effects, I've always assumed that H adsorption of Ni was significant and could have been maximized by increasing exposed surface area. It looks like I was wrong.

Can more informed people add some sources to scientific papers confirming or refuting this?

[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/j…3/n3371/abs/133872a0.html
[2] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02882416#page-1
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_hydride

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The paper you site in [1] is from 1934 (NB: I have only read the abstract). Not to say that they could test this properly back in 1934, but perhaps the conditions were vastly different for the Nickel.
In Sankaranarayanan, T.K., et al.'s paper from 1995 there is an absorption and loading discussion that is interesting, relating to this.

Check also the references in that paper this paper and the statement
"Hydrogen is known to dissociatively adsorb on Ni(111) with a low barrier to reaction, although large exposures are necessary to (nearly) complete saturation " and the two references to support that claim:

[27] K. Christmann, O. Schober, and G. Ertl et al., J. Chem. Phys., 1974, 60, 4528.
[28] H. P. Steinruck, A. Winkler, and K. D. Rendulic, Surf. Sci., 1985, 152, 323.

Quote from GlowFish

Using thicker should reduce the chances of the heater coil burning out or at least prolong the life of it a bit. While this would reduce the overall resistance of the coil, why not make two coils of half your required resistance and wrap them one on top of another with a little cement to separate them, i.e have a two layer coil. You can then connect the ends of the coils in series to increase your resistance or can even connect them so that the coils reinforce or counter any magnetic effects.

True. This could be done. I would need to get a bigger outer tube to hold two 1mm coils and a layer of cement. My current stock can handle only single 1mm at best.

It would be a slightly more stationary solution, but likely the coils would last longer. One might argue that I could mount the second coil around the outer Alumina tube as well, and have no outer Alumina/Mullite surface

Quote from Tarun

Here is Ecco's data:
Firax Tech replic series

The downside of using a thicker wire is that it will need high currents, as you said. Its solution is to insulate everything ( like LENZ group did) by bricks etc, so a lower current can be used to reach higher temperature.

Thanks.

For the Ecco link.

And you are right.

I have been focused on what I put in alone, not what I spew out in radiation and convection. Admittedly, I have not studied the cases with enclosed reactors so closely, as I intended first to NOT to do so. I will thus look into making an enclosure, firstly with Al2O3, to have a robust way to deploy the TCs, and manufacture a new 1mm diam Kanthal A1 coil, and try it out with lower power in the enclosed reactor. But with that said, aiming at having 1000C, in an enclosed system, would be OK for the 0.7 wire as well, so there are reasons to start there.

Quote from Longview

I very much appreciate your efforts and even temperament here Freethinker.

I am concerned that some or all of the replication attempts undeway have a significant handicap with respect to the eventual COP. That is high radiative, conductive and convective heat losses. These can be remedied in various ways without altering the essential chemical and physical mechanisms being evaluated. Examples include using fiberFrax to insulate the "dog bone", using a heating system that is inherently resistant to failure-- for example quartz halogen lamps. Using reflectors to concentrate and/or return radiant energy to the reactor. And so on.

I welcome discussion of this issue in greater detail.

I appreciate the input.

But I have just barely finished my first run with the current setup. No doubt I will change things as I move along, but I will stay true to coil heater for now as that was used in the Lugano report, it was what Parkhomov used. I will however, look into encapsulate the reactor, either partly or completely, as i see it as a mean to make TC measurements more predictable.

Quote from Tarun

I guess there is some issue with PID parameters, its not controlling well, too much oscillation. May be the PID experts here can look at it and suggest some corrections.
If you use a controller, the V,I and power will always be messy. You need to integrate the power before plotting. Take a running average of say 100-500 points (or whatever makes it smooth).
I think Ecco posted a graph showing what Kanthal wires handle high powers. I think it needs to be above 2mm.
A calibration is a must. Else you will never know where you are going.
Other than these minor issues, you are progressing very well .

Thanks for the input.

You are so right. Calibration is a MUST, especially if we are talking about small signals of anomalous heat. Right now, a refueling between a dummy and active fuel require dis-assembly of the reactor such that the position of the TCs, the IR gun laser point position, the actual mm accuracy of the core tube position in the reactor, initial pressure after assembly of transducer, etc etc, will make it all a new situation. Not to mention if the coil breaks too.

What I think I need to do

* an uniform way to deploy the TCs as to ensure that they will do the same job, with as little error as possible, between runs. Possibly by encasing (completely of partly) the reactor with say Al2O3 bricks that are machined allowing for stable mounting of the TCs, same every time. (FiberFrax is not on the table yet, I'll stick with what I have momentarily). Also machining allowing for a gap to be used by the IR gun, at mid of core tube position.

* a series of dummy runs up to 1000C on the shell surface, then average the data and compute random error estimates for the temperature as a function of the power in. Between runs, the reactor should be dismantled or at least remove from the test bed, to get error bars that make sense in the real world.

* find a way to make the SSR current output behave, or register, better. I will try now to move the measuring point to after the SSR to see if the spike go away. I will look into the PID setup, to see if I can make the settling time short and distinct, yet without overshoot.

* post process data such that a moving average is used on the current measurements. Same method employed on all data sets.

Regarding thickness of the wire, if you have the link to Ecco's stuff. please post. The current situation, with the length of the reactor, the max power of the outlet of 10A, 0.7 and 0.5 mm diam are the only reasonable dimensions of the Kanthal A1 to reach powers where it get hot enough. To use thicker wires I need to have another transformer bringing down the voltage but allowing for higher currents, and that trafo must be a 1kW atleast, if not more, secondary voltage matching the ~2 Ohm coil, as to give 20A maximum. I will wait a bit before going to a thicker wire, as such a trafo is expensive, and I feel I have not yet (by far) exhausted my possibilities with what I have.

Quote from goax

Excellent experiment and openness. Thank you Freethinker.

Regarding the power oscillations, it would make much sense to have an averaging of input data to your PID controller in order to mitigate the RMS erratic measurement and/or Solid-State Relay weird behaviour.
Or applying longer period of on/off of the SSR by preventing frequent switching.

However, it depends of course on your setup and what is possible to do in your controller.

Anyway, thank you again, very encouraging first results!

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Yes,

I have no doubt that I could do more to optimize the PID setup for my specific application, possibly remove it completely, and go for a embedded system like me356. I need to look into that.

It is hard to feed the PID any moving average data, as it take the input from a TC directly. As the PID entails integration, that average is in play by the regulator anyway.

Quote from GlowFish

Thanks for that. If you have a moment, try moving the current measurement after the SSR and see if the spikes are still there to try an rule out any oddities with the SSR such as shorting.

It is funny, though, because when I drew that wire diagram, it struck me too. I will try that as soon as I get back to the lab. I plan to do a continuation run Monday, and will rewire according to your suggestion.

Thnx

Thanks all for the feedback. I am in vacation mode today, so I will have to get back to you all on the different items. I managed to scribble a wire diagram to explain where I measure

https://drive.google.com/file/…eG8/view?usp=docslist_api

Some analysis and thoughts

https://docs.google.com/docume…NCFEBdho/edit?usp=sharing

Quote from Tarun

Thanks for the very clear description.
Do you have a plot of calibration data plotted with active run data (Temp vs Power) ?

I have the data, and such plots can be made. As there is no obvious LENR effect in this hydrogenation part I felt it be out of place, and I focused on presenting pressure and temperature instead, as that are the players that matters, not so much the power, in the hydrogenation.

Nevertheless, I will look into it for this data as well, but my prio is now understanding the run the day after.