It would be both interesting and cheap and easy to add a little
beryllium salt to the electrolyte. It's an obvious variation on the
standard cells I'm putting together. It might be added at some point,
not being there initially, to create a beryllium layer on the
cathode, over the palladium, or beryllium could be deposited first,
before the palladium, so that the palladium was an overcoat over a
layer of beryllium, or it could be a small quantity, distributed
through the palladium matrix (probably more disruptive to the NAE,
unfortunately). If beryllium were plated over an active cathode,
would it seal in the deuterium? How would this affect the reaction,
ongoing? Would there be a residual reaction, in that case, when
electrolysis current is removed?
Beryllium would detect the presence of alphas which aren't energetic
enough to make it out of the cell, or even to a wet SSNTD, and it
would do so by increasing the neutron signal, possibly dramatically.
This has been suggested to me by a number of people....
Right now, I'm focusing on working with the polycarbonate (or
cellulose acetate as an alternative -- LR-115), I've got my hands
full with that for a time, I can see, and until the detector material
is well-demonstrated with Am-241 irradiation, and until I believe it
will work well, I'm holding off on finalizing cell design. There are
a lot of ideas to try, and limited time.
