I think replicators should read carefully this section of what chuck says: "Just so know how machined the coins into electrodes; I just used a hacksaw and made two cuts into the coin to make a tab, and then bent it up with needle nose pliers. The tab was about 1/8" thick and stood about 1/2" tall. The end result was a little C-shaped electrode."
I would think that cutting and bending might create numerous NAE sites. This step may be very important. ----- Original Message ----- From: David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 07:36:13 -0000 (UTC) Subject: Re: [Vo]:Good Alloy for Celani type reaction costs 5 cents : Chuck Sites I read that carbon rods could be obtained at craft stores so I might take a trip to find one if my stainless is a problem. Did someone mention that iron might be a catalyst in Rossi's device? I guess I might get some for this experiment by default. Originally, I was using a second nickel for the electrode attached to the power supply positive terminal. The problem I encountered with this choice was that apparently copper oxide or nickel oxide forms very quickly in this arrangement which greatly increased the resistance of the system. I had to clean off the green mess quite often to keep the current at a modest level. Unfortunately, I did not have any carbon around to try, so I used the best alternative which was stainless. I have noticed that it is tarnishing now after several hours of operation and, as you suggest, it might ruin the plating of the test nickel. I bought some borax at the grocery for an electrolyte and today discovered that people are using the sodium carbonate that you list below to repair rust damage to metals. It is not clear why one would be better than the other since both negative ions are non reactive. The original discussion about this experiment pointed to the use of borax. I will use whichever is agreed upon. I had a mischievous thought of heating the hydrogen loaded nickel in some manner to see if that started a reaction. I am afraid to work with hydrogen tanks due to fire and explosion hazard so a Rossi type device is off limits, but nothing would prevent me from just heating the nickel in air. I am not concerned that a major explosion is possible since I would be surprised if any extra heat is released at all! This set of experiments is mainly being conducted for me to learn about electrolysis and electroplating. Any LENR activity would be welcome but not expected with my crude setup. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Sun, Sep 23, 2012 2:08 am Subject: Re: [Vo]:Good Alloy for Celani type reaction costs 5 cents : Chuck Sites On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 10:19 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote: I would be concerned about the cost of platinum. Stainless steel might work since it is un reactive. The problem of cost is an important one, since we're talking about a tabletop experiment. The danger of falling back upon "unreactive" materials such as gold, carbon and stainless steel is that they are only relatively inert under chemical reactions. Under proton or deuteron capture, for example, they are quite reactive: - 197Au + p -> 194Pt + α + 8.4 MeV - 197Au + D -> 199Hg + 11 MeV - 12C + D -> 13C + p + 2.7 MeV - 52Cr + p -> 53Mn + 6.6 MeV (chromium is an ingredient in stainless steel) I appreciate that there is no consensus on this list that proton and deuteron capture are taking place, and beyond that, there is incredulity. But people such as Ed Storms take the possibility seriously, and the numbers are very suggestive when one looks at the transmutation results in the aggregate. So if it might be the case that these processes are occurring, this dimension can be included in a search for suitable controls as well as possibly being used for further investigation. Not taking it into account could lead to frustrated attempts to find a blank -- and it occurs to me that this itself is an interesting detail. Taking a second look at carbon, I see that it is inert under proton capture, so graphite might actually be a good choice or hydrogen-1 after all (but not hydrogen-2). But at the moment I'm looking at data for an experiment in which palladium was used with hydrogen-1; along the lines I've been suggesting in previous posts, this would be a good combination for a control run, since proton capture is not energetically favorable in palladium. This turns out to be too simplistic an approach, however; in the case of this experiment, the choice of electrolyte, Na2CO3, appears to have been important, and isotope shifts in the vicinity of sodium were observed, in addition to many others. For similar reasons, the material of the container could be important -- teflon (with carbon and fluorine in it), pyrex (with boron) and stainless steel, for example, might all be susceptible to whatever processes are taking place within the active material nearby. So if proton and deuteron capture are occurring, the search for a control may need to take into account not just the substrate and the isotope of hydrogen, but the composition of the electrolyte and container as well. Once we start talking about deuterium, the search for a control system that meets the present criteria becomes nearly impossible, because deuterium can combine in exothermic reactions with itself. Under those circumstances, going with the present assumptions, the substrate need not be anything more than a matrix that facilitates the various reactions. Eric
