--- William Beaty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I wonder if the temperature of the electrode is
> critical with this. As I
> understand the Mizuno "violent CF" experiment, the
> platinum foil must
> first heat up before the interesting stuff begins.
> Using thin,
> low-thermal-mass electrodes would let their
> temperature rise quickly.
> Perhaps it's just Leidenfrost effect, where the
> electrode surface remains
> higher than 100C degrees and produces a very thin
> layer of steam.
********* Hi Bill. One of the fascinating aspects of
this is indeed the "sheath" or micro-force field
effect that looks like it initiates when the wire tip
contacts the liquid surface and one gets the first
tiny hissing arc. Steam or electrodynamic? One clue
is that of diameter or surface area. If you use a
larger wire, if you push the wire in past a certain
point, it feels like the pressure of the liquid
finally exceeds some "push" pressure, and the sheath
collapses. A very thin wire can be inserted quite a
ways, with the glowing plasma display along its
length. So surface area is a factor. Another point
to ponder is why the effect only seems to work with
select aqueous solutions, maybe those bearing lots
o'hydrogen - KOH, NaOH, HCl, H2SO4, HNO3. Other
materials such as NaCl, KCl, potassium carbonate,
lithium sulphate - all producing a conductive solution
- didnae produce the effect at all.
An arc
> would then exist in this layer, and because the
> high-resistance arc would
> support a large voltage, it would electrically heat
> itself much more than
> if the water directly contacts the electrode.
****** This I can agree with. As soon as the wire
"wets" or if it is wetted to begin with, all you get
is boring old bubbles and heavy current draw.
> If this is how it works, then if we heat the
> electrolyte to 100C
> beforehand, and perhaps manually heat the electrode
> first with a torch,
> will this eliminate any "wait time" at the start of
> the Mizuno experiment.
******* When I get back to this on Monday, I could
try heating some of the wires manually and then
carefully dunking to see if the sheath bubble occurs.
> All of these sorts of "submerged arc" experiments
> are variants of... the
> Electric Pickle!
>
******** the cathodic cucumber!
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