Robin van Spaandonk writes, >> If the claimed energy is actually 19600 cal/g, this is equal to 19600*121.76 = 2.38 x 10^6 cal/mole, which is too much to be real.
>1) Maybe ballotechnic reactions (chemical reactions that occur on inner shell electrons). > It is about 103 eV / atom of Sb, which is indeed much more than one would get from any normal chemical reaction, but lies quite neatly in the "Mills ball park". However, antimony appears to be explosive without the necessity of hydrogen being present and it does not appear that Sb hydrides very well. Nor does the explosiveness require either an oxidation or reduction chemical reaction, presumably. If a halide is required for the polymorphic instability, then the net result of having it there is not for its oxidation potential as it is already bound, and even if not, the explosion release about 58 times energy than burning Antimony in Chlorine, if those old numbers could be trusted. Are we assuming that is where the problem lies? Old numbers which have not been replicated at least not publicly, even though they should have been? Perhaps something else is going on, as you will see at the end of this post. If the numbers could be trusted and this phase change (allotrope or polymorph) only works with a halide, then there are some inferences that can be made from a closer look at the electron structure. "Web Elements" http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Sb/econ.html has really improved their visualization capability with the addition of the Orbitron, but it requires some applets to be added to your browser. The shell structure (51 electrons) is 2.8.18.18.5 but as you can see from the visualizations this leaves some outer orbital electrons with more energy than some inner orbitals, not that unusual but perhaps that is how you get this unusual phase change where the density of the element can change so rapidly between the allotropes (or polymorphs). Perhaps the density shift in allotropes has the effect of being exactly resonant with a 4th shell electron being absent and this one is bound at ~103 eV or whatever. who knows? It has to be more than just the density change itself, because in the element tin, Sn, the allotrope change is much more severe, yet tin is not known to be explosive, is it? The point is, from limited modern data available to us, we do suspect that Sb is explosive without the necessity of either an oxidation or reduction chemical reaction. It would be nice to know if the explosiveness benefits from LN tempering, and why else would they do it? The explosiveness is not chemical per se, but it does involve the electron configuration. Hence we should call it supra-chemical or ballotechnic. Hasn't most of this research been classified? Why else would there be little of current interest on the internet? I suspect that if ballotechnic reactions are real, then they are classified. See what happens when you try to get this document about so-called "shock induced chemical reactions": http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=437696 BTW good evidence does turn up in expense reports, which may have slipped through the cracks that someone is paying for R&D in this field, especially to one Yasuyuki Horie, Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering, NCSU: Horie, Y. Modeling of Shock-Induced Chemical Reactions in Powder Mixtures, US Navy Horie, Y. Interactions of Shock Waves with Materials Having Engineered Reactive Microstructures, US Army Research Office Horie, Y. Modeling of Ballotechnic Material Response, Sandia National Laboratories Horie, Y. Modeling of Shock-Induced Inorganic Chemical Reactions, Georgia Institute of Technology Horie, Y. Modeling of Ballotechnic Reactions in Powder Mixtures, Aluminum Company of America Hmm... The DoE and DoD say this class of reaction does not exist, yet they keep funding the research, and denying LENR but not funding it .... very strange, and just one more reason why the lack of high level support for LENR research may have some of its rationale in cold-war holdover fear, no called terrorism fear. Perhaps they know a lot more about LENR then we think they do.... Jones
