Posts by Longview

Very good advice from all above. I hope all will read and heed. If one reads Chemical & Engineering News regularly, there are "surprising" accidents reported quite often, and often those make the pages because someone was killed or injured. And that is presumably just ordinary chemistry. With at least the theoretical potential to generate energy densities 1000X or more conventional chemistry, the risky endpoint of an "L" ENR explosion should be on every experimenter's mind.

I guess I can answer my own question in one regard. If we are speaking of electrostatic fields in an electrolysis setup, the nanoprotrusion will create very high volts/cm potential gradients at and near the tip of the protrusion. Perhaps this contributes beyond the surface-to-volume mechanism alone. Such a discussion is reminscent of Mizuno's emphasis on Nernst pressure in his 1997 book in English translation (by Jed Rothwell) "Nuclear Tranmutation: the Reality of Cold Fusion" (Infinite Energy Press). Fleischmann and Pons also paid great attention to Nernst pressure. These pressures are truly immense, it is almost unbelievable that any electrode surface structure could survive such. For example, on p. 103 Mizuno give the pressure as 10^17 atm, that is about a million times the pressure at the center of the sun. Not a surprise to those who know the numbers: the total output of energy from the sun divided by its volume shows us that it is generating energy on the order of a watt or so per cubic meter. Any CF / LENR experiment producing such tiny amounts of energy would show a COP, at best, so near 1 that its excess heat would be confirmably zero. Widom Larson and such theories that bypass Coulombic repulsion may well take away the interest in Nernst pressure. But as long as "protrusions" show interesting behavior with respect to LENR, we can at least keep the idea of actually overcoming Coulomb rather than simply bypassing it. The pioneers (Swartz, McKubre, Hagelstein, Storms etc.) have indicated that there may be a unified explanation for CF / LENR. I suspect that Nernst pressure, it is truly a factor, suggests at least two fundamentally distinct mechanistic paths.

Who here thinks that the "nanoprotrusions" and that the other evidences of nanoparticles being successful in LENR as we are seeing it today, might simply be evidence that the surface to volume ratio is greatly increased?

And who might suspect that special electronic orbital features uniquely found at surfaces are key to the LENR proscess?

Best wishes,
Longview

With all due respect to AlainCo: "Past fiasco" involving any of the Neofire participants?? Please elaborate for any newbies here. A little evidence rather than what appears to be innuendo would be prudent if we are to progress. Recall that character assassination is another tool abundantly used in the field against CF pioneers. Many can now appreciate that such "tools" impede experimental science at least as often as they may advance it.

Not "liking" a corporate name is anyone's privilege. Projecting the dislike to the end of undermining their invitation and enterprise, in this Forum, and apparently without reason, seems a bit unjust-- or is this merely an inside joke of some sort? Some explanation Neil Farbstein, please!

Thanks to all for any clarifications.

Too early to judge. Their offer is positive by all appearances. They seek potential and actual collaborators. Interesting to see what are their available tools, instruments and technological competencies.

Thanks for the ideas AlainCo! I am always impressed by the small and simple as a first choice for investigative work. It is one of the beautiful things about Parkhomov's recent effort. And you have the essence of the present situation, since he seems to be in a subsantial positive (over unity COP) energy production in spite of the losses-- this is impressive in itself.

But looking just a bit ahead, if I may.... (perhaps in another or existing thread?) A little more attention to details of heat flow can allow very small and relatively safe experiments.... handy for looking at a lot a variables in parallel for example. I

In my mind doing 1% or even 10% loss bath calorimetry is always a challenge to the amateur, or to the professional with a limited budget-- but it certainly is likely less challenging than radiative calorimetry, and I suspect the bath is less likely to be challenged by observers and critics.... if done well and as transparently as possible. At least in theory, one needs only to generate enough COP to overwhelm any and all measurement errors and physical losses. But in the reality of the planet, technology, the marketplace, higher convincing COPs make for much more consistent progress in nearly every aspect of the lenr field (capital, manpower, resources, theory, timeliness of implementation and so on.)

I hope my suggestions in my last post show that I am sure inexpensive modifications of Parkhomov's apparatus can be, and should be made.

Your speculation that we might translate an F&P scheme over to refractory temperatures in a gaseous reactor system such as Lugano / Parkhomov is an interesting challenge, even at the thought experiment level. Here is where a small lenr reaction might be conducted essentially completely inside of a conventional "bomb" calorimeter. I think it can be done without even a 1000th part of a NASA budget. But that still may be a lot for "little guys". With careful planning and cooperation, perhaps the rest of us can work toward NASA lke perfection on a bunch of modest garage workshop budgets.. I believe we can, and I am certain many others on the lenr forum also have this conviction.

Again, thanks to you Alain and others for making this forum possible!

With Gratitude for all the good and open work of Parkhomov and for excellent translations recently appearing:

I return to an issue relating to efficiency in measuring energy outputs in the Parkhomov and in the Lugano experiments. The former is essentially bath calorimetry, while the latter is essentially radiometric. Both systems have strengths, if implemented optimally. I am certain that the Parkhomov data would much more resemble that for Lugano if both were measured in the same way, or at least with similar perfection in the two techniques. In some senses, the two measurement regimes are currently at least partially complementary. But of course we cannot simply add the two measurements. Instead, it would appear best to make both techniques robust enough to provide nearly identical momentary and time integrated energy measurements.

The Parkhomov apparatus, while admirably simple in design and relatively easy to replicate surely suffers from a significant inefficiency in coupling the heat output to the water bath. This is due to several related issues around radiative, convective and conductive coupling. It is clear that the "le Creuset" style of pot in which the actual alumina cylinder is housed will also allow substantial heating of the pot lid, and thus increase the secondary radiative and convective losses as well from the heated top and the portion of the pot that is not near the surrounding water bath. The styrene foam and aluminum foil outer lid is necessary but not sufficient. Further inefficiency in heat coupling to the bath surely results from direct convective leakage of hot gas (mainly air here) around the top edge of the pot. Additional inefficiency would be expected since the spectral output of the hot alumina is substantially in visible and near infra-red. This radiative energy is not coupling optimally to the white and fairly shiny inside of the "le Creuset" style pot. Nor is it likely to be efficiently absorbed in some alternative set up allowing direct exposure of the light and IR to water, since water is quite transparent to visible and near IR, at least over such short path lengths.

Improvements could consist of refinishing the inside of the pot with a black and IR absorptive high temperature coating of low broadbamd reflectivity. Further, the lid of the pot could be made more reflective by adding a layer of polished and/or "electroless" nickel plating, or by attaching a thin polished stainless steel or other suitable reflector just below the lid. This would then allow the higher energy IR and light to directly return to the blackened pot and thence to the water bath.

In the situation here of a relatively open calorimetric system, the relatively poor thermal conductivity of cast iron and its enamel interior and exterior, must further degrade the capture of a substantial portion of the energy generated.

Most of the issues raised above could be addressed in future work with relatively modest modifications. I will certainly be thinking of ways in which the reactor cell might be in contact more directly with an inert heat exchange fluid and probably under substantial high presure. Of course such arrangements could easily become dangerous as pressures rose. But efficiency optimization and avoidance of the "burn out" and/or hotspots in the reactor may require such accommodation.

Hot Cat replication by Russian physicist A. Parkhomov. See for example translation linked at http://coldfusionnow.org/russi…-energy-than-it-consumes/

There is an E-cat News pdf, that appears to be the original English translation.

Note absence of K2CO3 or other putative Andrea Rossi "catalyst". That is of course ignoring the possibility that Al2O3 of the housing could participate. The 2.6 COP seems reasonably close to the Lugano replication, and that is perhaps showing that near IR and visible will not couple well to the ambient water of the bath. Together the Lugano radiometric measurement and a traditional bath would seem to catch more than the either alone. Once again, since both methods miss a lot of energy, it appears favorable for an ultimate COP value well above the reports. With all the usual caveats of course, relating to "preliminary" or pilot data acquisition, particularly when the funding may still be a bit thin.

My apologies for the multiple posts on this topic. I am still finding my way around the Forum.

Further, I should note that the originating source for the almost complete translation is E-cat World.
Again the linkout I found was:
http://coldfusionnow.org/russi…-energy-than-it-consumes/

On closer examination I see it is truly a Hot Cat replication. This invites a thread, no?

I just saw a replication of the E-cat by a Russian scientist described at Cold Fusion Now. Here is the linkout:
http://coldfusionnow.org/russi…-energy-than-it-consumes/

Hopefully this can start a thread, as a newby I don't exactly see that path on my ancient laptop.

Longview here, with best wishes for all this Western New Year, and to all that may celebrate.

Thanks for your abundant good work AlainCo. Even though you do quite well with the English you profess not to have time to learn, and I understand this perfectly, since I cannot afford the time to learn French-- even though my wife is a French citizen. But the last phrase above is baffling to me. Let me paraphrase some interpretations to get to your meaning:

Original from AlainCo: "But nothing will be bigger than soon"

Four possible interpretatons I can imagine:
"But something bigger will be coming soon"
Or perhaps: "Everything coming soon will be bigger [and by implicaton better for LENR... Perhaps my wishful thinking]
Or perhaps less optimistically:
"Nothing bigger will be coming soon"
Or perhaps a tempered middle ground:
"Nothing will be bigger than what is coming soon"

I would hope that I am not the only one of our 600 + members that can benefit from a clarification here. Thanks