Jack,
Sorry you got nothing to show from electrolysis - but it is sometimes helpful to report these negative results. Thanks for stepping forward with them now. There is value in null results when properly analyzed, and it can be of significant value when there is something positive to contrast them against. In the case of Ni-H, your results could actually narrow the possibilities and open up greater insight - when one considers Cravens results in contrast to yours. This assumes of course that both results are completely accurate for a particular parameter, and we look at the implications of the two types of experiments together. This seems to be the case here. For instance, if a modest magnetic field is required for gain (especially unpowered gain)– and a field intensity which is above a cutoff level is needed, such as Cravens provides, then electrolysis alone is not going to get us there unless the electrode is in the form of a coil of many turns - to increase the amp-turns and thereby the field intensity. Although there is a small field associated with the current flow of electrolysis, it is generally too low to meet any reasonable threshold. In contrast, samarium cobalt has substantial field, i.e. “maximum energy product” (BHmax) up to 32 megagauss-oersted (MGOe) with no current required - equivalent to nearly a Joule per mm^3. Note that Mizuno used thin nickel wire and many turns. He may not have realized the reason that it worked – but only that it did work. Secondly, a few of the many nickel alloys you tried are probably close to the proper combination of properties for gain, but perhaps do not meet another critical parameter – which is chemisorption. Chemisorption could be critical (almost certainly !) - and very small differences (such as 1-2% variance in the alloy ratio) could determine whether a particular nickel-copper alloy is active for chemisorption, or not. It is a feature of physical spacing. Even when the alloy absorbs protons instead of atoms, success could still depend on the alloy being active in a magnetic field of the proper intensity, and geometry. Note that pure Nickel is not chemisorbent at ambient but, Ni with 5% Pd is chemisorbent. Even pure Pd is not chemisorbent without some dopant. A new parameter which is showing up is “superparamagnetism”. Without it, there are no terabyte HDs – which is an interesting connection to another field. Superparamagnetism may open many doors of understanding in LENR. In short, if gain from Ni-H were simple to do – someone would have hit on the proper combination of parameters way back in the flurry of activity which happened between 1989 and 1993. Sadly, one problem for finding this holy grail may have been the tendency not to report negative results, which is exacerbated when one researcher is suspicious (or jealous) of positive results from another researcher in a similar experiment. In fact, prior to Cravens, most positive results were a bit more suspicious, since there were so many ways to err – most of which are eliminated in a side-by-side unpowered experiment. From: Jack Cole Hi Jones, I'm still around. :) I put my electrolysis experimentation on pause after doing something like 200 experiments with nothing to convince me I had found anything. I had some hope for Brillouin Energy, but after all this time at SRI with no results reported, it gives me doubts about whether Godes had what he thought. I decided not to pursue replicating his method until something more is released from him. Anyway, I'm not very hopeful for nickel-based electrolysis being able to produce LENR--at least nothing I have tried has convinced me. There is a lot to convince me that false positives are easy to obtain when you are looking for lower levels of excess heating. It needs to be the last conclusion you come to after considering alternatives and designing experiments to test the alternatives. Time after time, the results of my follow up experiments supported the alternative explanation. I'm hoping the Rossi report comes out positive as the probability of a false positive at his previously-reported power levels would be nearly impossible to obtain. Just to summarize, I tried various materials (Nicrome, constantan, nitinol, thoriated tungsten, cuprothal, all of the above plated with nickel) and various types of triggering (AC, pulsed DC, alternating DC with pulsed AC, high frequency/high current AC alternating with DC, external heating, laser, permanent magnet, different electrolytes). I tried slow loading over several days to a week at low current followed by active runs and attempts to trigger. I tried prepping material in light acid followed by cleaning with acetone. Best regards, Jack Jones Beene wrote: For the record - here is more background on LaNi5, which is looking more-and-more like the magic bullet for Ni-H thermal effects when combined with a magnetic field (this combination could be in order to reach a superparamagnetic state of self-resonance). http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/j100476a006
