Ah...Ultra high efficiency electrolysis - it is a subject that
reappears at least yearly on vortex. As it is involved in CF,
there are probably more water-splitters here per capita than
anywhere else on the net. Between all the water and
hair-splitters, we could set up a chapter of Slitters-Anonymous -
12 steps to OU recovery, so to speak.
Electrolysis is easy and cheap to experiment with, and often seems
more promising at first take than later - because you can get
"some" gas bubbles on a 'proper' cathode at extremely low voltage.
There is a pronounced "reverse economy of scale" going on in this
situation - IMHO, which is what is to be expected of
ZPE-extraction, as a rule (again, very opinionated)
A few of us went to work last year trying to find OU this way -
follwoing the announcement in India that Prof R. P. Viswanath of
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, had been uscessful using a
compartmentalized electrolytic cell - and that they have been
successful splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen at a
relatively much lower potential of around 0.90 V compared to
1.23V. You can do this on a small scale, but doing it commercially
on a large scale is another problem altogether.
The theoretical minimum decomposition potential to split water
into requires a potential of 1.23 V. but due to an assortement of
reasons, a significantly higher potential is usually necessary for
high-output - but the same does not apply when splitting H2O into
H (as hydronium) and corresponding OH redicals as nature does that
free-of-charge naturally. At the nanosecond time-scale, the
formula for water is more like H(1.6)O plus intermediates than
H2O.
The *energy* required to produce hydrogen in large amounts by
electrolysis works out to about 32.9 kW-hr/kg. For 1 mole (2 g) of
hydrogen the energy is about 0.0660 kW-hr / mole. For commercial
electrolysis systems that operate at about 1 A/cm2, a voltage of
1.75 V is required. This translates into about 46.8 kW-hr / kg,
which corresponds to an energy efficiency of 70-75 %. Prof.
Viswanath claimed to have been successful at around 0.90 V. This
they claim is achieved by applying a chemical bias accross a
**membrane** in a twin compartment cell - acid on one side, base
on the other. In terms of current efficiency this works out to a
phenomenal figure of 135 %. I thought I had found something
similar in a small experiments using a fuel cell membrane, but it
is easy to decieve oneself with these small voltages, when you can
end up with more of a *battery* than a water-splitter - plus...
finding a membrane that will last a long while in this situation
is next to impossible.
Viswanath says he can produce a kg of H2 using 29 KWH, but he does
it very slowly. It is not known whether the rate of H2 production
can be increased using this technique. I think not-for-long - and
that is the problem - reverse economy of scale. BTW for comparison
purposes, one can purchase off-peak electricity in many places for
as low as 5 cents per KWH so basically this would work out to
about 60 cents per pound for H2 for the energy used (not including
the overhead) which is roughly equivalent to gasoline being
$1.25/gallon. In manufacturing economics, this energy input would
have to sell for about $4/gallon to cover overhead, labor, and
ROI. Those are rough figures... but it is still exciting and
feasible from the standpoint of home use, if someone could make it
reliable.
Corrosion is a huge potential problem as the membrane must be
capable of keeping the base and acid separated for long periods,
under power, and only conduct protons - just as in the Grove cell,
where unfired ceramic circa 1860 worked for several years of
relaying telegraph messages, apparently in the first reported
instance of the twin cell concept.
I had been encouraged to try this by looking at the age and
experience of the Indian experimenter. He is a PhD who should not
be succumbing to the many pitfalls that Ed has suggested (see the
old archives...or try googling for the "Grove battery" a
fascinating story.
The Grove cell blurred the distinction between a battery, an
electrolysis cell, and a fuel-cell... and still draws
consternation to those like myself who are slightly dyslexic
anyway, especially when it comes to pinpointing when a cathode
becomes an anode. Essentially, it was not a battery at all but
really a combined fuel-cell and "zinc burner" in one package.
Speaking of a zinc (anode) burner, You may remember the famous
Chemalloy patent, where powdered chemalloy produces hydrogen:
http://www.nuscam.com/pdf/AlloyPatent.pdf
Chemalloy, which was patented in 1952 by Samuel Freedman, is used
as a solder today but is basically zinc with some other metals
which can act as catalysts in H2O. A notorious free energy scam
artist recently touted "his" special alloy as a magical
free-energy hydrogen source - but on closer inspection, it was
found out to be store-bought chemalloy, quadrupled in price. This
alloy does indeed work as advertised to produce hydrogen from
water with no oxygen - by essentially burning zinc into zinc oxide
and releasing the hydrogen. It is not OU at all but an unudual
kind of combustion.
Now, back to the experiment in question: it uses Pt electrodes on
both sides so no zinc or any other metal is consumed. There is no
combustion process. Fuel cells are generally reversible to become
electrolysis cells. What the Indian fellow may have done is
stumbled on a OU reversed fuel-cell that operates through the
"bare proton" pathway where there is no O2 only HOOH on the
anode - this is an idea which I will re-float on vortex from
time-to-time, as a hypothetical way that one can use the
mass-energy of ZPE in the form of a 3.4 eV "entity" (photon or
light lepton) which can be cohered from Dirac's sea. The 3.4 eV
entity is best known as both the half-ionization potential energy
of positronium (the major component of the Dirac sea interface)
and/or the best estimate for mass of the electron anti-neutrino.
It is probably related to both phenomena.
The reason this particular cell would keep a proton 'bare' for
longer (and were talking picoseconds here) than a normal
electrolysis cell is that the two sides of the reaction are
separated by the membrane, unlike regular electrolysis and by an
extended spatial gap that doesn't seem to interfere with things.
The longer a proton can be kept "bare" the more it will disrupt
the epo (Dirac sea) interface and the more likely it will be able
to "pump" ZPE in the form of that 3.4 eV photon.
R. Mills' older "wet cell" has similar potential for this. Since
this presentation cited below appeared at the recent ACS meeting,
slightly before the vortex threads concerning OU electrolysis...
well, I still don't know exactly what to make of it all, as I have
no inside-info, and did not attend the meeting, nor did I hear
about it from Mike or Robin, the resident hydrino-philes nor
anyone else... but....anyone interested in high efficiency
electrolysis should also read this...
http://tinyurl.com/3ewp7
It is a long pdf doc that concerns the most recent BLP work and
theory, heavily padded with a long boilerplate intro... the "meat"
of the presentation is all the way near the end, page 46 and
beyond.
As to my attempted replication of the Indian patent, one never
likes to report negative outcomes, or to be generous - even
ambiguous (good-news/bad-news) experimental results, so I'll keep
this short. The good news is, that in an attempt to get similar
results to that report of water splitting at 1 volt or less using
an acid-base dual electrolyte, I was able to get copious hydrogen
gas evolution at less than 1 volt - drawing about 60 times more
current than the reported experiment for a short time. The bad
news is there was a severe anode imbalance and lack of oxygen
evolution. The reason is not clear, but it probably relates to
this cell functioning both as a battery and water-splitter. Only
what element is being consumed? The lack of a proper membrane is
the most obvious problem, as is keeping the electrodes from being
consummed. This begs to be replicated by someone with more skill
and resources, however.
I am not at all convinced yet that water cannot be split in an
overunity mode using the Indian technique, despite no new
information coming from Indai on this recently - but it will
surely demand something more than a fuel-cell type membrane (what
I was using, and it did not last long) to accomplish it: at least
the "Primea type" membrane appears to be fairly permeable to
larger ions as well after only a few hours of use.
Hope this doesn't discourage anyone else who is thinking about it,
especially if you have a ceramic that will pass protons but
nothing larger. That is probably the key - a ceramic proton
conductor as in the Grove cell. Maybe beta-alumina will work.
If the concept works at all, the membrane will be the key to
success but the rest of the experiment is relatively simple to
perform. Any suggestion on where to find such a membrane should be
aired here, esp. as it looks like the promising company
Protonetics, Inc (brainchild of one of the Coors clan) is no
longer operating. They did claim to have just such a membrane.
Jones
BTW, my result of 'much' higher current and hydrogen evolution
than the reported Indian cell may not have been just a quirk of
ion leakage. That Indian cell, as it turns out, and as I told
Keith at the time, was wired up incorrectly for best results in
the sense of hydrino production (if you are using K electrolyte)
PLEASE try this if you are so inclined. It is one of those many
promising areas that begs for creative inventors to get involved.
