Gentlemen,
OK... finally have managed to get back on-list.
E-scribe won't accept mail from my home roadrunner
account, and it did something bizarre with my hotmail
too.
First, an update - an odd one - re: Dr. Sam Faile.
After the devastating fire at his old Cincinnati
apartment in June, Sam managed to find a new abode
nearby, and was even able to finally salvage the
better part of his lab books and notes. Some were too
badly destroyed, and some did genuinely seem to go
permanently missing after the ATF, FBI, and local
police finished their grilling. Nevertheless, it
formed a seed for Sam to start over on his speculative
writing and tinkering with geometric coils, etc. He
was able to keep his day job at Krogers without
missing a beat. Lemonade from lemons. However, about
a week and a half ago the apartment building right
next to Sam's new one was gutted by fire of unknown
origin. As you might imagine, even the most
un-paranoid of New Energy scientists would be unnerved
by this near-second round. But for now - Sam creeps
nervously into the future.
Now on an experimental note, I wanted to bring
something to the group's attention that I had been
fiddling with for a few days. I've been seeing a cool
effect - maybe an interesting one - with simple beaker
electrolysis. Here is the basic design:
In a 100 ml beaker, I had a quantity of typical
electrolyte, in this case 5M KOH. Stainless steel
strip electrode for the anode, and for the cathode a
very thin (maybe 36 to 40 ga) stainless steel hair
wire. I had hooked it up to a DC power supply that
was putting out 50VDC with a slight >1V ripple. neat
thing is this - with power connected via clip leads
and turned on, I lower the hair wire point first into
the electrolyte. As the wire breaches the surface, a
conformal boundary layer type sheath seems to depress
along with it, and some small amount of hissing
bubbling occurs. However, most dramatically, the wire
is seen to be surrounded by a flickering violet plasma
within the sheath. Current drawn at this point is
minimal, maybe .5 ampere. If one gets the wire tip
too close to the anode, the boundary layer / sheath
apparently pops, and the wire becomes fully wetted,
and normal bubbling electrolysis occurs, with no
plasma. If one lowers the wire into the electrolyte
BEFORE turning the power on, then just normal
electrolysis occurs when voltage is applied. The wire
has to be inserted through the liquid surface from
air. Going up in diameter past about 1/16" stainless
thin rod, the effect no longer works. Just bubbles,
and H2 and O2.
I repeated the effect with NaOH. Same thing, but now
the plasma is a delightful orange yellow from the
sodium! Going back to KOH, I see the violet is
probably a function of the potassium spectrum.
Diluting the KOH electrolyte below about 1M the effect
disappears. The effect does NOT work with NaCl,
lithium sulphate, potassium carbonate, or KCl
solutions. It does work with HCl:H2O, HNO3, and H2SO4
solutions. Hydrogen necessary?
I reversed polarity. The effect does not occur when
the wire is at anode potential - it pops a little and
just bubbles normally. The power supply is not
variable (any longer!) so I don't yet know what the
minimum voltage is for this. neato plasma at 50 V is
pretty cool.
I wonder what a little D2O would do...?
Anyone ever play with this effect, that seems to
relate to a charged sheath around a small diameter
cathode wire in heavily laden hydrogen containing
electrolytes? I need to fire up the Geiger counter at
this point, I suppose.
All the best,
Nick Reiter
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