Vortexians, Having worked in the automotive industry for a long time, I've encountered various things that can be of use to the amateur scientist. A lot of them are not applicable here, but one that came back to mind the other day I thought I should put out there, and maybe you guys can offer your thoughts on it.
Getting "ash" from various experiments analyzed can be expensive, perhaps out of reach of the "little guy". But as things go, there are cheaper commercial options out there for certain markets... namely, engine oil analysis. An outfit called Blackstone Labs is one of the companies that does this, and a few of our customers have used them in the past. I know there are others. $30.00 isn't expensive, and while maybe not the best "peer review" quality results, it should at least be useful for personal testing...once kinks are worked out and something is reliable, then the more expensive professional labs can be brought in. Since they only use motor oil, a possibility would be to get some standard grade of no-frills oil, maybe even non-detergent, just a basic oil, and take two equal measures of it. This would be brand new, unused of course. One leave as it is, this is your control. To the other, add some of the "ash" whatever it might be. That's your experimental. Since the oil carrier itself is the same, once it's sent in and analyzed you should be able to determine the relative difference of some elements and get a feel for the composition of the ash. Alternatively, send three samples. One a baseline with just oil, second a control with your experiments ingredients before the experiment was run, third, oil with the post-experiment ash. Obviously you wouldn't want to send anything very hazardous or radioactive. I doubt small amounts of nickel or palladium or whatever would be a problem. Thoughts or input on this? KRM
