I wrote:
Er... Jed, are you saying that most CF papers reporting excess heat
do not report input power (or energy), nor output power (or energy) !?
They often report excess power or energy, which is output minus
input. Of course there are papers that report all values.
Some papers report only the excess power normalized to volume of Pd,
which is annoying. Especially when you have no idea what the volume
of Pd is. See, for example, Table 10, p. 44 in this otherwise excellent paper:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesManomalousea.pdf
This is really only useful for a comparison, not to get the absolute
value. This proves that some materials work much better than others
but there is no telling how much power was actually involved. The
column headings are:
Source, the supplier who provided the Pd
d, cm, diameter in centimeters
V, cm3, voltage normalized to the volume of Pd. (And who knows what that was?)
Px/V, W/cm3, excess power per volt or watts per cm3. (Apparently the
same in all cases? This must be the maximum for all run, such as the
9 positive runs with JM Pd, row #5)
There is no mention of COP in any of Miles' papers as far as I can
recall. He does often discuss electrochemical properties and
recombination, especially in the context of his papers about his
disagreement with Jones et al. But the ratios of input electrolysis
power to output power (the COP) is not discussed. Miles or any
electrochemist will know many steps for lowering this ratio by
improving efficiency electrolysis. They do not take these steps
because there is no point or because the steps will interfere with
the experiment. For example, everyone knows you can reduce
electrolysis power by putting the cathode and the anode closer
together. Having the anode and cathode too close together makes it
difficult to assemble the cell and observe the reaction (with a glass
cell) so they leave them far apart. You cannot let them touch. With a
liquid electrolysis when the anode and cathode touch it is short
circuit and game over.
For that matter, you can reduce electrolysis powered by a factor of a
thousand or more by using a solid-state gas loaded proton conductor.
This brings the anode and the cathode so close they touch, and it
eliminates almost all resistance. Mizuno, Oriani and others reported
some success with this technique. Input power is trivial -- less than
a milliwatt, as I recall, and the output range from about half a watt
to a burst large enough power to melt the ceramic proton conductor
and vaporize the silver power leads. (This was probably thousands of
watts or so for a few seconds.) But unfortunately, while this
technique did show promise it is very difficult to do and after
several years of struggle they gave up trying to improve it. They
simply did not have the resources to make progress. If that avenue of
research had been properly funded it might have panned out by now.
I think Biberian is still pursuing this. His biggest problem is that
the anode and cathode heat up and lose contact. In other words, they
do not touch, which causes a failure -- the opposite from liquid electrolysis.
- Jed
