See inline below ... On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote:
> *From:* Bob Higgins > > Ø JB: Then you are mistaken. The purity is immaterial – the > porosity is everything. Of course, if MFMP used a fused tube then that is > another design flaw. > > Ø BH: The tube MFMP used is a high purity, high (near theoretical) > density alumina tube > > Well, there you have it ! You have made clear that there a second part of > the problem – and another intrinsic design flaw. > > There is no scientific reason to make these kinds of major changes in a > successful experiment, and then to defend them to the point of > irrationality, when the positive results did not happen. > > The tubes of Rossi and Parkhomov are sintered alumina. Sintered alumina > has just enough porosity -- 7-8% to allow proton diffusion. The > experimenters may not have chosen porous tubes for that exact reason, but > that doesn’t matter in the end. Why they chose sintered alumina is not > important - since it works. > BH: Jones, I don't know what you are talking about here "fused tube". Alumina IS a sintered ceramic product. CoorsTek is the major supplier of such alumina forms - they have been around forever in this market. The choice is AD998 (99.8% alumina) or mullite ( http://css.coorstek.com/scripts/css512.wsc/op/op_indexB2C.html ). I have heard of fused quartz, but never fused alumina. We are likely using the same alumina as Rossi and Parkhomov. Alumina ceramics, in general, come in different grades varying from 96% to 99.8% but the tubes are not available in 96%, probably because it is too mechanically fragile. Mullite is only 2/3 alumina and the rest silica. The only real choice is the AD998 material. None of these substrates are porous. The space between the sapphire (crystalline Al2O3) is silicates (glass). Proton conduction, when it occurs does not occur through a pore, but rather through a silicate/sapphire boundary. Nor does it matter where --- in the reactor --- the experimenter “thought” > the reaction was occurring, unless there is proof that the experimenter > really understands what is going on. No one understands this reaction, as > best I can tell – so in any replication, the main thing that can be done > is to duplicate. The MFMP did not duplicate. > BH: You must realize that insufficient details were published in the Lugano report for replication. The best the MFMP could do was to back-engineer on the basis of what was described and by doing some forensic research (Greenyer). In the case of Parkhomov, there are more details for replication, but no specification for the alumina, or how its seals were created. The MFMP was at a point with dogbone development where they could choose to test it with Parkhomov's fuel. That is being pursued now. Further replication of Parkhomov may occur, but MFMP could not begin that replication until his report; and new materials must be ordered. MFMP is in contact with Parkhomov and will be able to find out additional details. It does little to try to defend these changes “logically”, since the end > result was a null experiment. Maybe the next run will be positive, but as > of now, it appears that the changes which are at variance to the > successful runs - are the crux of the problem. > BH: There is no such evidence at all at this point as to why the first run failed. Based on what was done, the most likely cause of failure was failure of the seal, which is being investigated now. We don't give up that easily and won't draw a conclusion until we have ascertained all the facts we can gather. In both the successful experiments, there was porous alumina > BH: You have absolutely no basis for saying this. Based on available alumina tube materials, there is no "porous alumina". together with nickel-based resistance wire. > BH: There is contra-evidence of Ni based resistance wire in the Lugano hotCat. In the unsuccessful MFMP reaction the was non-porous alumina and there was > no nickel in the resistance wire. It does not take a genius to understand > that these two differences could be responsible for the lack of success > since we have 20 years of papers to use to help in an analysis. We know > the gainful Ni-H reaction is proved – going back to Thermacore, and that > it requires hydrogen in contact with nickel – lots of nickel. > BH: There are many configurations of Ni-H LENR. The hotCat technology is different; its closest technology is the original eCat. For the Thermacore gas phase experiment, they used hundreds of feet of > nickel capillary tube to get 50 excess watts. It is incomprehensible to > think that far less nickel will give far more excess heat, simply by > raising the temperature. Bottom line: the sub-gram of nickel fuel is NOT > sufficient in my opinion, and based on past experiments which did produce > gain. > BH: As I said, the reports of Ni-H LENR vary over several orders of magnitude in the specific energy density (per gram of Ni). And yes – this is my opinion and you can and will ignore it. But I would be > remiss in not putting it forward and trying to emphasize how much > stronger the scientific logic is - than to say basically “we made major > changes, got null results, but the changes we made are defensible.” > BH: Please continue to challenge the MFMP decisions. Jones > >
