The amount of lithium seems to be tiny from what I have read. Do you think that enough of it is in there to perform the function you are suggesting?
Dave -----Original Message----- From: Robert Lynn <robert.gulliver.l...@gmail.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Sun, Oct 12, 2014 1:35 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Engineering and materials issues with high temperature hot-cat Lugano demo if there was an inner metal cylinder to contain reactants (particularly insanely leak-prone hydrogen at high temperatures) then it would be sealed by welding not half assed approaches like alumina glue. Until you have worked with hydrogen (I worked with stirling engines containing hydrogen) it is hard to appreciate just how disrespectful it is of things like hermetically sealed containers and thin walled materials of all types. Anyone with similar experience would find the idea of such a small reactor with low volume small fuel charge and large thin wall operating for a month at 12-1400°C while retaining hydrogen fuel totally unbelievable. Also alkali metals are nasty on all metals that I am aware of at high temperatures - particularly in heat pipe type applications like this - pure lithium condenses on cooler wall surfaces, instantly dissolving metal atoms from the surface and washing them away to the hot zone where the lithium is evaporated. This leads to fast corrosion/eating away of basically all metals as they are all slightly soluble in lithium, made worse by elevated temperatures. This reactor is a lithium heat pipe, with hot nickel powder heat source at the bottom of the tube and lithium washing down the walls continually to deposit dissolved atoms at the bottom evaporation zone. On 13 October 2014 01:18, Stefan Israelsson Tampe <stefan.ita...@gmail.com> wrote: Robert I think you make good points, not sure what the inner cylinder is made of and I guess that if it is metal it has to be thin in order to not show up on the weight. There is also the possiblity that eddi current's heat the cyllinder at high temps but then can we keep the wires cold. Also, this is speculative, but we really don't know the inner process if this thing works, can there be a local magnetic field due to the reaction, the thing is the only way I can figure out that the nuclear process is happening without radiation is that the there is a deallocated electron squeezed between the reactants in the nuclear process that mediates the energy and momentum to the outer metal in the reaction in stead of releasing radiation, so there is a movement in the electron, if this is somewhat synchronized locally we might get some magnetics to show up. This is only speculating, but I think that we should be careful whith what we don't know, you seam to find good arguments against inductive heating, and this might leave us with resistive heating and a good evidence that the core is hot due to the reaction and not because of resistive heating. On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 6:55 PM, Robert Lynn <robert.gulliver.l...@gmail.com> wrote: far above curie limit for Ni, magnetic fields won't move powder magnetically, only ions, but temps are too low for significant Li or H ions to exist, and no ionising radiation sources in evidence. On 13 October 2014 00:49, Stefan Israelsson Tampe <stefan.ita...@gmail.com> wrote: Yes but in that case the core can be hotter then the cables. We don't know about the powder, and the changes of magnetic fields inside the core could stir the powder around and by changing that behavior you might end up controlling the reaction rate. Also inductive heating of an inner containing cylinder does produce a fast response to the actual cylinder which controls the heat radiative environment in there. On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 6:41 PM, Robert Lynn <robert.gulliver.l...@gmail.com> wrote: inductive heating only works on conductive materials with sufficient thickness/area through which the changing magnetic flux passes to allow eddy currents to form. With 150Hz pulses Nickel particles of tiny scale would not be affected (like thin motor laminates) - it would only work to heat a secondary metal body that could then heat via radiation (very inefficient, and of no practical benefit). On 13 October 2014 00:35, Stefan Israelsson Tampe <stefan.ita...@gmail.com> wrote: How do we know that iti s resistive heating that is taking place? Bob Greenyer at MFMP sugested that it is an inductive heater this means that the wires get a bit cooler then the heated core. On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 6:24 PM, Robert Lynn <robert.gulliver.l...@gmail.com> wrote: Fig 12b. page 26. Only just notice that they say they are "inconel" resistance wires. But how can the resistor wire, external to the reactor, glow more brightly than the reactor itself (implying it is hotter)? Also if the reactor external surface is at 1250-1410°C, then on top of the 30-50°C temperature drop through the walls the resistive wire would have to be even hotter (up towards 1500°C) in order to be able to radiate the 900W! And there are no "inconel" metal wires that can survive such temperatures in air for a month. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/melting-temperature-metals-d_860.html There is also a mistake in their discussion for these figures, the metal resistors within the reactor would necessarily have to be hotter than the reactor itself if they are to be able to output heat into the reactor. But then again at >1450°C inconel resistance wires would have turned into puddles anyway. The 2mm high fins on the outside, subjected to convective air cooling would be 30-50°C colder than the base of the fins due to the longer conduction path and hence greater temperature drop through the alumina. And that should influence the thermography to under-read, but also means the temperature within the reactor would have to be even higher to create 1400°C average surface temperature. So this proves that the thermographic temperature readings are off by a very long way - at least 150-200°C too high if inconel wires that max-out at about 1300-1350°C were to have survived for a month. We now know there is a huge error, we just don't know the source of the error, or how big the error is. But eg 1210°C vs 1410°C would drop power output by 40% from that claimed so that the COP would be <2. With the existence of such a huge error of unknown source the claims of power output cannot not be trusted at all. On the upside, it does however mean that the nickel was not melted, and lithium vapour pressure was a lot lower.
