----- Original Message ----- From: "Horace Heffner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2007 11:21 AM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: Electron fugacity, deuteron fugacity, and applied fields
>On Aug 3, 2007, at 4:40 PM, Michel Jullian wrote: > >> Hi Horace, >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Horace Heffner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 3:28 AM >> >>> On Aug 2, 2007, at 3:05 AM, Michel Jullian wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> 1/ Fill the cell container e.g. a test tube made of the right >>>> dielectric material (e.g. a clear plastic e.g. polycarbonate... >>>> e.g. CR-39 !) with the electrolyte we will be using for normal >>>> operation (that for PdD codeposition) >>> >>> Some polycarbonate characteristics: >>> >>> http://www.3d-cam.com/materials/polycarbonate.asp >> >> Good resource, let me quote the most relevant data: >> >> For direct electroplating: >> >> "Electrical Resistivity 1E+14-1E+17 ohm-cm" >> say 1E+17 ohm-cm = 1E+15 ohm-m (highest value = worst case) >> >> For cathode electron density enhancement: >> >> "Dielectric Constant 2.9-3.2" >> say 3 (a typical value for plastics, 3 times that of vacuum or air) >> "Dielectric Strength 399-1780 kV/in" >> that's 15.7 to 70 kV/mm (quite good, 5 to 20 times that of air, the >> test tube you mention below must be at least 1mm thick so it will >> probably stand 25kV across its wall as projected) >> >> So the maximum surface electron density on the cathode backside >> will be 3x5=15 to 3*20=60 times that achievable by using air as a >> dielectric, very nice. >> >>> Really good thermal properties, not so good on conductivity. I seem >>> to recall CETI had a process for plating plastic beads, by chemically >>> treating the surface first, but I don't know if that could be made to >>> work with polycarbonates. >>> >>> I see Cole-Parmer sells some very nice polycarbonate test tubes at >>> $27.00 for a 10 pack. >>> >>> http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_view.asp?sku=0632932 >> >> It seems an excellent choice indeed: >> >> "Specifications: >> Capacity (mL)15 >> Dimensions 16.1 mm OD x 114.3 mm H" >> (cylinder of diameter 16.1mm and length 114.3-8=106.3mm terminated >> by half sphere of diameter 16.1mm) >> >> The above data should allow us to: >> >> 1/ Find external volume of test tube (cylinder+half sphere) >> 2/ Subtract capacity to find volume of polycarbonate >> 3/ Find area of outer surface of test tube (cylinder+half sphere) >> 4/ Deduce thickness t of polycarbonate (volume / area) >> 5/ Find electrical resistance of tube wall (from area, thickness >> and resistivity see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistivity ) >> 6/ Find leakage current at 25 kV (Ohm's law) >> 7/ Find how long it would take at this current to electroplate a >> useful thickness say one micron of PdD (Faraday's law), if too long >> some other way will have to be found. > >The above are easy. Right, let's get them out of the way: 1/ 10.63*pi*0.8^2 + 0.5*4/3*pi*0.8^3 = 22.44 cm^3 total volume 2/ 22.44-15 = 7.44 cm^3 wall volume 3/ 10.63*2*pi*0.8 + 0.5*4*pi*0.8^2 = 57.45 cm^2 wall area 4/ 7.44/57.45 = 0.13 cm = 1.3 mm wall thickness (my "at least 1mm" guess wasn't bad ;-) (1.3*15.7=20.4kV to 1.3*70=91kV holding voltage depending on the PC grade, indeed it seems reasonable to assume it will be fine with 25kV) 5/ 10^17 ohm-cm * 0.13cm / 57.45 cm^2 = 2.3*10^14 ohms wall resistance (or up to 1000 times lower depending on the grade) 6/ 25*10^3 / (2.3*10^14 ) = 10^-10 A (or up to 1000 times that depending on the grade) leakage current at 25kV 7/ One micron = 10^-4 cm over 57.45 cm^2 is 0.0057 cm^3. Specific mass of PdD must be close to that of Pd about 12 g/cm^3, so that's 0.0057 * 12 = 0.068 g per micron. PdD is about 108g/mol, so that's about 6*10^-4 mole of PdD, which is 3.6*10^20 (Pd,D) atom pairs, all this assuming a D/Pd loading ratio of 1 atom/atom (I believe it's 0.85 in the SPAWAR experiment). Each pair requires 3 electrons to deposit (2 for the Pd++, 1 for the D+), so the total charge required is 3*1.6*10^-19*3.6*10^20 = 173 C. At 10^-10 A = 10^-10 C/s that's 173*10^10 s = 55000 years, or up to 1000 times lower i.e. 55 years depending on the grade. Obviously plating one micron this way would not be practical! The maximum achievable thickness in a practical time scale say one month, with the lowest resistivity PC grade, is 1/12th of 1/55th of a micron = 1.5nm, i.e. a few atomic layers, which may (?) be enough as a priming layer to allow subsequent normal electrodeposition by switching to normal mode electrolysis. Above results pending your confirmation, calculation errors may easily have slipped in. > I expect it will take some chemical processing >of the plastic. James Patterson sulfonated his plastic beads before >plating them chemically I think. If I recall the process was spelled >out in detail in one of his patents. Such treating will change the >insulating and dielectric characteristics though. >Also, I am not convinced there will not be charge neutralization at >the metal-plastic boundary. This can happen via formation of neutral >hydrogen. The expected high density charge on the metal side of the >dielectric can be neutralized by hydrogen desorbing and taking up the >excess electrons there. > One of the problems with the Patterson beads >and follow-on bead versions was metal film separation. That will >only be made worse by a strong field and surface charge from the >dielectric. Any such neutralization will be compensated by the power supply so the charge density will be maintained, and the corresponding gas may find it easier to leak through the metal lattice and come out through the front side. Also the metal film will be strongly electrostatically attracted to (rather than repelled by) the dielectric, which may squelch any tendency to separate. In any case if the through-the-insulator-wall electroplating priming + normal electroplating discussed scheme can be made practical, it may be possible to dissolve a dead cathode back into solution by reverting the polarities and therefore the process, and then re-plate a brand new one whenever necessary (a process somehow analogous to what happens in a rechargeable battery). >> 8/ Find the average electron density in the cathode at 25kV >> polarization (parallel plate capacitor equations) > >Here it gets difficult. This is at minimum a multi-body Shrödinger >equation computation based on various assumptions about surface >loading and immediate subsurface loading. I don't know the >capability actually exists. I was thinking of averaging the surface density obtained by the basic parallel plate capacitor equations over the volume of the thin film: so many C/cm^2 would translate to so many coulombs per cm^3 on average, and thus so many excess electrons/cm^3 on average. But what you wrote reminds me that most of the excess electrons, in the form of their probability wave functions, will be in fact bulging out of the cathode back side (you suggest there might also be some excess charge in the immediate subsurface but I am not sure about that), so the calculation I planned would probably be useless as most electron catalyzed nuclear reactions if any should occur in the no man's land between the metal and the dielectric. Maybe computer simulations of the QM equations could do the trick, I have no idea of what is possible with this kind of software, which BTW I don't think have been discussed here before in spite of their immense potential for testing CF theories, at least those who rely on conventional physics such as the Widom Larsen theory. >> 9/ Deduce the factor by which the device will enhance the natural >> DD fusion rate in PdD (natural = that for an electron density equal >> to the proton density) >> 10/ Deduce the resulting fusion power > >This is never never land. Only experiment is a reasonable approach >to this. Agreed. >I'm not comfortable with the basic approach yet. I need time to >think but have many other things happening at the moment. This is >definitely very interesting though. > >Are you thinking of doing an experiment? I definitely don't have the >resources here in my home to handle the chemicals involved. I also >have other unrelated experiments in the queue I am trying to get to. Same here! >I think more talking is the way to go for now. At least it is >inexpensive, and it might save a lot of time and money. Sure let's talk, we certainly are not through the preliminary engineering phase yet :-) Michel
