Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
I do have a serious question about sealed vs. open. If we aren't
worried about calorimetry, we could recombine very simply to keep
the pressure down. Sealed is nice for lots of reasons, including
possible helium analysis later. Sealed is a factory cell, ready to
go, just add current and see what happens.
If you are not worried about calorimetry why would you close the
cell? I don't get it. I believe Boss's cells are all open. Closing a
cell is a pain in the butt because the recombiner pollutes the cell
and can stop working for various reasons.
Broadly speaking there are simple closed cells, and tightly closed
precision-made cells. Only the latter can be used in helium studies.
A simple closed cell might be a Pyrex cell with a tight fitting lid
(like a cork). It might have an emergency valve consisting of two
holes in the lid, with a plastic drinking straw bent into a U shape
with both ends in the holes. If the recombiner fails and pressure
builds up, the straw pops out. I saw this configuration at Texas A&M
and also Hokkaido U., which is probably not a coincidence come to
think of it. This is very safe.
A really tightly closed cell suitable for a helium study is the sort
of thing they used at China Lake and SRI. It is precision made of
stainless steel with Swagelok connectors and lots of expensive stuff
to keep air out and to send a small sample of gas from the cell into
a specially made flask, or directly into a mass spectrometer.
Note that the China Lake cells were open in the electrochemical
sense. They had no recombiners, and effluent gas left the cell in a
steady stream. However, the cell was rigorously closed off from the
atmosphere, with a bubbler, Swagelok connectors and other means. The
configuration is shown here:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJintroducti.pdf
Miles showed me one of the collection flasks, but he would not allow
me to touch it because the oil from a fingerprint might contaminate
the results. He knew how to hold the thing, and he packed it away
carefully in airtight plastic.
- Jed
