Does it not seem reasonable to believe that the local heating of the nickel particles by induction would spread out beyond just those particles? It is a pretty complicated mess to deal with, but there is reason to assume that all of the metal would become heated in the vicinity. It is going to require some detailed experimentation to verify that the induction effects are limited to just a few metal particles among a large conglomerate of different metals.
The microwave oven is much more complicated to deal with in this regard. I tend to agree with you that the skin effect is so strong at these frequencies that it will complicate experimentation accuracy enormously. Solid, old fashioned direct resistive heating should not be dismissed so quickly. Simple is better in most cases. And, keep in mind that all of the evidence that we have seen to date that is somewhat accepted has been performed with heaters of this type. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Axil Axil <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, Jun 15, 2015 12:42 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:The good, the bad and the ugly The induction heater would melt the nickel particles and the microwave will not get into the core of the reactor. On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 12:06 PM, Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote: From: Daniel Rocha Ø Why not heating it with magnetic induction? Induction makes sense – at least for the entry level experiment, based on these considerations 1) Cost – 1500 watt microwave oven costs $150 – whereas 1800 watt induction cooktop is $75 2) Efficiency – microwave is nominally 75% efficient and cooktop is 84% efficient 3) Ease of access - microwave has door that must remain closed and cooktop is open 4) Coupling of energy – this is the big unknown. Microwaves couple well to hydrogen due to the 21 cm resonance line. Induction couples well to nickel as it is ferromagnetic. In either case, using a kitchen appliance for a power source is not practical if one is convinced that temperature of 1200 C is needed. There is plenty of evidence, going back to the early nineties (Thermacore) that high heat is not required, and decent thermal gain in Ni-H will be seen below the Curie point of nickel – so long as the power source remains efficient.
