Bob--
Seal under inert gas pressure--100 bar if necessary. That should keep the H2
in with only diffusion gradient acting to let the H2 out. Add some H2 to the
inert gas so that there is no H2 concentration gradient. This would be safer
than a pure H2 atmosphere.
Bob
----- Original Message -----
From: Bob Higgins
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2014 7:37 AM
Subject: Re: [Vo]:The MFMP replication effort live on youtube.
I think the heater is a heater; and Kanthal as the heater wire has nothing to
do with it. We now believe that Rossi may have used a SiC heater element and
that also has no Ni.
I also don't believe that the H2 just comes out through the 99.8% high purity
alumina reactor tube.
The tubes MFMP bought were formed with one end closed, so a seal was needed
only on one end. This was the first time to try to glue the tube shut. Most
ceramic adhesives have a multi-stage cure. It begins with a chemical or room
temperature organic cure. As it heats, a glass-melt phase forms and furthers
the bond. Finally at highest temperature, ceramic crystal growth occurs and
adds more to the bond. The glue used was not meant for forming a seal - it was
meant for mechanical bonding and filling only. For this MFMP trial, only a
room temperature cure was used. By the time the H2 began to get released, the
glass phase had probably not formed. Parkhomov speculated that the pressure
may reach 100 bar, and at this pressure, it surely would have leaked out of the
seal if the glass phase had not formed. We do intend to ask Parkhomov what
adhesive he used and what process he used to insure it was sealed before the
high pressure formed.
With this long alumina test tube (closed one end), it is possible to heat one
end hot to form the seal while the small charge of fuel is kept cool in a water
bath at the other end. This may be the next trial at sealing.
Bob Higgins
On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 8:24 AM, Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net> wrote:
The design choice was to use kanthal resistance wire. Kanthal is composed
of iron-chromium-aluminum (FeCrAl) wire alloys in various proportions. There
is NO nickel in Kanthal.
Parkhomov use nichrome resistance wire. Typically 80% of nichrome can be
nickel. Inconel used by Rossi is also high in nickel.
If nickel is active in this reactor, then the wire itself can contain many
times more net nickel than the actual fuel - which is less than a gram. If
there is 100 grams of nichrome wire in the design, then there can be 80 grams
of nickel but of course it is not in contact with H2 at first. Hydrogen will
diffuse slowly through sintered alumina as it is 7-9% porosity - but it will
diffuse. It will diffuse at high temperature more rapidly. As noted in earlier
posts H2 will not diffuse through fused alumina, which has no porosity but the
tube is not fused.
Thus the characteristic time delay for excess hear - as H2 is slowly
diffusing over hours until it makes contact with the nickel in the wire – and
this happens EXACTLY where we expect that SPP will be forming – the interface
of the wire and the dielectric.
Jones
