Jones and Bob—

Bob is correct rfegarding terminology for alloys.  An alloy has an ionic bond 
between metallic nuclei as I understand.   But those bonds may only occur at 
grain boundaries with individual grains of the “quasi-alloy” being in bulk one 
or the other metallic element.

However the smaller the grains, the more ionic bi-metallic alloy you get.

With this concept in mind starting a manufacturing process for Ni-Ag “alloy” 
would use nano sized metallic particles and proiceed to obtain a homogeneous 
mixture of the two metals, evacuate the mixture and hot press the mixture with 
various sintering times to allow a variety of heats and  LENR properties.

Homogeneous mixing is the key.  Cryogenic conditions using a liquid gas such as 
nitrogen or helium may help avoid clumping of like metal particles during 
mixing.  Jones suggestion of a rapid ball milling procedure (with an inert 
cryogenic fluid) may work well.  Maybe merely a tumbling mixing would work.  
However, I would guess that ball milling would further attrite the Ni  and or 
Ag nano-particles and assure good mixing.

The N or helium should coat each particle with  atoms to avoid clumping.  When 
the fluid mixture is poured in to a hot press mold evacuated and hot pressed, 
the individual Ni and Ag particles should remain well mixed as the N gas (or 
other gas) evaporates from its position around reach individual particle.   
Boundary exchange of particle nuclei may then occur at temperature.

An interesting alternative would be to use liquid H with precautions to handle 
a reaction should LENR conditions be right.  This may result in a bi-metallic 
hydride ripe for LENR with correct resonant stimulation and ambient magnetic 
conditions.

SAFETY IS A CRITICAL CONSIDERATION IMHO.

Bob Cook


Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10

From: Bob Higgins<mailto:rj.bob.higg...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2017 7:41 AM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com<mailto:vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Subject: [Vo]:"Type A nickel" ?

Jones,  As you have discussed, the Type A Pd that appears to be LENR active is 
an actual alloy.  In an alloy you expect an atomic level crystal lattice 
alteration - the lattice constants of the alloy are uniform and different than 
with Pd alone.  However, what you describe as a "mechanical alloy" is unlikely 
to be anything other than an admixture of grains of Ag with grains of Ni.  An 
"alloy" and a "mechanical alloy" are two vastly different things.  It is sort 
of like the nickel silver not having any silver - the mechanical alloy has no 
alloy.
True alloying would alter the lattice constants by creating a new crystal 
structure incorporating the alloy metal at the basic atomic crystallographic 
level; hopefully in a way that allows more H to enter the lattice.  Also, 
forming a true alloy would potentially lower the vacancy formation energy of 
the Ni; which, in some theories would raise the LENR rate.  OTOH, if a 
"mechanical alloy" is formed, the only difference achieved will be creation of 
dirty grain boundaries between solid grains of Ni and Ag.  It is possible that 
effects could occur at such grain boundaries, so it can't hurt to try.  It is 
just hard to envision what would promote LENR by creating a "mechanical alloy".

On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 6:10 PM, Jones Beene 
<jone...@pacbell.net<mailto:jone...@pacbell.net>> wrote:

One further detail about the possible advantage of using silver alloyed with 
nickel in LENR, instead of pure nickel - with hydrogen as the gaseous reactant, 
instead of deuterium.

If this were to work for LENR gain, the identity of the nuclear reaction is not 
the same. Obviously, such an alloy as Ni-Ag (assuming it is made via mechanical 
alloying)... would be unlikely to produce helium from fusion, as happens in 
Pd-D... since there is no deuterium (although a alpha emission following proton 
nuclear tunneling is not ruled out.) But there is an ideal alternative reaction.

First - a detail which you may not be aware of is the composition of control 
rods in nuclear fission reactors going back 50 years. As it turns out - silver 
has been commonly used as an alloy in control rods, along with boron. Part of 
the explanation is here but there is more to it than meets the eye. Silver is 
like a magnet for neutrons more so than any other element across the entire 
spectrum.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/grayson1/

In short, silver has a high cross section for neutrons of all energies whereas 
boron and cadmium and other absorbents generally work with neutrons of a narrow 
energy range. Silver wants them all and this could imply more, if Ag works with 
nickel.

But where are the neutrons to being with? - oops - there are none, or so it 
seems.

But lets broaden this suggestion to include Holmlid's results. Holmlid shows 
that UDH can be made simply by flowing hydrogen over a catalyst. If so then we 
could end up with a neutron substitute, which is the so-called "quasi-neutron".

This presumed particle is larger than a neutron, but otherwise could be a 
substitute. This quasi-neutron could also be what Widom and Larsen are claiming 
as an active particle of LENR.

The crux of the issue is this. Silver has a high cross-section for neutrons of 
all energies and the quasi neutron could also favor silver - but this is not 
proved. If it happens, the energy of the gamma should be less, since the 
mass-energy of UDH is less. Also the half-life following activation is very 
short and there is little or no residual radioactivity.

Jones

Much has been said about Type A palladium and its special reactivity with 
hydrogen, some of which is due to the alloy being one fourth silver. Since pure 
palladium doesn't work as well, it might be said that most of the reactivity 
seen in cold fusion has been due to the special properties of the alloy, which 
is a 3:1 ratio (75% Pd 25% Ag).

In many ways, nickel can be considered to be a surrogate of palladium. Nickel 
resides directly under Pd in the Periodic table, and has an identical valence 
electron structure. This leads one to wonder about an alloy of nickel and 
silver, based on transposing the results of cold fusion to protium, instead of 
deuterium.

Unfortunately, in the historical context - and going back 300 years in 
metallurgy, the term "nickel silver" refers to a well known alloy of copper, 
nickel and zinc which contains zero silver. Essentially, nickel silver is a 
brass alloy that looks like much like the more expensive silver and is much 
stronger and more durable - making it a great substitute for most common uses.

This old alloy was created to serve exactly the same purpose as silver for 
attractive shinny flatware but not as prohibitively expensive - about 20 times 
less expensive per unit of weight than silver. This semantic confusion did not 
lead to neglect of finding a real alloy of nickel and silver since these two 
metals are indeed mutually insoluble. They do not mix. That kind of 
insolubility is somewhat unusual in itself for metals so similar - but 
basically the two metals do NOT alloy by melting together as is commonly done.

However, this proposed LENR alloy which I will call "Type A Nickel" in the 3:1 
ratio has been studied in another context - and found to have exceptional 
properties for water splitting. To accomplish this they had to go to 
extraordinary lengths to achieve an alloy. There are very few papers on this 
because of the lack of a commercial alloy which can be purchased.

BUT ... there is a strong suspicion that "Type A Nickel" could be special for 
replacing pure nickel in LENR. This assumes that silver is reactive in its own 
right for a nuclear reaction, such as in the protonation reaction Robin 
mentioned in another thread.

BTW - In the paper "Nickel–silver alloy electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution 
and oxidation in an alkaline electrolyte"  Tang and others showed that the NiAg 
alloy is an excellent catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction. Based on 
the free energy of adsorbed hydrogen, theory predicts that alloys of nickel and 
silver are very active for these type of hydride reactions and they are. The 
alloy is  just hard to make or else you would have heard about it before now.

Basically - the Type A Nickel could work better for NiH reactions than nickel, 
since it is twice as reactive for water splitting (as defined in their test) 
which needs to be proven out. This testing has been neglected in the past - due 
to the lack of electrodes... for which there is a work-around. That is what I 
propose to add: an easy work around at least for some experiments.

My suggestion to anyone contemplating a gas phase reaction is to try mixing 
nickel-black and silver-black in a high speed ball mill, in a ratio of 3:1 --- 
where mechanical alloying is expected. Then, use this composite powder instead 
of nickel. Mechanical alloying is special in its own way and could add 
something akin to surface treatment.

Electrolysis reactions would be more difficult to accomplish with powder - and 
since this proposed work-around for silver/nickel insolubility involves metal 
powders and mechanical alloying a different geometry would be needed for the 
cell. However, powder has been used for electrolysis electrodes before (as a 
colloid) - and it could be worth the effort.






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