What the NAE looks like in the Ni/H reactor is an aggregation of widely variable sized atomic clusters on or near the tips of the nanowires projecting from the nickel micro particles.
Particle aggregation is a widespread phenomenon in nature, which spontaneously occurs in the natural setting but is also widely exploited in manufacturing. Over time, the small aggregations that initially form on the nanowires become larger. The growth occurs mainly through encounters between different clusters, and therefore one refers to a cluster-cluster aggregation process. The resulting clusters are irregular, but statistically self-similar. They are examples of mass fractals, whereby their mass M grows with their typical size characterized by the radius of gyration Rg as a power-law M is proportional to R(d,g) where d is the mass fractal dimension. Depending whether the aggregation is fast or slow, one refers to diffusion limited cluster aggregation (DLCA) or reaction limited cluster aggregation (RLCA). The clusters have different characteristics in each regime. DLCA clusters are loose and ramified (d ≈ 1.8), while the RLCA clusters are more compact (d ≈ 2.3). The cluster size distribution is also different in these two regimes. DLCA clusters are relatively monodisperse, while the size distribution of RLCA clusters is very broad. The Ni/H reactor most likely produces primarily RLCA cluster aggregates. The larger the cluster size, the faster their formation velocity. At higher particle concentrations, the growing clusters may interlink between nanowires, and form a particle cross-linked system, which exhibits no flow when in the steady-state. A particle arrogate may contain many NAE sites based on the population number of very small atomic clusters in the aggregate. The nuclear active anapole magnetic fields project from this location between these small particle aggregate members. Since the anapole magnetic fields will emanate near the smallest particle aggregate members, these fields will mostly effect the material that comprises the aggregates and but when the NAE just so happens to be positioned near the nanowire sometimes the nickel of the nanowires will also be disrupted.
