Abd wrote: "... that the temperature is nailed shows that there is steam and water in equilibrium. This is not a characteristic of dry steam."
It all depends on the consistency of the inlet flow rate and water temperature, and the reactor's heat production. With most of the tests the pump used can be considered to provide a consistent flow-rate, and the fact that they were taking water from a large container would provide a pretty consistent temperature, so the only real significant variable would be the reactor heat production rate... And with highly controlled particle size and what is most likely a very specific process of applying the Ni-catalyst powder to the inside of the reactor, very consistent heat production is certainly reasonable. The semiconductor industry can deposit layers of atoms only a few atoms thick, and do it quite precisely and repeatably. The circuits that come out of those processes are extremely consistent. It really isn't a stretch at all to think that some careful deposition processes could be used to obtain a consistent layering of the 'fuel' in the e-Cat's reactor to provide very consistent performance. And when you have a working fluid with the large heat capacity that water has, then you've got a system that can stand considerable fluctuations of heat which are smoothed out by the water's specific heat. In all the talk about the start up slope and thermal mass, one can almost forget the metals. Here are the specific heats for most of the materials that make up the majority of the e-Cat: - Hydrogen (gas) 14.30 J/g*K - Water (liquid) 4.18 J/g*K - Stainless 0.5 J/g*K - Nickel 0.46 J/g*K - Copper 0.39 J/g*K - Lead 0.13 J/g*K The only thing that has any real heat capacity is the water and hydrogen... The material that is probably the most by mass, the lead, is also the lowest specific heat of all the materials. In addition, the rubber hose has about HALF the heat capacity of water, so it can absorb a considerable amount of heat before it changes temperature... -Mark
