On Mar 14, 2009, at 11:53 AM, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
Edmund Storms wrote:
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.
It is interesting to note that, if J-M knows what kind works best,
then
they also know that there are differences which result solely from the
choice of palladium, and therefore they also know with dead certainty
that cold fusion is for real.
If the effect weren't real it wouldn't matter what kind of palladium
you
used.
Good point and this is probably why they are unwilling to give away
the information. I expect they are waiting until the effect is
accepted and people are interested in buying the active material, or
they are just stupid because by then people will know how to make
their own active Pd.
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.
Peachy.
This sounds kind of like the occasional light-water positive CF result
which seem to throw monkeywrenches into the works of just about any
theory of how it all works, eh?
The explanation for why Pd-Ag works involves the assumption that the
effect only occurs in the near surface region, the properties of which
are much different from the bulk material because of reaction with Li
and other impurities in the electrolyte. Pd-Ag alloy allows a higher
surface composition to be achieved because the diffusion rate from the
surface is slower than in pure Pd. Pure Pd has to have a structure
that allows a high bulk composition to reduce the loss from the
surface in order to achieve the same high D/Pd ratio on the surface.
Anyway, this is my explanation, which shows the complexity of trying
to reproduce the effect.
Ed
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
