Gentlemen,
It seemed like it was about time for a short update on
experiments with the little Wisp reactor (plasma
electrolysis). Been a couple of months now.
When we last left our hero, the Wisp, I had reported
on pretty modest results, as far as thermometry and
radiation detection. In conversation at that time,
Sam Faile and I agreed with the majority opinion here
on vortex that thermometry of potentially anomalous
heat evolution was probably far better an indicator of
LENR than blips from a homebrew neutron detection
scheme. In runs made since then, I have continued to
use a BN disc detector with my Geiger counter, but
haven't gone too much further with any better scheme
(on the budget available)
The course of action has been to continue looking for
anomalies pure and simple, whether it be jumps in
temperature, odd colored plasma, odd deviations in
power consumed. This methodology has been applied to
an ongoing search for optimum materials that are
robust to the ferocious plasma at the cathode, even
with modest power levels of 50 to 100 watts.
Even our 26 ga. platinum wire cathode gets beat up and
is slowly pockmarking itself into oblivion. We took
some suggestions tendered here, and tried some
stainless steel hypodermic needles. Bright blue
fierce plasma, and one that seemed to give some short
burst response from the GM, but not sustainable for
more than about 3 minutes. Needles eroded away.
We tried a 650nm 5mW laser shined down the center of a
hypodermic needle cathode, and at various orientations
to the Pt wire cathode. Did not see anything
resembling a deviation from previous behavior and
values.
One cathode material that seemed to hold up better
than stainless and nickel, though not quite as well as
Pt, was sintered polycrystalline silicon carbide,
dremel ground down to a point. The SiC seems to hold
up to the temperature, but I think infiltration and
acoustic forces shatter it apart grain by grain.
Maybe a single crystal SiC cathode would hold up
indefinitely. The plasma color with SiC was different
- odd - a bright sun-like yellow white. Nice and
stable, though.
I had also made some runs using a 1/16" stainless
sheath thermocouple as the cathode - similar to what I
had reported doing from the very early days exploring
this phenomenon. These latest runs though were
intended to compare temperatures reached by the
cathode, for heavy and normal water K2CO3 solutions.
They weren't all that definitive - a lot of jumpiness
on the TC at higher powers... originating (my guess)
from RFI due to the cathodic plasma. If I stretched
myself way out there, there may have been about a 10%
greater terminal temperature achieved for the D2O
solution... however jumpiness AND possible differences
in thermal conductivity of D2O solutions versus H2O
solutions (which I still do not have good reference
data for) make it quite iffy.
Being able to run a plasma electrolysis reactor for
more than about 10 minutes seems to be about the
biggest challenge of all. Tungsten erodes, nickel
erodes, SiC spalls mechanically, stainless erodes,
platinum holds up but takes a beating. Sam and I have
considered springing soon for some .005" iridium wire
($80 for 10 cm from Alfa Aesar) I'm also looking for
single crystal moissanite silicon carbide that could
be diamond ground into a cathode point.
And thats where we are.
Best regards,
Nick Reiter
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