On Aug 24, 2011, at 11:02 PM, Jouni Valkonen wrote:

Horace wrote: «Sparging steam into a bucket, though far better that other steam methods applied to date on Rossi's devices, and publicly disclosed, has numerous serious drawbacks, which have already been discussed.»

And where they are discussed and by whom?

My apologies. I should have provided some references. I consider it rude when sites are referenced and no URL provided.

Here is one place where we discussed this:

http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg50611.html

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I would note that steam sparging can have large errors due to steam escaping, due to variability in measuring the temperature decline curve, due to variations in the calorimetry constant with temperature, and due to imperfect stirring techniques. See my reference in one of the above posts for an actual application where I applied thermal decline curve measurement and estimated a complete energy balance.

Ultimately, the best method involves simultaneous dual calorimetry techniques which establish *total energy balances*, like that used by Earthech International:

http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/ICCF14_MOAC.pdf

and which in the past has been provided free of charge. Earthtech also has excellent equipment for measuring total electrical energy in. The Rossi devices can be treated like black boxes, with no knowledge of any trade secrets or internals required.
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My reference to practical problems with an actual application of isoperibolic calorimetry I had in 1997 was documented starting on page 9 of:

http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/BlueAEH.pdf

which shows some basic amateur calorimetry, including use of a post experiment temperature decline curve to estimate heat loss thorough the container walls, a technique which might be useful applied to a barrel calorimeter, though it is obviously best to insulate the barrel. It was noted in the above study that use of dewar flask provided far less exciting results. This is an indication of the general weakness of the technique. It was also noted that there were changing values of the W/(deg. C) calorimeter "constant" with temperature for the cell, and that this could mean more mechanisms affect heat loss at higher temperatures, e.g. evaporation and IR radiation are more significant. Obtaining a brief decay curve at high temperatures is not adequate for analysis. Good stirring and mixing is also essential for obtaining a mean temperature of the water during a run.

Just sparging steam into a bucket is a very inaccurate method.

Best regards,

Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/




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