On Mar 13, 2009, at 8:36 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
ARRGH! How can everything in this field be so *vague* !?
If I read the messages from Jed and Dr. Storms correctly, it's not
known
at this time whether P&F used pure palladium, or used a Pd/Ag alloy.
That doesn't seem like a trivial difference!
The fact is that F-P used both pure Pd and the Pd-Ag alloy.
However,they did not say and frequently did not know how the Pd they
used was made. They made a deal with Johnson and Matthey to supply the
Pd for free and J-M decided what to send for testing. Apparently, J-M
knows what kind of Pd works best, but attempts to get this information
made public have failed. Later workers used Pd from various sources
and found that some batches worked better than others, but did not
have the resources to test all of the properties that might be
relevant. Later still, the role of cracking and the role of surface
deposits became known. Until recently, no one had the resources to
make tests that could identify the critical parameters. Therefore, the
information simply is not known. We know now that the Pd needs have a
characteristic that allows a high D/Pd ratio. This is not easy to
accomplish although Italian workers have now mastered the trick. The
Pd-Ag alloy cannot achieve such a high ratio and, therefore, should
not work. To further complicate the problem, Pd electroplated on
various substrates is also found to work sometimes for no apparat
reason. The problem is not public documentation but simple ignorance
about what characteristics are required. People are not hiding this
information, they just do not know what is required.
Ed
It's as though Dr. Jekyll not only couldn't get a working batch of the
reagent that would change him back from being Hyde, but he'd forgotten
what the compound was that he ordered the one time he got a batch that
did work.
It does seem like Jed's right -- the level of public documentation
here
is lacking.
It *ought* to be possible to just pull paper number 12321-PF from the
Lenr-Canr archives and see for sure what was used. But, apparently
it's
not that easy.
Jed Rothwell wrote:
Edmund Storms wrote:
Thanks for this detail Jed, but no where do I see mentioned that
this
material is a Pd-Ag alloy.
That is my recollection of what he told me.
This document says "Fleischmann reported success with pure
palladium, as
well as silver and cerium alloys."
As I recall he said "Type A" is the silver alloy used in filters. We
could ask J-M if they ever used pure Pd in filters. I doubt they did.
My guess is that the modern reformulated filter palladium would work
just as well as the old stuff. My guess is that the reason it works
is
prosaic: it loads to high levels easily and it does not crack.
Those are
well known necessary characteristics to achieve cold fusion. Why they
are necessary I do not know, but they are.
I see that I managed to misspell his name in this document. Good
grief!
- Jed
