Re: [Vo]: Reply to Rich Murray on the Electric Field error, and Earthtech
results: Abd uh-Rahman Lomax: Rich Murray 2010.03.11
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.htm
Thursday, March 11, 2010
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/astrodeep/message/44
_____________________________________________________
Hello Vo,
I'm sharing this with Scott and Marissa Little at Earthtech in Austin,
Texas.
It feels good as an amateur to have such a long and reasonable
response to my long post -- too long to be on the Vortex-L archive?
1. Perhaps Earthtech and others like Ludwik Kowalski would like to
join Lomax in developing a simple, low-cost standard version of the
SPAWAR co-deposition cell.
Common in the history of CF is lack of exact replication
of these always surprisingly complex devices,
confounding any resolution of the fundamental issue of
clearly confirming nuclear reactions.
2. [ " LR-115 is a simpler material for this purpose;
the active layer is 6 microns of cellulose acetate, red in color.
Radiation damage to the LR-115 causes, then, after etch,
a hole to appear completely through the red layer,
which is carried on 100 microns of polyester,
the hole appears as a bright dot.
It's much easier to read,
and it will read higher track density than CR-39, allegedly." ]
Video imaging chips are cheap,
with megapixel resolutions at above 30 fps.
If a thin radiation sensitive phospher screen is put on
a horizontal video chip, then a LR-115 SSNTD film on top of
that, and a 1 micron gold cathode film,
[ or a gold screen cathode with a mylar layer below it
to shield the LR-115 film ]
with a clear box on all four sides,
then a 1 cc cell could be cheaply made, allowing the device
to record the cumulative spatial location of pits on the LR-115,
and real time recording of visible light and IR (from hot spots),
to give both high time resolution of both hot spot and
radiation events -- which could be shared real-time with
the world on the Net.
A cheap webcam close above the cell can focus down
with about 10X magnification, to record the actual Pd
deposits from electrolysis, and any flashes of light from
micropit formation.
Such a multifunctional, low-cost device might be marketable for
many other types of research.
3. The topic of micropit formation from recombination
of O2 and H2 on the Pd and gold cathode deserves research
in its own right, as well as being a factor that has to be
studied as an obvious major alternative to nuclear
reactions. At the end of this post, I offer an 1998 estimate
of the available chemical energy density.
thanks, Rich Murray
----- Original Message -----
From: "Abd ul-Rahman Lomax" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 12:25 PM
Subject: [Vo]:Reply to Rich Murray on the Electric Field error,
and Earthtech results.
A message to the vortex list from Rich Murray was absent from the
archive, and my subscription was inactive due to a server crash for a
week.
It can be found as message 42 of the astrodeep list,
linked below.
[ Extraordinary Error -- no electric field exists inside a conducting
liquid in an insulated box with two external charged metal plates, re
work by SPAWAR on cold fusion since 2002 -- also hot spots from
H and O microbubbles: Rich Murray 2010.02.22
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.htm
Monday, February 22, 2010
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/astrodeep/message/42 ]
At the outset, the SPAWAR group has investigated many
approaches, and the use of electric and magnetic fields to enhance the
anomalies found in palladium deuteride is a small part of that work,
and remains poorly investigated.
The original Galileo protocol (circa 2007) prescribed the use of a
magnet.
That was dropped with an explanation that assumptions from certain
investigations had been improperly carried over into others;
the magnet did not appear to be significant in producing the alleged
radiation effects that were the core of the Galileo project.
[ Each charged plate attracts enough ions of the opposite charge
right to the side of the conducting electrolyte against its insulating
wall, until the charge on the plate is exactly balanced --
thus each side is a separate charged capacitor,
connected by the "wire" of the liquid. ]
It's not exactly a wire, but, yes, the field intensity will be high
where the resistance is high, and low where it is low.
The resistance of the electrolyte is low compared to the cell wall,
for sure, but electrolye isn't a simple conductor like a metal.
I'm not at all sure how much difference there might be.
There isn't much current flowing through the liquid.
I don't know if other effects take over when the current is very,
very low, as it would be.
There are enough ways, it seems to me, that the prediction that
there would be no field inside the cell, within the electrolyte,
could go quite wrong.
Should be fairly easy to test!
Just put some electrodes into the electrolyte, one on the inside
near one side of the field, and one on the other side.
Is there a difference in zero-current voltage between the two
electrodes, when the field is switched on and when it's off?
But I'm not exercised to test this one!
For the moment, it's largely moot.
[ All the electric field exists only in the insulating walls of the two
capacitors -- no electric field exists inside the liquid. ]
That cannot be absolutely true, however it is substantially true.
[ Abd ul-Rahman Lomax, a brilliant amateur on Vortex-L cold fusion
group, made me aware of all the activity re the SPAWAR claims, at
noon Monday, January 4, and the next day from 10 AM to 1 PM at
SF Community College library, I explored the complex results and
issues reported by Ludwik Kowalski: ]
Hey, thanks, Rich!
Rich and I had a phone conversation that day.
I had hoped to meet him in person the next day,
but that was not to be.
I'll be back in New Mexico sometime in the next few months,
and hope to meet with him and with Dr. Storms.
[ http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/%7Ekowalski/cf/
http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/cf/370spawar.html
370) What is going on? 11 pages
Ludwik Kowalski
Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA
June 11, 2009
http://csam.montclair.edu/%7Ekowalski/cf/379spawar2.pdf
his journal rejected paper
I notice that the clear plastic cell with its clear electrolyte and
contrasting dark metal external plates with the hazardous high voltage
of 6,000 volts comprise a riviting archtypal image, not easy to relate
to ideas I grasped in 1960 in freshman physics at MIT. ]
Unfortunately, it's a distracting image, for the reasons Rich amply
explores, so I'll skip to what is not so distracting.
Suffice it to say that I've seen no reason to seriously explore the use
of an external electric field, as any kind of priority, and I'm assigning
more, but still little, priority to the use of magnetic fields.
I have not reviewed the early work on this in detail.
Sometimes things work for reasons we don't expect.
[ [...] In my case, the counterintuitive insight into the error took a few
hours to arise in my mind. About 4 PM, I called Hal Puthoff and
then Marissa Little at Earthtech International in Austin, Texas, airing
the idea. They hadn't heard about it, and were receptive. ]
It's not counterintuitive, it's obvious.
However, as pointed out, sometimes the "obvious" is a red herring.
If electric fields produce a measureable effect inside the cell, that's
an experimental result and not to be completely dismissed even if
the thinking that suggested the experiment was in error.
And there are other results in those experiments that are far more
remarkable.
[ [...]In fact, that morning she had received a copy of Journal of
Scientific Exploration with their 3 page review,
"Cold Fusion: Fact or Fantasy?",
stating, "We have never seen a successful cold fusion experiment.",
and also ""Extraordinary Evidence" Replication Effort"", a 7 page
version of their lengthly website report on 28 replication attempts,
concluding, "Our results do not provide a positive identification of
the origin of SPAWAR pits. However, they do show that chemical
origin is a distinct possibility and therefore that nuclear origin is not a
certainty."
http://www.earthtech.org/CR39/index.html ]
There are some serious problems with the Earthtech work.
Let's just start with the difficulty that they describe "SPAWAR pits,"
but what they show in the experiments aren't SPAWAR tracks,
it's chemical damage, I'd conclude.
Complicating this is that some of what has been shown in various
publications, including by SPAWAR, *includes* what may be
chemical damage.
The appearance is quite different.
Right off, any area of extensive damage with a crisp edge, as distinct
from what one would see from a pattern of random holes with
increasing distance between them, looks very much like chemical
damage and not damage from radiation.
What would more appropriately deserve the name of
"SPAWAR tracks" would be discrete pits, shown to be occurring
at frequencies far higher than background in controls.
[ They describe 28 experiments -- the last two, 9 and 18, are not in
their JSE review -- no Experiment 17 was listed on the website:
Nickel Cathode
Pam Boss reported (during the March 2007 APS meeting) that a
nickel cathode in the absence of an external electromagnetic field
would not produce SPAWAR pits.
However, we observed moderate densities of SPAWAR pits when
using this arrangement.
We also performed an experiment with a Ni fibrex cathode and
no Pd in the electrolyte (or any other plating metal).
The nickel fibrex was intended to mimic the dendritic palladium.
This test did not produce SPAWAR pits. ]
The lack of precision in describing "SPAWAR pits" damages this
report.
There also isn't comparatively, as much work with nickel as
with other substrates or electrode materials.
By 2007, Ms. Mosier-Boss was apparently aware of tracks
indicating neutron radiation, but was not yet at liberty
to disclose this.
In designing the Galileo project, she apparently relied upon some
results with nickel and assumed that the magnet might enhance the
effect with palladium as well, but had not actually shown this
The Earthtech page notes the withdrawal of the claim about magnets
being necessary for the effect.
This is in the report.
[ We performed four experiments that closely followed the TGP
protocol.
Our first three experiments were based on the paper referenced
above and the fourth was a replication of the TGP active cell
(as opposed to the control cell).
All four of these experiments produced results very similar to those
reported in New Energy Times.
Upon removing the cathode from the cell at the end of the 3 weeks,
a cloudy area on the chip was visible in the area
directly beneath the cathode.
After etching, this cloudiness resolved into well defined and copious
pits (approximately 10E6 tracks/cm2 ).
The table below lists the four experiments, including links to logbook
pages with more details about each (along with photographs).
The logbook on cells A and B contain the most detail.
Earthtech claims a "close" replication.
As is common with CF experiments where the mechanism is
unknown, "Close" is not "Cigar!" necessarily,
unless the variable is irrelevant.
Seemingly minor changes can radically alter the results.
Earthtech used 420 mg of LiCl and 176 mg of PdCl2,
starting with 33 grams of D2O,
and 3.5 cm. of 0.25 mm dia. silver wire.
TGP called for 636 mg of LiCl and 270 mg of PdCl2,
with approx the same D2O, and
what seems to be about 6 cm. of the silver wire.
Theoretically, the controlling parameters should be
1. surface area of wire. i.e., length.
2. total palladium deposited.
3. current density profile.
In a later Earthtech experiment, the palladium was reported as
molarity.
This is not the correct measure, since what would appear to affect
the result is total palladium deposited (plus the current density profile).
I'm not blaming Earthtech, they did some good work,
but this fact seems to have been inadequately considered,
and not just by them.
The lack of precision in cathode specification was the biggest defect
I've seen in the Galileo protocol.
I do intend to reduce the size of the cathode,
because that will not only save on cathode cost,
it will also, then, require less palladium to create the same surface
structures, and, because maintaining the same current density
likewise indicates reduction of current, which reduces evolved
deuterium, it should save on deuterium as well.
Keeping cell cost low is important, but I'm quite aware that any
deviation from a published experiment risks loss of the effect.
I'm hoping that this one won't alter the effect, but if I don't see an
effect, I'll have to nail this down.
Note that any "failure," carefully enough handled,
will help characterize the effect.
As to what values I choose for the parameters, I will probably use
what I can derive from a most recent SPAWAR publication using
three different cathode substrates: platinum, gold, silver, and that
showed vastly stronger effects as to *backside tracks*
with a gold wire cathode substrate.
I do not believe that Earthtech successfully produced
"SPAWAR pits," except in part.
Chemical damage, in general, seems to be confined to the "front side"
of the detector, which is directly exposed to a complex chemical
environment at the cathode.
The areas which seem to be chemically damaged have a relatively
crisp edge, not to be expected from radiation damage, which would
merely show a decline in track density,
no sharp point at which the tracks disappear.
Thus, properly, "SPAWAR pits" -- the ones of interest -- would
refer to two kinds of tracks:
tracks outside areas of heavy damage where the entire surface is
damaged, and tracks on the reverse side of the detector.
Reverse side tracks cannot be alpha tracks if they are coming
from the cathode.
These detector chips are 1/16 inch of CR-39;
alphas cannot penetrate more than a few microns in such material.
Back side tracks would almost certainly be the result of neutron
secondary effects: knock-on protons and the occasional characteristic
"triple-tracks" of C-12 breakup from an energetic neutron.
And recent SPAWAR publications show copious back-side tracks.
In the images (p. 329) in the SPAWAR paper in the
American Chemical Society Low Energy Nuclear Reactions
Sourcebook (2008),
backside tracks can be seen heavily associated with the gold wire,
clearly associated with the platinum wire, and practically none
associated with the silver.
Front side track densitities for all three wires are roughly equal,
and the plotting was done with automated recognition that
ignored overlapping tracks, i .e., the central areas where chemical
damage may also be a major complication.
[ [from Earthtech]
Magnetic Effect
The first version of the protocol we received for the TGP specified
magnets on the active cell and no magnets on the control cell.
The magnets are 2.5 cm square by 0.635 cm thick NdFeB
magnets placed on the outside of the cell on the sides closest to
the electrodes.
It was reported in "Extraordinary Evidence" that an external field
was necessary to create the SPAWAR pits.
It can be seen from our initial replication effort that we did not
observe any difference with the use of magnets.
This observation was later confirmed by Pam Boss and the TGP
protocol was changed accordingly.
The control experiment using magnets was removed and replaced
with one that used CuCl2 as the plating metal instead of PdCl2. ]
Yes.
The whole EM field approach may be a big red herring.
It's worth revisiting later, I'd say, and once there are standard cells,
known to be performing consistently with consistent conditions,
it should be easy to investigate.
First things first, and my conclusion is that the first priority is
codeposition with consistent materials, geometry, and current
profiles, and, in particular, with a gold cathode wire.
Because of the possibility of chemical damage, front-side wet
configuration detection of radiation is unreliable.
However, the wet configuration is highly advantageous for other
reasons, among them simplicity and proximity to the cathode.
A later variation on the Galileo protocol used a windowed cell,
as shown in
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MosierBosscharacteri.pdf.
Notice how tracks are no longer associated crisply with the gold
or platinum wires, but track density is higher with gold.
These would be front-side tracks, I assume, caused mostly by
knock-on protons from the mylar window.
I don't know if there would be any alpha tracks left,
assuming that there are alpha particles being emitted.
[ Comparison to Alpha Particles Tracks
We exposed CR-39 chips to alpha particles under a variety of
conditions.
By varying the length of the air path between an Am-241 alpha
source and the chip we were able to explore the effect of alpha
energies from near zero (3-4 cm spacing) to ~5 Mev (nearly in
contact).
We also used other alpha emitters such as U ore placed in contact
with the chip to observe the effects of highly oblique incidence.
We noted that the SPAWAR pits were strikingly different from the
alpha tracks we had created from Am-241 and other sources in our
lab. ]
Indeed.
Again, what are the "SPAWAR pits"?
I think Earthtech was comparing chemical damage
with radiation tracks.
It's not clear that they managed to create nuclear active environment,
but exactly why remains unclear.
I don't see any photos from Earthtech that look like
what SPAWAR has most clearly reported.
[ In several cases, we also substituted light water for heavy water in
the electrolyte.
These tests showed no discernible difference in the quantity of
SPAWAR pits produced.
This seems quite significant as the nuclear behavior of deuterium,
at least in high energy experiments, is significantly different than
that of protium. ]
This is actually definitive.
They were not seeing effects from Nuclear Active Environment.
I will be running a control cell in series with the heavy water cell,
everything identical, but for light water and the proximity to my
refrigerator ;-).
The history of CF is replete with "replications" that weren't;
it's now known, with many of these experiments,
why they failed to see NAE.
In this case, though, for whatever reason, Earthtech was getting
heavy chemical damage, it's obvious from the photos,
which could mask whatever radiation results might exist.
Using a single measure of result (radiation, in this case) is tricky.
One of the things I hope to do is to identify other charactertistics
of the special reaction.
Finding radiation, and neutron radiation in particular, if artifacts
can be ruled out -- looks like they can with the back side evidence,
most clearly -- is conclusive as to nuclear reactions, but there may
be other effects that turn out to be associated, that, in themselves,
are not conclusive, so they haven't been given weight.
But once those other effects are known, their absence would be
an indication that NAE, for whatever reason, did not form.
I'll be looking for some simple ones: acoustic phenomena,
easy to look for and previously reported,
emitted light (visible region, not reported, but no clear sign
of investigation, and likely if the local heating effects that
appear to melt palladium are real),
possibly heat anomalies
(without careful -- read "expensive" -- calorimetry,
not conclusive at all),
or other effects.
Other possibilities would be RF emissions,
post-reaction trace element analysis, etc.
[ Isolating the CR-39 from the Electrolyte
We protected the CR-39 from contact with the electrolyte in
various ways with varying degrees of success.
When we were successful, we did not observe tracks
(above the background).
No NAE, no tracks above background!
Note that any "protection" will greatly reduce or eliminate any
alpha tracks and will reduce neutron effects
(due to simple distance of the detector surface from source.)
With CR-39, the distance is the thickness of the CR-39
(about 1500 microns), plus any distance to the actual NAE
(perhaps another 100-200 microns).
My plan, eventually, is to use CR-39 material that is much thinner,
it's available, and to use stacks of such, inside the cell.
However, I need to proceed with actual cells and can't wait
for the characterization of new CR-39 material, so I may jump the
shark and simply put the cathode next to the cell wall,
it's trivially simple, and put an LR-115 SSNTD next to the cathode
on the outside of the cell.
I also have windowed cells and some 6 micron polyester,
but simple, simple, simple.
The acrylic cell wall is also 1/16 inch,
so I should see proton knock-on radiation similar to the
SPAWAR results, if I create NAE.
Simple, eh?
I'll have the front side of the LR-115 next to the acrylic cell wall.
Later, I might figure out how to put LR-115 inside the cell,
protected from chemical damage.
Or use a window, with 6 micron mylar inside the cell, and a
piece of LR-115 right next to it
("inside" the opening in the cell wall).
Might even pick up some alphas, that way.
(With the cathode against the cell wall, the palladium deposit will
presumably build up on the "inside" of the cathode, the side away
from the detector, toward a hole in the cathode support, but for
neutrons it should not matter, assuming that the neutrons are emitted
in all directions.
I'll see a kind of cross-section of palladium deuteride,
and possibly still the gold wire itself, a little.
So I might even be, a little, peeking below the surface.
What will I see?
I don't know.
That's why I'm looking!)
[ www.newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2008/2008BossTripleTracks.pdf
8p
Triple tracks in CR-39 as the result of Pd-D Co-deposition:
evidence of energetic neutrons.
Pamela A. Mosier-Boss
Stanislaw Szpak
Frank E. Gordon
Lawrence P. G. Forsley
Naturwissenschaften (2009) 96:135-142
Received: 30 July 2008 / Revised: 3 September 2008 /
Accepted: 14 September 2008 / Published online: 1 October 2008
c Springer-Verlag 2008
[ Here is the only mention of external electric or magnetic fields. ]
"Microscopic examination of the CR-39 detectors used in Pd-D
electrolysis has been done in areas where the density of tracks is less.
In these areas, what appear to be triple tracks are observed
interspersed among the solitary tracks.
The number of these triple tracks is very low -- on the order of a ten
or less per detector and are only observed in heavy water
experiments.
These triple tracks have been observed in every Pd-D co-deposition
experiment that has been conducted using Ag, Au, or Pt cathodes in
both the presence and absence of an external electric or magnetic
field.
When Ni screen is used as the cathode, tracks and triple tracks are
only observed when an external electric or magnetic field is applied." ]
Yes.
Nickel.
Reason unknown, work not verified to my knowledge.
Complicating all this is a lack of discrimination between what is
seen on the cathode side of the detector,
which may mix chemical and radiation damage,
and what is seen on the other side, which, if it has chemical damage,
would not be spatially associated with the cathode.
Probably!
Earthtech also reported damage to the acrylic cell, and they show far
more damage to the detector chips than seems routine in the
SPAWAR results.
How old was the CR-39?
It can make a difference!
[ [... quoting something, Rich continued]
Because particles carrying millions of electron-volts of energy aren't
created by reactions powered by a few thousand volts at most,
a larger question lingers: What is the source of the anomalous
energy that seems to be arising from within the LENR cells?
"We don't make claims that we've developed a new energy source,"
Gordon emphasized. "Our hope is that, by developing an
understanding of the processes and how to stimulate them,
we'll be able to use this knowledge for whatever benefit it may offer." ]
It's unlikely that codeposition will be a basis for a robust
energy-generating technology, but, because of its alleged
reproducibility, it becomes a relatively quick and easy technique for
investigating the basic phenomenon.
I should be able to produce and sell, at a decent profit, codeposition
cells for under $100, including everything but the power supply(s)
and any other desired data collection equipment.
Processing of the radiation detectors would require additional effort
and expense, but I expect that I or others will offer processing service.
Obviously, before marketing these cells, I need to confirm that they
work!
There would be some value, a different kind of value, if they don't work;
the issue will then become "Why?"
I make no presumptions about that answer, but will cross that bridge
if I see it in front of me.
I'm interested in the science.
Cheap energy for the future may come out of all this, but that's still
quite speculative, and hundreds of millions of dollars have apparently
been spent pursuing the possibility.
So far, no cigar, but there are always tantalizing possibilities.
Almost everyone involved, though, thinks that a lot of work must be
done before engineering scaled-up devices, with adequate
reliability, is possible.
On the other hand, very few are left who are both aware of all the
work that's been done in the field and who still think there is no
nuclear effect.
The SPAWAR neutrons seem to have pushed many over the edge,
but there is actually something even more conclusive, showing
that the fundamental reaction almost certainly takes in deuterium as
a fuel, pours it into a black box, and helium comes out with the
right amount of energy having been generated, from what would be
expected from that fuel/product combination.
Helium-heat correlation is very well demonstrated, and, compared
to that, much of the rest is details.
But it's hard to measure that helium, and when excess heat is low,
as it would necessarily be with the kind of codep cells I'm looking
at reproducing -- so low I'm hardly bothering to look at anything but
comparative operating temperature -- the absolute levels are often
down near background.
It's correlation over many experiments that proves, as well as could
be proven, that there is a nuclear reaction, because environmental
helium would not be associated with evolved heat, and especially not
at the theoretical Q factor for fusion.
(Which would be anywhere from about 24 MeV/He4 to
double that or so, depending on how much of the helium is captured
for measurement, and complicated by the fact that there may be other
reactions taking place as well.)
While it remains possible that some other nuclear reaction is at work
(off the top of my head, something is causing alpha decay of elements
present in the cell, or transmuted catalytically or permanently,
which would, of course, produce helium),
I prefer to start with a simple (2*N*deuterium -> X -> N*He
plus energy) hypothesis.
Radiation, though, can be detected at quite low levels.
As was quickly realized in 1989, very little radiation is produced,
compared to what would be expected from a simplistic understanding
of the reaction as simple d-d fusion.
Simple d-d fusion is almost certainly not the reaction taking place.
Any radiation produced is a secondary effect,
either from some low branching ratio for a minor pathway,
or from hot products from the primary reaction
causing secondary fusion,
such as Mosier-Boss suggests might involve tritium.
(Tritium is known as a minor product in CF cells, and this evidence
was often discounted precisely because it was a minor product!
Overlooking that a small elephant in the living room may not explain
the big elephant tracks, but is a clue.)
It's something else than ordinary d-d fusion (such as my sorta
favorite, double deuterium *molecule* formation of a Bose-Einstein
condensate, facilitated by lattice confinement near the surface,
which fuses to a single Be-8 nucleus which then emits photons while
sitting around waiting for the fast decay to two helium nuclei,
possibly with energies as low as under 100 keV per nucleus, the rest
of the energy having been dumped to the lattice with photon emission
from the excited Be-8 nucleus.
This is a reaction predicted by Takahashi
(Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate theory) from quantum
field theory, and based on his early work with deuteron bombardment
of palladium deuteride, showing evidence of much higher incidence of
deuterium fusion with more than two deuterons than was expected
from the ordinary cross-section.)
[ In the same spirit, he offered no theories to explain the nuclear
process he suspects is taking place along those thin layers of
palladium in his group's cells. ]
Right.
Theory should follow experiment and predict it, it is not
necessary to explain experimental results, and, in fact,
unexplainable experimental results, especially if replicated,
are the most interesting kind.
[ "There's a saying, 'Theory guides but experiments decide.'
Consider our data," he exhorts challengers.
"If it is what it appears to be, and the scientific community confirms
it through replications, then new theories will need to be considered,
and this may be challenging for some people to accept."..."
Indeed.
Thanks for looking at all this, Rich.
But don't miss the forest for the trees.
There is very little work that depends on these "electric"
or "magnetic" fields.
The Earthtech work is problematic,
they got results that partly looked like what others reported,
but which also looked quite different.
They should not have assumed that the pitting that they saw
was "SPAWAR" pitting.
I've now done some etching of CR-39 material, and it can be a mess.
Echoing Kowalski and others, it can be difficult.
I'm turning to LR-115 for the moment, though,
long-term, I expect that CR-39 will be the best material.
LR-115 is a simpler material for this purpose;
the active layer is 6 microns of cellulose acetate, red in color.
Radiation damage to the LR-115 causes, then, after etch,
a hole to appear completely through the red layer,
which is carried on 100 microns of polyester,
the hole appears as a bright dot.
It's much easier to read,
and it will read higher track density than CR-39, allegedly.
For me, the down side is that it is not easy to view the
cathode through it, but I'll address this by
leaving some cathode exposed and visible,
I want to be able to watch the cathode under a microscope
during the experiment.
And while it's cheaper than Landauer CR-39, it's much more
expensive than commercial CR-39, which I should be able to
obtain in much thinner films.
And, yes, I'll have to deal with variability in background radiation
exposure.
It's doable, I believe.
LR-115 was the fallback path, which I'm taking for now.
One anecdote: a worker in the field is located in Massachusetts, and
needed to photograph some of his work, which is a Kowalski-guided
replication of Oriani's work, and he thought he might need my
microscope.
As part of this, he sent me some photos of CR-39 results
he'd gotten before.
Absolutely clean, with a few isolated pits.
How did he get such clean etch?
Possibly very fresh Landauer CR-39,
plus there may be secrets to etching.
I've noticed the formation of copious bubbles on the surface.
Wouldn't those bubbles retard etching?
There are techniques that add some alcohol to the mix that
supposedly produce cleaner results.
I tried alcohol as a last resort for the CR-39 I was initially working
with, and I ended up concluding that the material
was utterly unusable, ab initio.
Wrong formulation.
There are other formulations that have been used,
specifically, for radiation detection.
Lots of work to be done, and only a little time....
I will publish what I found with a description of the specific
CR-39 material.
The most serious failures in experimental work are the ones
not reported! [ end of Lomax post ]
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Microbubbles of O2 reacting with the D in 1 to 1 ratio absorption in
rough complex Pd or Au surfaces will generate enough heat to melt
the Pd, thus creating complex foamy microstructures.
Ohmori little lily theory details: Rich Murray 1998.06.17
June 17, 1998
Hello all, The report in May, 1998 Fusion Technology by Ohmori,
Mizuno, and Enyo describes 7 to 30 day runs at 1 to 3 A
on 2.5 to 5 cm2 Au electrodes in 0.5 M Na2CO3 and Na2SO4
H2O electrolyte, from a Pt anode.
producing after a few days up to ~1 mg mostly Au precipitates, and
leaving myriad little lily volcano-like or ear-like foam structures on
scraped (rough) sites on the Au, as large as 20 microns wide and 30
deep, with detected Pt, Pd, Ni, Os, and Ti, and other elements, with
claimed isotopic ratio anomalies.
I am disputing their claim that the precipitates and spots are evidence
of low energy nuclear transmutations, and suggesting a chemical
reaction theory, namely that the most abundant and obvious and
reactive chemicals present, naturally enough, H2 and O2, are
recombined at the cathode.
I don't know how much the Au will load with H2.
However, Pt, Pd, Ni, Os, and Ti will naturally be electrodeposited as
concentrations at any tiny rough spots, and then will both load with H
and catalyze the swift reaction of that H with any tiny O2 bubbles that
are also attracted from the anode to attach to the rough spot.
The bubble and the spot will heat up quickly, so quickly that there is
little time for heat loss by radiation , conduction, or convection
at the Au-H2O interface.
As the Au heats and softens, the contained H will build up pressure
and expand it like popcorn, creating a popped blister of frozen foam,
expelling some of the metal, and leaving the impressively ugly little
lily vocanos.
The process would tend to reoccur at the thus even rougher spot,
building up a cluster of lilies of various sizes, as is shown in Ohmori's
dramatic images.
I will calculate the details for a 0.1 cm3 amount of O2.
Au melts at 1063 degrees C, 1336 degrees K.
The molar specific heat Cm = 26.9 J/mol degC.
For Au, 197 g/mol 5.08X10E-3 mol/g 19.32 g/cm3
9.81X10E-2 mol/cm3 10.2 cm3/mol
To heat from 27 to 1063 deg C, a delta of 1036 deg C,
takes heat (1036 deg C)(26.9 J/mol) = 2.79X10E4 J/mol,
and to melt takes
1.27X10E4 J/mol, known as the molar heat of fusion.
These conveniently add up to 4.06X10E4 J/mol,
or 40.6 KJ/mol to heat and melt the Au
That certainly sounds like a lot!
Now, we get the moles of O2 in the 0.1 cm3 O2:
n = PV/RT =
(1 atm X 10-4 L)/(8.2X10E-2 atm L/degK mol)X(300 deg K) =
4.065X10E-6 mol O2. That's not very much.
We know that one mole O2 reacts with 2 moles H2, and may as well
assume with 50% loading that the H2 is held within 4 moles of Au.
The reaction is 2 H2 (g) + O2 (g) -> 2H2O (g), and the enthalpy is
2 X 241.8 KJ/mol = 483.6 KJ/mol.
So the enthalpy released is
Ec = (4.065X10E-6 mol)X(483.6 KJ/mol)
= 1.97X10E-3 KJ = 1.97 J.
Now, 2 J is the energy from 1 A at 1 V for 2 sec.
Note: this is the range that heats W to incandescence in a flashlight.
The moles of Au heated and melted by this heat are
Nm = (1.97X10E-3 KJ)/(40.6 KJ/mol) = 4.85X10E-5 mol
and the volume of Au melted is
Vm = (4.85X10E-5 mol)X(10.2 cm3/mol)
= 4.95X10E-4 cm3, which, assuming for convenience a cube,
has a width .791 mm, and
mass Mm = (4.85X10E-5 mol)X(197 g/mol) = 9.56 mg,
or ten times the maximum precipitates found by Ohmori
after 30 days of electrolysis at up to 3 A and a few volts,
an input energy for 2.592X10E6 sec, if at 5 V and 3 A,
of 38,880,000 J. So the 2 J to create 10 mg of melted Au
is a most minute fraction of the available input energy.
Now, the results are the same if we have one 0.1 cm3 O2 bubble,
or a million bubbles of size 10E-7 cm3, spread out randomly over
the 30 day run, about 2-3 event/sec, creating the same total of
10 mg melted Au.
These million bubbles would as little cubes have widths
.004641 cm = 46.4 micron, about the right size for our little lilies.
Each of these events would have an average energy of 2X10E-6 J.
It should be possible to detect IR, visible, and UV radiation, and
acoustic signals, about 2-3 event/sec.
Another test would be to use an anode which does not contribute
Pt, Pd, Ni, Os, and Ti, and in contrast, to use an anode
enriched in these metals.
Also, a barrier could be used to prevent O2 bubbles from
reaching the cathode from the anode, and in contrast,
positioning the anode to maximize O2 bubble transfer.
_____________________________________________________
Rich Murray, MA
Boston University Graduate School 1967 psychology,
BS MIT 1964, history and physics,
1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
505-501-2298 [email protected]
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