>From Mike Carrell: > Remember this: Raynal-Ni is a trade name of Grace. In the BLP reactor, it is > a catalyst in a chemical system producing NaH, which is the catalyst in the > energy reaction. Mills is very explicit in stating that only hydrogen is a > consumeable in the reaction, producing hydrinos. All else is recoverable in > a regeneration step. The material supplied to Rowan by BLP for their test > was from another source, not Grace. Why so much is needed is not clear to me > at all. BLP is only at the beginning of the design of a production version > of the process. > > Mike Carrell
This from Wiki on the properties of Raney Nickel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raney_nickel Of particular interest to me was what's stated in the last (forth paragraph) in regards to how Raney Nickel reacts to the introduction of Hydrogen. ... Properties Macroscopically Raney nickel looks like a finely divided gray powder. Microscopically, each particle of this powder looks like a three-dimensional mesh, with pores of irregular size and shape of which the vast majority are created during the leaching process. Raney nickel is notable for being thermally and structurally stable as well has having a large BET surface area. These properties are a direct result of the activation process and contribute to a relatively high catalytic activity. During the activation process, aluminium is leached out the NiAl3 and Ni2Al3 phases that are present in the alloy, while most of the aluminium that remains does so in the form of NiAl. The removal of aluminium from some phases but not others is known as "selective leaching". It has been shown that the NiAl phase provides the structural and thermal stability to the catalyst. As a result the catalyst is quite resistant to decomposition ("breaking down", commonly known as "aging").[3] This resistance allows Raney nickel to be stored and reused for an extended period; however, fresh preparations are usually preferred for laboratory use. For this reason commercial Raney nickel is available in both "active" and "inactive" forms. The surface area is typically determined via a BET measurement using a gas that will be preferentially adsorbed on metallic surfaces, such as hydrogen. Using this type of measurement, it has been shown that almost all the exposed area in a particle of the catalyst has nickel on its surface.[2] Since nickel is the active metal of the catalyst, a large nickel surface area implies that there is a large surface available for reactions to occur simultaneously, which is reflected in an increased catalyst activity. Commercially available Raney nickel has an average nickel surface area of 100 m² per gram of catalyst.[2] A high catalytic activity, coupled with the fact that hydrogen is absorbed within the pores of the catalyst during activation, makes Raney nickel a useful catalyst for many hydrogenation reactions. Its structural and thermal stability (i.e., the fact that it does not decompose at high temperatures) allows its use under a wide range of reaction conditions. Additionally, the solubility of Raney nickel is negligible in most common laboratory solvents, with the exception of mineral acids such as hydrochloric acid, and its relatively high density (between 6 and 7 g/cm³) also facilitates its separation off a liquid phase after a reaction is completed. ************************** Of course, theWiki description reveals no useful clues as to how hydrogen, when introduced and subsequently absorbed, is presumed to transform into hydrinos. At present I keep speculating that key components to the design of a BLP reactor chamber might consist of a cylinder containing a series of internal turbine blades, (possibly spinning in opposite directions) at high RPM speeds in order to keep the RN power in a constant agitated state. I wonder if such a configuration would help prevent the powder from clumping together as well as to the sides of the chamber. Of course, such a design consumes valuable energy in order to keep the turbine blades spinning. The $64 question: Would such a configuration consume all or more of the excess energy generated from the formation of hydrinos? It would not surprise me if some of BLP's R&D engineers are looking very closely at various turbine designs for useful clues in turbulence characteristics and gas flow dynamics. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
