From: Bob Higgins
Ø The fact that the alumina is not 100% theoretically dense does not mean that the remainder is air/porosity. The remainder is a much lighter weight silicate glass in the grain boundaries The density of silicates is slightly lower than alumina - 2.65 compared to 3.95 but actual voids in the subnanometer geometry are necessary to get the density down to the 3.65 range. When we are talking about hydrogen permeability – and especially at high temperature, almost any porosity will allow substantial amounts of H2 gas to diffuse over time. It is all about the rate. Actually, it now appears that very slow diffusion can be a big advantage. Rossi apparently found that he could run a reactor for 30 days or so on about 10 milligrams of hydrogen which was introduced as a solid in AlLiH4 (1/10th of 1/10th gram). However, in analyzing the two reportedly successful reactors, the limiting factor does not seem to be hydrogen inventory, but instead it is nickel contact. The sub-gram of nickel is simply not enough since it cannot vaporize or expand in surface area. In fact the heat would tend to level and reduce any nano surface features. And based on comparing that amount of powder with the past 20 years of experiments in Ni-H, it is grossly insufficient. I keep returning to the Thermacore gas phase work for the Air Force as a standard of what can be expected. A sub-gram of nickel is too little… yet, if we have much more nickel available in the resistance wire, then the situation is different. We should not overlook that there is the modality of the SPP. If the light emission intensity were not so amazing in these dogbones, we could possibly overlook the SPP. But given that you have the interface of the Nichrome, with the ceramic, and the strong incandescent light - which is the breeding ground of surface plasmons, and then you also have the slow hydrogen migration out of the tube, it appears to me that this is the key to success, and correspondingly – the problem for the MFMP replication. I hope that this analysis is missing something, but if sealing the reactor does not work, then that will be further indication that there is more going on with the resistance wire and plasmons - than what is happening inside the tube. The bulk of heat may relate to SPP interacting with hydrogen so as to form either DDL, f/H or LENR. Take your pick. The DDL looks good to me based on the bumps in the noise which Parkhomov detected at a few key junctures. Jones
