I'm just going to say what I think is right without references,
because citing references for this would take me days of effort.
On Aug 28, 2007, at 3:50 PM, Michel Jullian wrote:
Good guess Jones, the haloes are indeed the excess electrons.
Excess electrons don't hang around on the surface like that. They
are in conduction bands. Their waveforms are distributed throughout
conduction bands, not localized in blobs. It takes energy for them
to leave that state - so there is an energy barrier they tunnel
through to get to an ion in solution. Cathode electrons tend to
tunnel to H3O+ hydronium ions and thereby neutralize a hydrogen, i.e:
e- + H3O+ --> H2O + H
and they are never "free" during this process because they tunnel
through a barrier to their final state. This process/reaction is
called "electronation". Due to particle mass being in the exponent
of the number e in the tunneling probability, electronation is far
more likely than adsorbtion, which takes time for H3O+ rotations,
during which electronation can occur and thus form neutral H gas away
from the metal where it is not adsorbed. Electrons can easily
tunnel across several H2O molecules. Protons take a while to tunnel
from an H3O+ to an immediately adjacent H2O molecule because only a
small amplitude exists away from the H3O+ electron orbitals.
Protons do not tend to exist in a free state in solution. They are
bound to the H3O+ ion by shared electrons, and the H3O+ ions are
surrounded by polarized H2O molecules.
The pictures show my (open to improvement) model for the PdD/
electrolyte interface at the atomic scale. Tools used: Excel and
Jmol. Atoms drawn at ~25% of their vanDerWaals radii on left view
for clarity.
<028901c7e9ce$2ec13fe0$3800a8c0>
<028a01c7e9ce$2ec13fe0$3800a8c0>
Grey-blue: unit cell of 0.41nm side Face Centered Cubic Pd lattice
in PdD1.0. The loaded deuterons (white) fill all its octahedral
sites, forming an identical FCC lattice shifted inwards by 0.205 nm
(half the cube side). One of them, colored light yellow, is about
to deload via a pyramidal surface site through the excess electron
layer in order to ultimately bubble up.
I think in FCC lattices D tends to tunnel through the square face
holes, but I'll need to find a ref. on that to be sure.
Red and white D2O molecules, being polar, solvate positive
electrolyte deuterons on their O side and negative surface Pd ions
on their D side.
This is not right. The positive deuterons end up as H3O+ ions. The
spare deuteron moves through the solution in an E field by tunneling
to an adjacent H2O atom which then must rotate 180 degrees before the
next tunneling event. The H3O+ ions are surrounded by a polarized
blanket of H2O.
The bulk size of D2O (occupies on average a cube of side 0.31 nm,
cubic root of molecular mass 20E-3Kg/6E23 over density 1106Kg/m3
when unstressed) should allow it to be shoehorned by the field into
the 0.29 nm pitch of the surface Pd atoms, i.e. the structures and
thus the ion channels on both sides of the excess electron layer
should be aligned.
The excess electrons are waveforms in the metal, not little blobs on
the surface.
D2O acts as the dielectric of the double layer capacitor
This double layer of atoms at the cathode surface is commonly called
the "interface". The first few layers of metal+adsorbents is called
the interphase.
by separating its negative plate (cathode surface with its excess
electrons) from the multilayer positive "plate" formed by the
electrolyte deuterons
Deuterons in the interface when the cathode becomes a cathode are
immediately either electronated or adsorbed. For this reason, the
interface is generally not shown containing H3O+ ions because it
consists almost entirely of the two molecule thick water interface.
Ions other than hydrogen are kept even further away by their own
polarized blankets of water molecules.
on the right (only the first of many one D2O molecule thick layers
is shown). One of those d's, colored light yellow, is about to jump
from the positive "plate" to the negative one, going for one of the
cathode's excess electrons in order to discharge and ultimately
bubble up.
This doesn't happen. If the D+ makes it to the plate it is adsorbed,
not evolved as gas. The D that ends up as gas is electronated by
tunneling electrons.
My (not yet debunked on CMNS) theory for CF is that a significant
number of such outgoing+incoming deuteron pairs reach the electron
layer at the same time and fuse instead of their usual bubbling up,
One problem with this theory is the old "where is the electron"
problem. When a deuteron enters a the first plane lattice site,
which is by tunneling because a D atom doesn't fit through the holes,
it is joined by an electron which doesn't quite fit. If (and when -
that lattice vibrates) the orbital does not fit, the orbital becomes
a dual state thing, having an orbital amplitude, and a conduction
band conduction band amplitude. I personally think it also has a
deflated state amplitude with the adsorbed hydrogen. This means any
D that can potentially tunnel to this lattice site has some
probability of tunneling into a fused state. That is deflation fusion.
with the help of excess electron screening and channel alignment.
An experiment where the probability of such encounters would be
increased, e.g. by back-loading the cathode to maintain a steady
front deloading flux of deuterons while electrolyzing,
This is just the back side cell concept with the terms "front" and
"back" reversed.
would support the hypothesis if it yielded enhanced heat or
reaction products wrt previous P&F experiments (where simultaneous
deloading and electrolysis hasn't been particularly sought).
One problem with this is the helium ends up in the Pd, just below the
surface - typically in little crystalline domains - possibly due to
their ability to handle the hydrogen fugacity without cracking.
Another is that lots of experiments have been done using DC combined
with AC or pulsed waveforms having a wide variety - all without
special or repeatable results. Further, this has been done using a
huge range of voltages. In fact I referred you to some HV
experiments documented on my web page. I didn't use D2O for those,
but others have.
Your opinions welcome.
On this list you probably get opinions welcome or not. 8^)
Horace
