Horace Some more wild speculations from a non-specialist on how one (anyone basically) could electroplate a dielectric with a metal.
My recent HV electroplating proposal was flawed in that it required a high parasitic conductivity of the dielectric to be practical, here is a new one (probably flawed too ;-) supposed to work even with a zero conductivity material: 1/ Deposit excess electrons on the dielectric surface using e.g. a negative corona discharge (the xerox way)(*) 2/ Dip said surface into the metal salt solution, or flow the solution over it, so that a first batch of positive metal ions gets neutralized and deposits there (a grounded anode is necessary, e.g. use a grounded conductive container for the electrolyte you dip the object in). Repeat 1 and 2 (it is probably necessary to rinse and dry the treated surface first) until the thin deposit is sufficiently conductive to perform normal electroplating (some way to connect to the deposit has to be found for that) This pure metal coating method might be more practical, at least for an amateur scientist, than existing vacuum techniques. Hopefully this may lead to a practical way to deposit the cathode in your capacitive cathode backside electron density enhancing scheme (although you seemed dubious about the scheme lately?). If a test tube is used, it might be more practical to coat the outside rather than the inside of the tube with this method (in which case the salt water constituting the future +HV electrode would ultimately reside inside the tube, the cathode would be the outside of the tube, and the future electrolysis anode could be externally coaxial the tube) Michel (*) triboeletric charging (rubbing with a cat skin or something) might work too, but it would be too abrasive for subsequent passes. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Horace Heffner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 7:49 AM Subject: Re: [Vo]:A MSWL hypothesis : was "active CR-39" > > On Aug 2, 2007, at 6:14 PM, Jones Beene wrote: > >> Historical note: >> >> CETI has been mentioned - and their plastic beads. Everyone assumed >> the beads were inactive and merely provide a neutral substrate. But >> were they? >> >> Patterson used ordinary water instead of the usual heavy water and >> palladium-coated plastic beads as a cathode. Not sure Patterson >> ever divulged which plastic was used. > > check US Pat. 5,580,838, December 3, 1996. > > http://tinyurl.com/2m3mxl > > His patent mentions "cross-linked polystyrene". "As disclosed in > U.S. Pat. No. 5,036,031 and 4,943,355, in a column exchange, a > copolymer in hydrogen form is reacted with chlorosulfonic acid, the > resulting microspheres have a sulfonate surface in the hydrogen form. > The sulfonated microspheres are next placed in an aqueous copper > chloride solution. The microspheres have copper salts on the surface > and hydrochloric acid is contained in the solution by ion exchange." > > "Cross-linked polystyrene copolymer is reacted in a column exchange > with chlorosulfonic acid yielding sulfonated cross-linked polystyrene > copolymer microspheres having hydrogen ions on the outer layer and > hydrochloric acid, as shown in FIG. 1 of my U.S. '031. This > sulfonation should be limited to a 100 molecular layer depth. If > sulfonation is excessive, the diameter of the microspheres will > change when dry microspheres are hydrated." > > Horace Heffner > http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/ > > >
