Wait!
Suddenly you admit that the authors don't believe the field is 3000V/cm within
the electrolyte? Maybe you should read the paper again in order to fully
understand it.
> Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2012 01:25:36 -0500
> To: vortex-l@eskimo.com; vortex-l@eskimo.com
> From: a...@lomaxdesign.com
> Subject: RE: [Vo]:SPAWAR has yet to respond re simple error in claims of
> effects of external high voltage dc fields inside a conducting electrolyte:
> Rich Murray 2012.03.01 2012.07.02
>
> At 12:00 PM 7/4/2012, Finlay MacNab wrote:
> >Your argument assumes that the there is no air
> >gap between the dielectric and the charged
> >plates. It also assumes that the electrolyte
> >behaves like a regular 100ohm resistor.
>
> The plates are against the cell walls. Sure, you
> can make up an air gap. It would be small and
> have almost no effect on the analysis.
>
> Yes. The electrolyte, within bounds, behaves
> somewhat like a resistor. In fact, the resistance
> changes under real conditions, it's noisy, as I
> mentioned. Noisy resistor, and there is
> capacitance in parallel and in series with the
> resistor, if you want a more complete model. The
> details are completely swamped by the magnitude
> of the problem. The effect on the electrolyte and
> all that is immersed in it is minute.
>
> And I seriously doubt the competence of anyone
> who asserts otherwise, after seeing the problem.
> I very much doubt that anyone from SPAWAR will
> defend that paper, and I do think it likely that we will see some comment.
>
> It was just an error, and it does not impeach the vast bulk of their work.
>
> >In this case, where the movement of ions in
> >electrolyte is dominated by diffusion and mixing
> >from the gas bubbles generated by redox
> >reactions at the two, in solution, electrodes
> >the electrolyte does not behave like a 100ohm
> >resistor. Your treatment of the system as two
> >dielectrics sandwiched between three metal
> >plates is not sufficient to describe the system.
>
> That isn't my description of the system. It is
> two dielectrics between two metal plates, not
> three, and between the two dielecrics (acrylic)
> is an electrolyte, that is, water with a
> substance dissolved so that it will conduct a
> substantial current with a modest voltage.
>
> Absolutely, modeling the electrolyte with a
> resistor is primitive. But the difference in the
> behavior of the electrolyte, due to error in this
> model, with respect to the division of the high
> voltage across the three regions, will be insignificant.
>
> >You don't know if mixing and diffusion within
> >the electrolyte and the extremely low mobility
> >of solvated ions would allow an external
> >electric field to exist within the electrolyte
> >and allow electrophoretic and other field
> >induced effects to influence the near surface of the Pd film.
>
> I know that an equipotential surface exists
> inside the cell that will totally screen any
> effects on this cell from what is beyond that.
> The current from the high voltage supply, through
> the electrolyte, will be in the picoamp range,
> that is completely necessary, because the only
> conduction path is through two plates with very
> high resistance. This current is totally swamped
> by noise from many sources. Likewise the voltage
> experienced by the electrolyte stemming from the high voltage supply.
>
> Finlay, don't immolate yourself on trying to be
> right. You know enough to get into trouble, to
> make up complex explanations that ignore the
> obvious. The electrolyte is a decent conductor,
> the LiCl salt has been added for that purpose,
> and that purpose alone. Ohms law still applies
> with current, voltage, and resistance through an
> electrolyte. Power dissipation is still current
> times voltage. Kirchoff's Law still applies with electrolytes.
>
> >Finally, the only mention of the strength of
> >the electric field in the paper: "the cell
> >placement in an electric field (2500–3000 V
> >cm-1)" refers to the entire cell, it does not
> >refer to the field within the electrolyte. The
> >authors never assert that the field strength is
> >3000 V/cm within the electrolyte.
>
> The cell is placed in an electric field with that
> strength before the cell is placed in it. In
> fact, with the cell in place, loaded with
> electrolyte, the field strength becomes much
> quite a bit higher, within the acrylic, and far,
> far lower within the electrolyte. They imply that
> the field within the cell would be substantial
> enough to affect cell chemistry, when the field
> within the cell is actually truly miniscule,
> swamped by noise in the other sources of voltage,
> specifically the electrolytic power supply, as
> well as the electrochemical phenomena taking place.
>
> Basically, there is a region about an inch wide.
> It is between two plates. The plates have 6 KV
> between them. The cell is placed in that space.
> The electric field is no longer uniform, as it
> was before the cell was placed. Specifying the
> electric field strength, instead of the total
> field, is pretty strange, except this is what
> they were thinking they were doing, they thought
> they were subjecting the cathode to an enhanced
> electric field. It's really pretty silly, I'm
> sure that there are some stories behind this.
>
> Frankly, if I didn't think this awfully unlikely
> coming from SPAWAR, I'd think the whole thing was
> a joke, a parody on cold fusion research.
>
>
> >Your assertion that the authors claim that the
> >effects result from high fields is not born out
> >by their treatment of the electrolyte,
> >interphase region, and bulk Pd regions of the cell.
>
> The title of the paper? The effect of an external
> electric field on surface morphology of
> co-deposited Pd/D films
>
> There isn't any "bulk Pd" in this cell, by the way.
>
> The abstract says "The polarized PdD electrode
> undergoes significant morphological changes when
> exposed to an external electric field."
>
> That implies that the electrode (cathode, in this
> case) is "exposed to ... the field," wouldn't you
> say? But it isn't. From the position of the
> electrode, no detectable effect of the field, as
> a field, would be discoverable. No detectable
> force would be acting on the cathode resulting
> from the field being turned on. Note that in this
> experiment, the current is increased
> simultaneously with the field setup, doubled to
> 100 mA. That will have a far greater effect.
> There is no indication of controls.
>
> How about "The effect of a homeopathic dose of
> plutonium, 30X, on the surface morphology of
> co-deposited Pd/D films"? Frankly, it's as
> likely. More likely, in my book. But it's
> obvious. Some people don't immediately see the
> problem. We've seen some here who don't see it
> even with presented with big blinking signs and short or long explanations.
>
> The total electric field -- voltage gradient --
> experienced by something immersed in a conductive
> electrolyte, placed inside an electric field,
> cannot exceed the voltage across the electrolyte.
> Voltage across the electrolyte is voltage across
> the electrolyte, it will cause a proportional
> current to flow, in accordance with the nature of
> the electrolyte. It's not a linear resistor,
> that's true, but also highly misleading here. The
> electric field cannot possibly cause more than a
> very small leakage current to flow, I calculated
> it as in the picoamp region. That is not nearly
> enough to affect *anything* in the cell,
> materially, there are far higher currents
> present, that are thenselves noisier at much
> higher levels. There is no discriminable field
> found inside the cell, in the electrolyte, coming
> from the high voltage supply. That supply might
> have another effect, though, I mention it below.
>
> >Thus your assertion that the authors' manuscript
> >contains a "shocking analytical error" is not
> >accurate. Your comment that a retraction of the
> >paper would be useful and that the paper is an
> >example of subjective judgements is highly
> >inflammatory and unjustified. These comments,
> >being insufficiently supported, are incredibly
> >insulting to the authors of the paper and to the entire SPAWAR group.
>
> Not nearly as insulting as allowing this to
> stand, when anyone with half a brain and a bit of
> knowledge about how electrical fields work, such
> as any technician who has ever worked with high
> voltage, can see the problem at a glance, should they happen to look.
>
> Look, I have correspondence with people involved
> with SPAWAR, and with the senior scientists in
> the field. If I'm wrong, they will tell me, they
> are not shy. I won't necessarily repeat what I
> find in inquiring about this, I have some
> suspicions that I'd rather not voice. Just some
> political stuff. But I do intend to ask them.
> It's up to them if they care about their reputation.
>
> But I care about it anyway. Otherwise why bother
> with this trivial BS? SPAWAR has done a pile of valuable work.
>
> "Subjective judgments" Aw, Geez. I just reread
> the paper more carefully. It's far worse than I
> thought. There are too many problems to even
> begin to address. Something went dreadfully wrong
> there. But I'll start with "subjective." There is
> nothing in the paper to indicate how the
> differences were seen other than someone's report
> that something looked different. Different from
> what? There is a lot of questionable theory and
> not much objective observation or data. There are
> photographs showing morphology, but no controls
> beyond one photo of "normal" surface. Which
> doesn't look that much different from what they
> show as one of the "electric field" images.
>
> I'll point to one piece of text:
>
> >3.3. Effect of electric field
> >By placing an operating electrochemical cell, a part of the
> >field energy is transferred to the cell. In particular, the
> >electrostatic field affects each individual subsystems, viz.
> >electrolyte, interphase and bulk electrode, in a different way.
> >Moreover, the action may be either direct or indirect; in the
> >latter case, it affects a process which is not directly
> >connected with the presence of the electrical charge.
>
> First of all, the first sentence is incomplete. I
> think they meant to say, "by placing an operating
> electrochemical cell in an electric field, a part
> of the field energy is transferred to the cell."
> Sure. A miniscule amount of energy is
> transferred, once. It's not clear whether or not
> they placed the cell in an existing field or
> turned on the power with the cell operating, I
> saw other text that implied the latter.
>
> When the power supply is on, power dissipation in
> the acrylic, each side, would be about 3000V x 1
> pA, or about 3 nanowatts. At the same time, there
> isa bout a watt being dissipated in the cell, from the electrolytic current.
>
> I don't see what they are saying except filling
> space with words. A field would have different
> effects on different objects. That needs to be
> said? There is no specificity here. It all
> assumes that there is, within the cell, an
> "electrostatic field" created by the external
> field. There is no such field, not within the
> electrolyte, which covers the subsystems mentioned.
>
> I see a report that
>
> >The first noticeable effect, after placing the cell in an
> >electric field, is the “swelling” of the co-deposited PdD
> >material followed by a displacement toward the negative
> >plate of the capacitor.
>
> Is that an effect of "placing the cell in an
> electric field" (which is an odd way of
> describing turning on the power, one ordinarily
> attemps to avoid disturbing codeposition cells,
> the plating can fall off the wire at the
> slightest excuse), or is it an effect of doubling
> the electrolytic current? The two actions took
> place simultaneously, according to the
> description at the beginning of the article.
>
> Palladium swells as it is loaded with deuterium,
> that's a very well-known effect. Increasing the
> current can increase the loading and, in fact,
> that's the normal desired effect of increasing the current.
>
> The purpose of the work was to explore the role
> of forces acting on the surface of a deposited
> cathode in developing the complex morphology that
> is found. They jump from this into an attempt to
> apply a force using an "external electric field."
> This implies that the field would exert some
> force on the surface. They never consider the
> magnitude of such a force, they seem to assume
> that it would be present, giving some quite
> complex reasons that don't seem to make sense.
>
> This paper is truly embarrassing. I kind of wish I hadn't looked.
>
> Note: a high voltage supply like that might have
> some gross effect on the cell. If there is noise
> in the supply, the cell might vibrate. Vibration
> of the cell could certainly affect morphology.
>
> All this has no significance with respect to cold
> fusion. They aren't reporting any effect on heat
> generation here, and using an "external electric
> field" did not become any part of any protocol that I know of.
>
> They believed they saw something and maybe they
> did see something (perhaps that vibration effect,
> just a guess of mine). As far as I know, nobody
> has confirmed this work. The images are used
> sometimes to show the complex surfaces of
> codeposited CF cathodes, they are useful for
> that. Really, as far as I can tell, these are
> just SEM images of codep cathodes, no clue as to
> whether or not these were active with a nuclear
> reaction. One might notice that the surfaces are
> quite varied. Were all these varied cathode
> surfaces created with the exact same conditions?
>
