At 01:50 AM 3/13/2010, Rich Murray wrote:
Lomax ideas for cheap SPAWAR type cell: Murray 2010.03.12
Hot spot formation by bubble recombination, perhaps causing melted
pits, Rich's hypothesis, is not relevant to the SPAWAR cells, since
pit formation, while of interest, isn't crucial. I'll be looking for
pits, for sure, but as possibly associated signals, not as nuclear
evidence, per se. However, there are fundamental problems with Rich's
hypothesis, and, because this hypothesis clearly exists as a kind of
ad-hoc objection to the hypothesis of nuclear origin for the heat
that probably causes pits, it's important to look at it carefully. My
examination will not be complete, I expect.
My chemical hot spot calculation considers a microregion
of surface paladium that has absorbed hydrogen 1 to 1,
in which case, if an equal volume size O2 bubble (hemisphere)
happens to become attached to the highly catalytic H saturated metal,
especially at rough or extra impurity spots, then the rapid
recombination would deliver enough heat quickly enough
for a wave of combustion to sweep through the metal,
melting it and forming an instant foam from the expanding
steam product.
Hold on a moment. One step at a time.
1. Existence of fully loaded palladium is acknowledged and understood.
2. Oxygen is being evolved at the cathode. There is no stirring
mechanism in these cells. How an oxygen bubble would get from the
anode, where oxygen gas is being evolved, to the cathode is unstated.
Such a bubble would rapidly rise to the surface. Deuterium gas is
being evolved from the cathode, also rising to the surface. Currents
caused by this evolution would be inadequate to stir the electrolyte
sufficiently to carry an oxygen bubble from the anode to the cathode
in the configurations known to be used for these experiments.
3. Let's grant that oxygen that reaches the cathode, given the
presence of palladium as a catalyst and hydrogen, would rapidly
recombine. Because there will be oxygen dissolved in the electrolyte,
there would be continual recombination at the cathode, at some level,
probably low. The formation of bubbles there from accumulating oxygen
would be very unikely. If the bubble formed off the surface, it would
be swept up by bubbling deuterium and not come into contact with the
cathode, which is continually evolving deuterium from the surface.
Basically, oxygen bubbles would not in general contact the cathode at all.
3. Okay, somehow a bubble hits the surface. The entire volume of the
palladium is saturated with deuterium. What will happen? I expect, if
the catalysis is as described, the deuterium at the surface would
immediately combust, forming a layer of steam, immediately at the
surface. This would blow the remaining oxygen away from the surface
and would protect the underlying deuterium from contact with the
oxygen. No mechanism is proposed for them to mix, and the pressure
from steam formation would militate against it. This would be, then,
a surface burn, not a burn in the bulk.
4. I did not see a calculation of the thermal characteristics of a
single bubble combustion. To produce melting, the rate of evolution
of heat from combustion would have to exceed the rate at which heat
could be carried away by steam and by underwater conduction, as well
as conduction through the metal. Calculations assuming total heat
available from combusion at the cathode seemed to assume that all the
oxygen would be available there. A calculation involving a single
bubble would be more impressive, but there would still be the major
problem of figuring out how palladium deuteride would burn other than
at the surface. Perhaps the bubble penetrates cracks? But in order to
penetrate the cracks, the bubble would have to contact the palladium
deuteride, which, by the assumptions given, would immediately react
with it. The bubble could not reach depth, even in a crack.
5. It is this "wave of combustion" that seems completely unexplained,
not to mention the problems of getting oxygen to the cathode.
6. The recombination theory of pit formation should be quite possible
to check experimentally. An oxygen budget could limit the amount of
oxygen available. If recombination takes place elsewhere, consuming a
known quantity of oxygen, with total evolved oxygan and deuterium
known from integrated current (considering the palladium plating as
well), it should be possible to set an upper bound on oxygen
available for recombination. Bubble transport from the anode to the
cathode could be even more severely inhibited. I've thought of
putting a baffle in the cell between the anode and cathode, such that
bubbles which are at all rising would not have a path to the cathode
from the anode. The electrolysis current would flow below the baffle,
the opening between the two sides being below both the cathode and
the anode. But because pit formation is only a secondary
characteristic I'll be looking for initially, I haven't pursued this,
and any disturbance to the Galileo protocol is somewhat hazardous,
there should be a good reason.
7. We would expect this recombination and pit formation to occur with
light water as well as heavy water, the chemistry is very similar.
By doing the calculations on the basis of
amounts of H2 per volume of metal = volume of adjacent
microbubble of O2 at standard pressure and temperature,
then it is easy to show
that the energy density (heat) is more than enough to
melt and foam even a refractory metal.
Perhaps. I didn't seen those calculations, but maybe they were mixed
in with more complex calculations about total energy available, etc.
So, suppose that an ideal mixture of hydrogen and oxygen could
generate enough heat quickly enough to melt palladium. Unstated was
how this mixture forms. It's not enough to have a bubble of oxygen.
That bubble will not oxidize deuterium en masse, it will do so at the
surface in contact with the palladium deuteride, and this oxidation
will produce hot steam which will isolate the bubble of oxygen from
the palladium deuteride, blowing it away from the cathode. So
combusion might indeed start from contact with a bubble and the
surface of the cathode, but could not continue, because there is
nothing to force the oxygen into the lattice where the deuterium is
found. Heating of the palladium deuteride might indeed release
deuterium, but this would, again, burn at the surface if it hits
oxygen. It would hit steam first, and the steam pressure would resist
deuterium evolution.
As far as I'm concerned, the exact origin of the pits remains a
mystery. A single fusion reaction would not produce enough heat to
form a pit, there would have to be some kind of local avalanche reaction.
Given, however, that we know from other evidence that nuclear
reactions do take place in palladium deuteride, under the right
conditions -- which were initially very difficult to characterize --
there is no need for far-fetched chemical explanations, though those
still cannot be ruled out. For example, there might be nuclear
reactions accounting for excess heat and helium, and recombination
accounting for pits, the heat of recombination appearing as part of
the overall oxygen/deuterium budget (i.e., that it appears at the
cathode may not show up in the calorimetry, which should consider
overall recombination in any case, exactly where it occurs not being
important in finding excess heat).
So, large pits can be seen to be equivalent in terms of calculation
to a simple sum of smaller pits -- making the calculation
very convenient.
But the behavior or large bubbles would be very different from the
behavior of small ones.
The chemical energy released in many reactions is used
to melt all metals.
Under conditions where the heat can be collected and maintained. An
oxyhydrogen torch mixes the oxygen and hydrogen for efficient burn,
controlling where the exact burn takes place. What happens to
palladium deuteride exposed to air? Does it burn? Does it explode?
Why not? There would be a lot more oxygen in ordinary air than in the
electrolyte at the cathode surface!
The probably explosive (detonation shock wave) quality
of the burning means that the event would be so brief,
that the amount of heat lost by convection, conduction,
and radiation would be minor, as the shock front would
move into the metal, melting and foaming the the metal,
which very soon would solidify into complex surface
foam form farms.
Brief requires explosive mixture, and that's exactly what Rich did
not explain. The palladium deuteride is a metal alloy, effectively.
Oxygen cannot penetrate it, so that deuterium is not available for
combustion, below the surface. If combustion begins at the surface,
to repeat, it will immediately produce an insulating layer of steam
(the reaction product between deuterium and oxygen), separating the
reaction constituents and blowing the oxygen away from the surface.
Essentially, the combusion would immediately self-extinguish, before
it ever got hot enough to even begin to melt palladium.
Now, I can imagine that a complex fractal surface of palladium
deuteride might somehow become enmeshed with oxygen, but I don't see
why the oxygen would be able to penetrate deeply into such a surface,
it would immedately begin reacting and would be blown away with the
steam. There would have to be some mechanism suppressing the reaction
until the oxygen penetrated more deeply, and perhaps an explosive
mixture forms, before some event ignites it. Far-fetched, I'm saying.
Lots of far-fetched things happen, such as low-energy nuclear
reactions! But we still don't routinely expect them, and propose them
as explanations for experimental phenomena until everything simpler
has been ruled out.
There may be additional chemical energy from
oxidation of the metal.
Sure. But the problem is the shortage of oxygen at the cathode, not a
shortage of combustible material.
Impurity spots on the paladium would tend to
lower the melting point, and provide more
elements to oxidize.
Attempts to produce and replicate chemical reaction
hot spots would be interesting, and of course necessary
to evaluate their role as a factor causing unexpected
results.
Sure. However, I doubt that any will be found. The standard cells I'm
proposing and building should be able to address many issues like
this, though, with proper controls and monitoring. I'm starting with
the simplest experiment(s), with some very simple investigational
instrumentation tacked on, stuff that might or might not find
anything. If I don't find neutron evidence, given codep and a gold
cathode and a reasoanbly well-characterized protocol, I'll be
worried. If I don't find pits or acoustic emissions or light
emissions, I won't be worried at all. They will simply be results to
be reported, accessory evidence.
As a skeptic re nuclear reaction claims, I find it
easy to imagine O2 microbubbles forming and moving
complexly in the electrolyte to end up in enough
quantities on the cathode to be be a proximate
cause of dramatic hot spots. So I'm taking a
shave with Occam's razor...
I think you've got the razor pointed in the wrong direction. At this
point, you are using it to cut your hands, so to speak. Turn it
around and look at the massive evidence for nuclear reactions. Start
with the fact that by 2004, the U.S. Department of Energy expert
panel was evenly divided on the crucial question of excess heat in
palladium deuteride. And if we look at the experts who accepted
excess heat, we have about two-thirds who thought that the evidence
for nuclear origin was at least "somewhat convincing." Those who know
the evidence in the field think that this panel was about half biased
and most of the rest overcautious, and the bias is clear from some of
the individual expert reports, which are available. Inertia,
basically, some people being unwilling to reconsider what they so
strongly believed for fifteen years at that time. The penel only had
a day of direct contact with experts in the field. Given how complex
the issues are, that was utterly inadequate for a thorough review, so
what we can see in the individual reports is the raising of questions
that were actually answered long ago, and assertions of the state of
research in the field that, quite simply, no longer apply, if they
ever did apply.
I found it unsustainable to continue to assert the hypothesis of
chemical origin for the excess heat and helium and radiation
findings, as well as certain other findings. Helium generation means
nuclear origin, unless you can figure out some non-nuclear way to
generate helium. Good luck! The old canard of "the helium was below
ambient" simply wasn't true in all cases, and when used for
correlation of helium measurements with excess heat, was irrelevant.
The DoE panel clearly did not understand the helium evidence, one
reviewer misreported it, mangling it and misrpresenting it, and then
the DoE summarizer took that expert report and further mangled it
until, when the original paper supported clear correlation between
helium and excess heat, the summary report showed, on the fact,
anticorrelation. No wonder they were skeptical! They did not
understand what they were seeing! That is, the half that we might
call still truly skeptical.
Have previous tests finding micropits in the cathode
searched inside them for oxides of paladium and its impurities?
I don't know. I do know elemental analysis has been done, finding
elemental and isotopic anomalies. But the interpretation of these
extraordinarily sensitive measurements is difficult.
What it seems to me you have done, Rich, is to put great emphasis on
what seem to you to be neglected considerations or possibilities. In
the case of external electric fields, my first reaction, looking at
that work was, why the hell did they even bother? And that they saw
differences means to me that it's possible, when experiments are
small-scale and relatively isolated and inadequately controlled with
multiple instances, to see something that isn't there. However, I
certainly cannot say that the theoretical considerations that would
lead me to expect no difference from external electrical fields would
be conclusive. Something may be happening that I -- and you -- simply
did not think of.
In the case of melted pits in the cathode, certainly the evidence
that the pits are caused by melting from nuclear heat isn't strong,
all that there is, for the most part, is evidence that (1) nuclear
heat exists in this environment and (2) something got awfully hot
quickly. Chemical origin for that heat is certainly an obvious
conjecture, but the absence of mechanism, your hypothesis being
notably lacking on the basic process as to how this heat would be
generated *in detail*, makes it no simpler than a likewise unknown
nuclear process, except that we do know that significant heat is
being generated by nuclear process, that's demonstrated by
extrapolation from helium results, and from radiation results.
At this point, Occam's razor does not rule out nuclear origin, and
that was actually a very old error. Nuclear origin was, in fact,
always the simplest hypothesis for explaining excess heat, and it is
only that it represented such an unexpected result that made it seem
otherwise, compbined with the huge political errors made by the
scientific community twenty years ago. "Unexpected" is not a synonym
for "Simplest."
Instead of considering nuclear origin as being a possible hypothesis
to be tested against other hypotheses, it was ruled out as
impossible, requiring "extraordinary evidence." And the standard for
that evidence kept moving, until what was originally demanded was
supplied long ago, with ever-increasing evidence being required.
That's result-driven analysis, and, in spite of the continued demand
for what was originally a "cup of tea" brewed with excess heat, and
then becamse "a cup" and then "another cup," and which was all
scientifically irrelevant, conclusive evidence for nuclear origin of
at least some of the effects was reported more than fifteen years
ago. It was easy to neglect in the noise, but in hindsight, it can be
clearly seen. Fleischmann's calorimetry was never actually refuted;
rather there was speculation about it. (The actual refutation of his
neutron and gamma evidence got confused with the heat issues. In
fact, there is no significant gamma or neutron radiation from the
Fleischmann effect, the recent findings are a drop in a large
bucket.). Perhaps he didn't stir the electrolyte. Perhaps he was
confused about this or that. Perhaps it was fraud. Perhaps only
positive results are being reported, negative results are buried and
forgotten. But at some point, the weight of the evidence becomes
strong, so strong that simple rejectino and knee-jerk
pseudoskepticism is no longer sustainable. "Pseudoskepticism," here,
means skepticism that forgets to be skeptical of itself, as well as
of the claims of others.
A good example of real skepticism, the non-pathological kind, would
be Nate Hoffman. He was quite aware that the evidence against nuclear
origin wasn't conclusive, even though he remained skeptical, may he
rest in peace.
Occam's razor cuts both ways.
By the way, sometime around 2000 I looked at what I could find on
cold fusion on the web. I wasn't impressed. It took a much deeper
review of the literature, months of work, to change my mind, last
year. The evidence that would have impressed me was there, ten years
ago, but not organized in such a way as to make it easy for me to
find. I'm sure that there were papers or books I could have read that
might have done something different. But on the face, they seemed to
be by fanatic supporters. That's the power of a general -- and
incorrect -- false consensus. It self-reinforces, until and unless
something causes a crisis that flips it. I can see that by 2004, a
turn was taking place. It accelerated by last year, and it's very
possible that a new DoE review would come up with something even
stronger in support of LENR. Meanwhile, hot fusion is still an
incredible boondoggle, huge sums invested for, what, fifty years? And
no power generated? Many cold fusion experiments -- not codep -- have
produced apparent excess heat, significant amounts. Not enough, or
not reliable enough, for power generation, but enough to justify
continued investigation, and the implications of LENR are actually
vast, energy generation is only one aspect. I'm interested in the
pure science. Do low-energy nuclear reactions take place?
You know, it's weird. There are at least two previously known LENRs.
Muon-catalyzed fusion, of course, and chemical influence on nuclear
half-lives. The idea that the environment of nuclei cannot influence
nuclear reactions was never established and was clearly incorrrect.
Nobody had investigated the boundaries of nuclear reactions in the
condensed matter environment, it was simply assumed, on theoretical
basis (the vast distances supposedly involved on the chemical scale
compared to the nuclear) that condensed matter results would follow
plasma results. But the actual math, considering all the
possibilities, hadn't been done, and it's only beginning to be done,
and the mathematical results are surprising, if you believe that LENR
is impossible. It's not impossible. Merely very unlikely and therefore rare.
I remember one thing strongly from Feyman at Caltech. We don't know
(didn't know?) the math to do the quantum mechanical calculations for
complex interactions. The assumption that condensed matter phenomena
would track plasma phenomena was just that, an assumption, based on
some very rough calculations and inferences. Fleischmann and Pons, by
the former's recent account, set out to test the limits of this
assumption. Fleischmann said that he expected to find that any
differences would be below experimental resolution. He was wrong.
That kind of "wrong" deserves a Nobel Prize, in spite of his errors.
He's got Parkinson's disease, he's old and somewhat frail. I hope he
lives to see it.
