On Aug 2, 2009, at 7:02 AM, Jones Beene wrote:
Horace,
This is very provocative. Perhaps a simple static (pressure
differential)
experiment could be 'telling' without going all the way to dynamic
circuit... IOW is "flow through" really necessary, given that Raney
nickel
could provide the necessary cavities, in a static colloid, so that
normal
convection would suffice?
I actually gave this some thought, though as applied to gas mode,
before coming up with the boiling of atoms or molecules that have no
possibility of hydrogen, ionic, or covalent bonding, i.e. for which a
large portion of their bonding energy is the Casimir force. My
initial vision was gas molecules at the low end of the Boltzmann tail
coming together, gaining thermal energy from the attraction (this is
classical Puthoff etc., and evokes the long standing riddle of how to
separate the attracted entities) and then quickly flowing through a
Casimir cavity to break the Casimir bond so that recycling could
occur. I saw the process as occurring very fast, as via a flow
through a series Casimir thin passageway baffles, or even through a
device as envisioned for extracting momentum from the Casimir force
described here, and diagrammed in Fig. 1 here:
http://mtaonline.net/~hheffner/ZPE-CasimirThrust.pdf
This might work in a "flow-by" basis using Raney nickel, carbon
nanotubes, grooved metal surfaces, or any number of catalysts
contained in a series of baffle like filters though which the
candidate gas might flow.
Part of the problem with this concept was obtaining a fast recycling
rate, providing adequate time for the condensation, and yet avoiding
complete condensation. It still may be gas mode is the way to go, but
it looks too complex to check out economically.
It finally dawned on me - why not just let things condense. You
still get to extract the energy when you let it condense. The
Casimir force for these molecules *is* the force that primarily
causes the condensation. The enthalpy of vaporization then provides
an upper bound on the energy to be derived from each cycle, and a
convenient means to compute feasibility. In this context then the
Casimir energy is essentially obtained by reducing the boiling
point. And there you have it: a "Casimir Boiler" concept for solving
the old riddle of how to get the Casimir bound entities apart.
Another option that comes to mind is that the boiling point at ~170
F is
only a few degree from that of ethanol. Some kind of fugacity
experiment is
possible, but I haven't got a handle on it yet. The vapor pressure
could be
amplified by a mix of the two.
Ethanol, or any hydrogen containing compound must be kept isolated
from a Casimir device of this kind. Obtaining self operation depends
heavily on the proportion of energy of the bond that comes from the
Casimir force (or van der Waals force if you prefer.) selection of
the best candidate for practical application depends heavily on
this. I don't discount candidates like CF4, NF3, or UF6 for actual
practical devices. I merely identified CCl4 as a possible practical
chemical for inexpensive checking of principle.
It is entirely possible that a machine operating within a cryrogenic
envelope can be developed to produce electrical energy using these
principles.
It could be that, via heat exchanger, boiling a chemical with a
boiling point near that of the gas chosen for its Casimir properties
would be of great use. A boiling cycle may extract energy much more
efficiently than using a Sterling engine, especially under very
controlled circumstances, like use in a power plant.
.... wish Sparber could participate, as this is the kind of thing
Fred really
enjoyed. He would be sure to bring up his patent for keeping a cow
trough
ice-free.
Yes indeed!
BTW - if your concept worked, and a Casimir cavity boiler could
produce a
usable Carnot spread between a hot and cold side of a constantly
vaporizing
liquid, near its boiling point; even if the differential was small,
then an
implementation might be a modified Stirling. It might require using
very
large pistons or drumhead resonator - to squeeze much power out. The
efficiency would be very low but who cares? if the energy is free
and the
thing can be constructed of cheap structural materials like
polyethylene and
fiberglass?
Yes, if the primary output is heat then a Sterling concept of some
kind might come into play. I imagine a thermodynamicist would have a
field day with all this! It's likely practical implementation would
happen in an exotic cryogenic environment.
Anyway, let me say up front, having worked with carbon
tetrachloride in the
past in the plastics industry (no 'Graduate' jokes please) that it
is nasty
stuff, made more problematic by what some consider to be a pleasant
ether-like aroma. It is a solvent for many plastics and can serves
as a
cheap and clear 'invisible glue' for acrylic.
Yes it is dangerous, especially if there is prolonged exposure. I
would expect it to be sealed in a glass system though, with no
contaminating gasses, and thus operating at vapor pressure.
That it has substantial volatility at all is somewhat of an
amazement in
itself - due to the very high molecular mass of ~154 g/mol. It
looks like
the vapor pressure is ~12 kPa at around room temp, and would be
similar to
ethanol at lower temps (I think) but should vary more substantially
around
the boiling point. Things could be interesting in terms of a hot-cold
dichotomy with the Casimir supplying whatever heat is removed, in
the form
of kinetic energy, from an insulated Stirling system.
My understanding is boiling systems can be much more efficient than
Sterling systems, which operate only on gas expansion due to
temperature change.
Anyway, in side by side experiments, at the same temperature, in
which the
CCL4 was used with or without a little Raney nickel, as a colloid,
I am
wondering - would there be a meaningful pressure differential from the
nickel addition alone?
This would be an interesting test, though it might not produce
observable results. In a sealed glass container, containing only
CCl4 (say half gas and half liquid) and Raney nickel, continual
condensation might occur on the CCl4 gas exposed surface. Calorimetry
should show excess heat. I just wonder how much flow would occur
into and out of the Casimir cavities by diffusion alone. Construction
might consist of sealing one end of a 1/2" diameter glass tube,
putting some CCl4 and Raney nickel in the bottom, and, while boiling
the CCL4, possibly by vacuum pumping it, sealing the other end of the
glass tub by pinching it off with a blow torch. I have the glass
tubing, and a vacuum pump, but wonder if CCl4 is now banned for
ordinary folks. I don't know where to get Raney nickel offhand either.
To make it more apples-to-apples one could add the same weight of
powdered
micron-sized nickel to the other side. Would that pressure
differential be
amplified if there was equal amounts of ethanol in the mix and both
samples
were on the same hot plate at about 168 F ?
Hot plates are not a good way to get heat into a liquid, especially
if you want to do calorimetry. Immersed resistors are good because
they are one of the few things that are 100 percent efficient when it
comes to heat transfer devices. Besides, in a sealed container at
vapor pressure, a pure liquid automatically *is* at boiling point.
If small Casimir cavities are providing free energy by separating
molecules, then those molecules will return that energy immediately
upon returning to the liquid. The boil-condense cycle will all
happen within a volume of microns. The excess energy, however, will
accumulate in the liquid, making it actually boil, causing
condensation in the gas phase, and producing excess heat of an amount
that hopefully can be measured in a calorimeter. I would think that
if continual and visible boiling or condensation were occurring then
calorimetry would not be that difficult.
There are probably better ways to approach this, perhaps they will
become
clearer after a caffeine infusion <g>
Many things have a way of improving as they brew. 8^)
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
