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On the Photo-activity of Chlorine, part II. The Supra-chemical reaction, and its tragic history. Reactions involving bound electrons are by definition
chemical. This is not to say that they "must" be of low energy. Combustion,
which is a chemical reaction, is typically low energy - i.e. the mass-energy is
in the range of a few eV because only the valence shell electrons are being
affected.
Some of the newer high explosives manage to get more bang by using inner
shell electrons, with a potential to achieve a small multiple of the normal
chemical reaction. A high explosive called Astrolyte, the name reflecting
one of its components being rocket fuel (hydrazine)can reputedly get a
significant added boost by the addition of aluminum dust. Because of the much
higher density of aluminum, this addition would be of absolutely no value (in
"bang-for-the-pound") unless the inner orbitals of the atom were being affected,
somehow.
A lot of secrecy surrounds high explosives, for obvious reasons. Some of
the secrecy surrounding the highest energy chemical reactions seems to be more
paranoid than that which is surrounding nuclear weapons, which is a curious
twist. Even more curious is to follow some of the forums which focus on these
things - whew... scary. The so-called explosive experts sound more like teenage
jocks with the "mine is bigger than yours" blustering, but fortunately many show
little real acumen in the related physics issues. Nevertheless I wouldn't want
to get on their bad-side. Testosterone is more explosive and more deadly than
any silly bomb ingredient.
The so-called "Auger cascade" of high energy electrons results when a gamma
ray knocks out a k-shell electron. Surprisingly, it is not necessary to use
gammas to get to the k-shell, as coherent non-ionizing light can also do
it under some circumstances, even though the wavelength is supposedly 10,000
times too long.
When the innermost, or k-shell, of an atom is altered, the energy potential
for explosiveness can be much greater - in the 10 keV to over 100 keV range -
which is nearly 100,000 times greater than what one gets from combustion
per atom, or 25,000 times the best explosive - but still not OU for a variety of
reasons, some semantic. Plus the time scale is greatly extended so explosiveness
is minimized. Auger cascades require intense external input, and your
average unabomber can't afford to throw away a good gamma source with every
pop.
The most controversial and (once thought to be) bogus class of high
explosives is the so-called ballotechnic variety, which are claimed to depend on
massive interaction of inner electrons. The available technical material about
these explosives is likely to be nonsense or at least anecdotal and
highly suspect, and certainly many scams have been perpetrated, esp. of the
spy-vs-spy variety. Many on this forum know of Cohen's claims and the official
rebuttals.
But the officials seldom claim that this class of materials is non-existent
- just the one notorious scam item, and it is usually claimed that these
explosives depend upon materials which have been exposed for extended periods to
gamma irradiation within a nuclear reactor in order to work, so will never be
easy to come by or safe to handle.
What does this imply?
You probably knew I would be getting back to electronium (*e-) didn't you?
Yes, I think that if there is any chance of these ballotechnics being
actual materials, as opposed to science fiction, then the existence of the
putative triad heavy electron (*e-) provides the best (really the only)
explanation of the underlying methodology. The explosive materials (heavy
metals) themselves would be, in effect (*e-) concentrators and the effect
of irradiation would be to raise the (*e-) to a metastable state, where
thereafter a lower energy photon would be able to force very energetic decays.
There are some reasons why the most often mentioned elements in these devises
would be (*e-) concentrators, especially in the case of mercury, but my purpose
here is to focus on the premiere (*e-) concentrator - which is
chlorine.
Normally as mentioned, thousands or even millions of eV separate atomic
energy levels from chemical. But for heavy atoms, the innermost (K-shell)
electrons can have binding energies of one tenth a normal nuclear transition
energy, which is about one MeV. IOW, the typical K-shell would be 100,000 eV and
the nuclear gamma closer to one MeV.
When a group of physicists in Japan observed what they called
excitation by electronic transition (NEET), I believe that they were mistaken as
to the identity of the source. That group used a synchrotron source to knock
K-shell electrons out of gold atoms. Usually an outer electron will fill the
K-shell vacancy, giving up energy in the form of x rays around 50-100 keV and
throwing Auger electrons from the atom during the process.
The researchers, however, observed that the energy occasionally "excited
the nucleus" instead of creating Auger electrons and x rays. They used this term
because of the higher energy seen. What I believe they observed was not an
excited nucleus at all but an electronium decay. When electronium decays you
will get
(*e-) --> Ps + e- --> e- + 1MeV gamma
the MeV gammas and pair production which result will of course be mistaken
for nuclear reactions by those who don't buy into this new concept, which is the
entire physics establishment at the moment (but they have been wrong many times
before).
At any rate, it is feasible to this observer, using the hypothetical
(*e-) concept, to imagine why, some 60 years ago, the first nuclear
trigger, the DCl (deuterium chloride) trigger, was able to
1) convert chemical energy into a D stripping reaction
2) misfire unpredictably
3) still be kept under wraps, because we have alternative triggers
which are more reliable anyway, and the
only use for the cheaper
DCl would be by rogue nations
...with the unavoidable side effect of
4) all the research about why DCl was able to produce neutrons from just a
chemical reaction was squashed 60 years ago with the secrecy order, and we have
consequently missed the easiest of all, and most robust of all LENR
reactions - and what could have been the foundation for expanding the technology
into an acceptable source of energy for our future use, now that oil is no
longer plentiful.
Oh. One might ask why the particular chlorine used by Dr. Kistiakowsky,
Head of the Explosives Division of the Manhattan Project and inventor the A-bomb
trigger, was so active in releasing neutrons that he immediately saw its
potential 60 years ago, but probably didn't have a clue at that time why it
worked.
To understand this, one must take a look at uranium enrichment process in
use then at Oak Ridge, where Dr. K did a stint, and particularly the prevalent
use of U-tetrachloride as the starting salt of many early manufacturing
processes. When the chlorine from this process is later reused, which it
would have been in those days, it has been in intimate contact with decay
radiation of just about the correct energy level for extended periods - and
certainly the (*e-) in the k-shells of the chlorine will thereafter have
been not only enriched because of its higher electron affinity than U, but also
pumped up into metastable states.
When this chlorine is combined with any deuterated explosive, it is my
contention that free neutrons will result from what appears to be a chemical
reaction. IOW chlorine is not only the best element for
capturing (*e-) but it is also a good medium for allowing metastable
pumping of the (*e-) so that it will release MeV gammas on decay. These
gammas will easily knock off neutrons from deuterium - the result being the
"almost" perfect trigger, on paper... unless you happened to be one of the
hundreds of Afro-American stevedores blown into oblivion one hot July day in
1944 at Port Chicago, near the San Francisco Bay.
I believe that this curious (outrageous to some) speculation may go way
beyond a special trigger which tragically miss-fired, and caused valuable
technology to be later enshrouded into the innermost sanctum of top
secrecy . If you want to pursue some anecdotal curiosities, check the
observer reports of the early A-bomb tests and particularly the predominant
*color* or the initial mushroom cloud - which color is not seen in tests from
the mid-50s onward.
Why was that greenish yellow color only there at the first?
Well, to take (*e-) speculation to the maximum extent, I would
suggest that a doubly enriched chlorine atom has more energy per pound than
U-235!
And basically, we are talking chemical energy, by definition...
Jones
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