-----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell > Brian told me about the spin-melting process but I do not understand the details. If you do understand them, please outline them here... I think it is similar to what Yamaura et al. did in their 2002 paper.
Yes, it is basically that same process. The problem is that not many labs can do spin-casting (glassy metals) - and it isn't cheap. > If spin-melting works, why do you need a simpler process? Well, you may not actually "need a simpler process" at all ... except as a practical consideration for a commercial product. Since it is proved to work this only applies to secondary consideration. The downside is that spin casting to a glassy metal is tedious, low volume and expensive. The one thing (PR-wise) which would really make the underlying technology really take-off into the stratosphere is for a few dozen high school science fair participants to pull off cheaper versions using electroplating (for instance, or other alternatives that have not been tried AFAIK). BTW - It dawned on me that this morning that the unpowered heating, due only to cupronickel nano-powder contact is probably a cyclical and asymmetric type of spillover "rain" (more like a storm). By that I mean you have a reactor that is insulated, but it has an area at the top where cooling occurs - and that creates a rapid internal circulation of H2. Hydrogen is incredibly mobile, to the extent that simple circulation within a small reactor can be happening at enormous speed, perhaps 20 time higher than if it was air. There is also a bit of entrained water vapor - which comes from reduction of the oxide support (the dielectric). Therefore, there is present in the small reactor what is essentially a close metaphor to the weather cycle - such as in the earth environment, but where the gas impinges on the nano spillover catalyst, converts to monatomic on the Lawandy dielectric, condenses for a short time, and eventually reverts to molecular gas where it, in effect, "boils off" and recirculates due to thermal transfer. Normally, we would think this kind of cycle is completely symmetric, in order to preserve CoE, but perhaps there is the same kind of tiny asymmetry involved in this cycle, which we see in the Lamb shift, for instance. If could even be the Lamb shift itself. The net result is that there is a tiny gain on every iterative "rain" cycle, but because of the high mobility, there is an enormous "transaction rate" (the storm analogy). The effect is measurable and continuous thermal gain - which starts out as a tiny fraction of an eV in the Lamb shift, or else another kind of asymmetry, but is additive. This is similar to what Moddel and Haisch aspired to do in their patent, but could not pull it off (see Fran Roarty's blog site for an explanation) The ultimate source of energy for the delta-T would then be the zero point field. Jones BTW - this process could be accentuated by a longer tubular reactor, which is extremely well insulated on the bottom (aerogel?) where the powder is located, but with high surface such as aluminum fins at the top. Additionally, it would function as a Qu-tube to keep the fins at a temperature above the surrounding air. Air-flow calorimetry would be needed to document the gain, instead of RTDs - which is probably cheaper to pull off in the end, and because the tube and caps could be copper plumbing fixtures (ala Rossi) since there is little heat and modest pressure, this whole experiment could be pulled off for a few hundred bucks *IF* the glassy metal is not required to get active nanopowder.
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