One further detail about the possible advantage of using silver alloyed
with nickel in LENR, instead of pure nickel - with hydrogen as the
gaseous reactant, instead of deuterium.
If this were to work for LENR gain, the identity of the nuclear reaction
is not the same. Obviously, such an alloy as Ni-Ag (assuming it is made
via mechanical alloying)... would be unlikely to produce helium from
fusion, as happens in Pd-D... since there is no deuterium (although a
alpha emission following proton nuclear tunneling is not ruled out.) But
there is an ideal alternative reaction.
First - a detail which you may not be aware of is the composition of
control rods in nuclear fission reactors going back 50 years. As it
turns out - silver has been commonly used as an alloy in control rods,
along with boron. Part of the explanation is here but there is more to
it than meets the eye. Silver is like a magnet for neutrons more so than
any other element across the entire spectrum.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/grayson1/
In short, silver has a high cross section for neutrons of all energies
whereas boron and cadmium and other absorbents generally work with
neutrons of a narrow energy range. Silver wants them all and this could
imply more, if Ag works with nickel.
But where are the neutrons to being with? - oops - there are none, or so
it seems.
But lets broaden this suggestion to include Holmlid's results. Holmlid
shows that UDH can be made simply by flowing hydrogen over a catalyst.
If so then we could end up with a neutron substitute, which is the
so-called "quasi-neutron".
This presumed particle is larger than a neutron, but otherwise could be
a substitute. This quasi-neutron could also be what Widom and Larsen are
claiming as an active particle of LENR.
The crux of the issue is this. Silver has a high cross-section for
neutrons of all energies and the quasi neutron could also favor silver -
but this is not proved. If it happens, the energy of the gamma should be
less, since the mass-energy of UDH is less. Also the half-life following
activation is very short and there is little or no residual radioactivity.
Jones
Much has been said about Type A palladium and its special reactivity
with hydrogen, some of which is due to the alloy being one fourth
silver. Since pure palladium doesn't work as well, it might be said
that most of the reactivity seen in cold fusion has been due to the
special properties of the alloy, which is a 3:1 ratio (75% Pd 25% Ag).
In many ways, nickel can be considered to be a surrogate of palladium.
Nickel resides directly under Pd in the Periodic table, and has an
identical valence electron structure. This leads one to wonder about
an alloy of nickel and silver, based on transposing the results of
cold fusion to protium, instead of deuterium.
Unfortunately, in the historical context - and going back 300 years in
metallurgy, the term "nickel silver" refers to a well known alloy of
copper, nickel and zinc which contains zero silver. Essentially,
nickel silver is a brass alloy that looks like much like the more
expensive silver and is much stronger and more durable - making it a
great substitute for most common uses.
This old alloy was created to serve exactly the same purpose as silver
for attractive shinny flatware but not as prohibitively expensive -
about 20 times less expensive per unit of weight than silver. This
semantic confusion did not lead to neglect of finding a real alloy of
nickel and silver since these two metals are indeed mutually
insoluble. They do not mix. That kind of insolubility is somewhat
unusual in itself for metals so similar - but basically the two metals
do NOT alloy by melting together as is commonly done.
However, this proposed LENR alloy which I will call "Type A Nickel" in
the 3:1 ratio has been studied in another context - and found to have
exceptional properties for water splitting. To accomplish this they
had to go to extraordinary lengths to achieve an alloy. There are very
few papers on this because of the lack of a commercial alloy which can
be purchased.
BUT ... there is a strong suspicion that "Type A Nickel" could be
special for replacing pure nickel in LENR. This assumes that silver is
reactive in its own right for a nuclear reaction, such as in the
protonation reaction Robin mentioned in another thread.
BTW - In the paper "Nickel–silver alloy electrocatalysts for hydrogen
evolution and oxidation in an alkaline electrolyte" Tang and others
showed that the NiAg alloy is an excellent catalyst for the hydrogen
evolution reaction. Based on the free energy of adsorbed hydrogen,
theory predicts that alloys of nickel and silver are very active for
these type of hydride reactions and they are. The alloy is just hard
to make or else you would have heard about it before now.
Basically - the Type A Nickel could work better for NiH reactions than
nickel, since it is twice as reactive for water splitting (as defined
in their test) which needs to be proven out. This testing has been
neglected in the past - due to the lack of electrodes... for which
there is a work-around. That is what I propose to add: an easy work
around at least for some experiments.
My suggestion to anyone contemplating a gas phase reaction is to try
mixing nickel-black and silver-black in a high speed ball mill, in a
ratio of 3:1 --- where mechanical alloying is expected. Then, use this
composite powder instead of nickel. Mechanical alloying is special in
its own way and could add something akin to surface treatment.
Electrolysis reactions would be more difficult to accomplish with
powder - and since this proposed work-around for silver/nickel
insolubility involves metal powders and mechanical alloying a
different geometry would be needed for the cell. However, powder has
been used for electrolysis electrodes before (as a colloid) - and it
could be worth the effort.
