RE: [Vo]:Nickel beta decay as a driver for LENR
It looks like 64Ni is available in pure form. http://www.americanelements.com/ni64.html Nickel 64 Metal is one of over 250 stable metallic isotopes produced by American Elements for biological and biomedical labeling, as target materials and other applications. Nickel Metal 64 additionally has special application in the noninvasive measurement of human consumption and absorption. Nickel Metal is also available in ultra high purityhttp://www.americanelements.com/Ultra_high_purity_metalspowders.htm and as nanoparticleshttp://www.americanelements.com/Submicron_nano_powders.htm. On another note regarding electrons - we have a sea of them in a metal bond but the hydrogen is nascent in the lattice, if you saturate the Ni with monatomic gas like Arata does in the nested reactors are we creating an electron hungry environment? And when a naked proton leaves the surface of the metal would this effect the electron status as far as slow or fast? Sprinkle in some very dynamic gradients of Casimir force near a cavity wall as the force goes from zero to an average value at some minimal value out away from the wall - specifically the relativistic interpretation of Casimir effect might the apparent speed and therefore probabilities? Regards Fran
RE: [Vo]:Nickel beta decay as a driver for LENR
In searching for candidate usable halo nuclei that might 'fit the bill' for LENR, there is only one other candidate that has turned up so far - calcium. By usable, the implication is for mass production of an actual energy device. For instance, lithium has a rare halo isotope, but the cost is outrageous. However, past use of lithium electrolytes in LENR may reflect a putative 'halo nucleus effect' even in a tiny ratio of isotope concentration. Palladium has repute halo nuclei but the cost is even more outrageous. Let's clarify: we are looking for something that has a prayer to make it to market. Nickel is somewhat of an anomaly in the transition metals, with the 64Ni isotope. I haven't found another transition metal that is higher, so it appears to be a singularity in terms of excess neutrons relative to the most stable isotope. The ultimate cost is another issue. Since nickel is soluble and the density spread is so high, then the use of an ultracentrifuge should enrich this isotope at a competitive cost, but is there a better choice for exploiting a halo nucleus? The criterion I am using is that the element should be a proton conductor with a range of isotope stability such that the most stable isotope atomic weight, when compared to the stable isotope with the most neutrons gives a ratio that is near or higher than nickel (11% higher) and the cost should be under $100 per kilogram. This is tedious and I am about two thirds through the periodic table and only calcium has registered as another candidate . but the bad news is that 48Ca is only .18% of natural abundance; however, the good news is it is twenty percent higher in atomic weight than 40Ca, and given the low cost and solubility, it should be able to be enriched to a higher level at a low cost. Based on this, and the past implications that calcium is active in LENR, it would seem to be a decent candidate for use in an electrolyte. Plus it has superconducting properties, which seems to go hand in hand with LENR. If any researcher out there is enamored with the halo nucleus possibilities, and has large resources (right..) and wants to explore the far fringe of a far-out hypothesis, then my suggestion is using an electrolyte (calcium hydroxide?) which is enriched in 48Ca, perhaps to the range of 10% and a cathode of compressed nickel nanopowder which has been enriched in 64Ni. This would be expensive now, but in a high demand situation and mass production - only a tiny fraction of the cost of palladium, which will surely go over $1000 oz. when the economy improves. Jones From: Roarty, Francis X It looks like 64Ni is available in pure form. http://www.americanelements.com/ni64.html Nickel 64 Metal is one of over 250 stable metallic isotopes produced by American Elements for biological and biomedical labeling, as target materials and other applications. Nickel Metal 64 additionally has special application in the noninvasive measurement of human consumption and absorption. Nickel Metal is also available in ultra high purity http://www.americanelements.com/Ultra_high_purity_metalspowders.htm and as nanoparticles http://www.americanelements.com/Submicron_nano_powders.htm .
Re: [Vo]:Nickel beta decay as a driver for LENR
This has been an interesting thread to read. It has left me wondering if the scientific CF/LENR community could be close to discovering a major transmutation principal, a major physics principle which may turn out to have been responsible for generating a LOT of excess, reliable heat over the years. I hope someone with expertise has been listening in, like Ed Storms. PS: for some reason my google mail spell checker isn't working. Hope I didn't mangle too many words. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
[Vo]:Nickel beta decay as a driver for LENR
The following is the second draft of a new and formative hypothesis (5 hours old) for explaining one category of LENR results involving nickel as the active host; and in particular the Arata-Zhang results and numerous replications. Arata demonstrated early-on a stronger effect in nickel than in palladium - but an alloy of primarily nickel is best of all. The key to that success is probably related to nanostructure - but it highlights the fact that nickel is very likely to be the better choice for host, especially when alloyed with a few percent Pd, for the reasons independent of geometry, to be outlined below. The combination of nanostructure, isotope enrichment, Casimir cavity enhancement and outside energy input can be expected to push the results of a hybrid reactor much closer to the level of what will hopefully be a commercial application. Some background material may be found in Scientific American, June, 1995, pp 90-95 in an article by Sam M. Austin George F. Bertsch, entitled Halo Nuclei. The sub-title is important: Nuclei having excess neutrons or protons teeter on the edges of nuclear stability, known as drip lines. The first relevant fact is that over two-thirds of natural nickel is the isotope Ni-58, which has very high nuclear stability - but there is a 1% isotope which is 6 a.m.u. or over 10% heavier and which has been little studied except in cosmology. There is a boundary line that shows up on a graph of the periodic table, suggesting the stability of isotopes which vary from the trace are going to be marginally unstable, and it is called the drip line. A halo is descriptive of some nuclei above the drip line, which will express a much larger apparent radius than normal for reasons which are not well understood. These nuclei will have a few neutrons or protons that can be located in a transient state well beyond the normal radius, and which would appear to exhibit a halo, if they could be seen. There is a QM probability of some neutrons in halo atoms getting near the limit of strong-force influence, especially under the stress of charge incursion. Hydrogen (proton or deuteron), or any charge incursion into the Coulomb well of the nickel halo atom will suffice to cause stress. Another possible route to disrupting the stability of Ni-64 could be time distortion or relativistic effects inside a Casimir cavity. Ni-64 isotope spans unstable Ni-63 in the range of stability. Ni-63 is a beta emitter with a fairly short half-life. If 'heavy nickel' loses a neutron by a number of routes, from the expanded halo due to charge incursion or a Casimir effect - it then goes to Ni-63. If it decays all in one step it will give up a fast ~67 keV electron and no gamma, other than secondary; following which it will transmute into to the most abundant isotope of copper Cu-63. This is very elegant for a number of reasons relating to experimental findings. For better understanding some aspects of LENR involving nickel and its alloys, and the prior range of experiments covering the past 19 years, it is important to keep in mind these two facts: that nearly one percent of natural nickel is 10% heavier than the majority isotope, and the second is that nickel is a facile proton conductor. The net result of this overlap is that the heavy isotope could be a previously unrecognized fuel for the many claims of excess heat or LENR in nickel, and possibly even some of the excess seen energy seen in Mills' experiments. Another implication which is to be put forward here: nickel LENR was once as unpredictable as the same reactions based on palladium - possibly even more unpredictable, up until the Arata nickel alloy was developed. That past unpredictability could be related to a natural variation in the isotope ratio of Ni-64 which has already been noticed in cosmology. However, the reliability of the Arata replications indicates that a nanopowder alloy with zirconia and a small amount of palladium can solve any problem related to variable, or lower isotopic ratio. What is unknown at this juncture is if the Arata-type results can be enhanced and taken to a much higher level (higher delta-t) with an isotope enrichment. The energy released from this decay is very low for a nuclear reaction, and the ash leaves little tell-tale trace of transmutation, since copper so ubiquitous and there is no remnant radioactivity. This can explain why the indicia of the reaction are hard to spot. On the positive side, it means that nickel has several hundred times more energy per atom than is found in chemical reactions - since about one percent of it will have about 67 KeV of mass-energy. The average is over 600 eV per atom, and even if only a fraction of it can be easily used in a given time frame, this can serve to explain mysteries which other theories fail to explain. It should be noted now that the appearance of helium from catalyzed D+D fusion will also be more easily explained with this hypothesis, than with almost
Re: [Vo]:Nickel beta decay as a driver for LENR
In reply to Jones Beene's message of Tue, 8 Jun 2010 11:20:18 -0700: Hi, [snip] If there is a cold neutron (displaced from the halo) it will decay in situ and release another catalytic electron. [snip] Neutrons don't stay cold very long. Thermal collisions occur billions of times per second, and the average age of free neutron is something like 10 minutes. In short it's going to get gobbled up long before it decays. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Nickel beta decay as a driver for LENR
In reply to Jones Beene's message of Tue, 8 Jun 2010 11:20:18 -0700: Hi, [snip] This assumes that the effective mass of the beta particle (fast electron) could occasionally either range into that of a muon, due to relativistic effects - some of which can be engendered by Casimir cavity confinement. [snip] Negative muons have a mass of about 100 MeV. That's a far cry from 67 keV. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
RE: [Vo]:Nickel beta decay as a driver for LENR
-Original Message- From: mix...@bigpond.com Negative muons have a mass of about 100 MeV. That's a far cry from 67 keV. All good points. On to the next draft ... or the round file :) The key novelty, if there is anything to the hypothesis at all - is the heavy nickel isotope, which no one has (apparently) picked up on before as being relevant ... but the problem is: trying to broaden the hypothesis beyond that ... Maybe I should retreat to the simplest scenario first - Arata-Zhang et al.
