A message to the vortex list from Rich Murray was absent from the
archive, and my subscription was inactive due to a server crash for a
week. It can be found as message 42 of the astrodeep list, linked below.
Extraordinary Error -- no electric field exists inside a conducting liquid
in an insulated box with two external charged metal plates, re work by
SPAWAR on cold fusion since 2002 -- also hot spots from H and O
microbubbles: Rich Murray 2010.02.22
<http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.htm>http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.htm
Monday, February 22, 2010
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/astrodeep/message/42>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/astrodeep/message/42
_____________________________________________________
At the outset, the SPAWAR group has investigated many approaches, and
the use of electric and magnetic fields to enhance the anomalies
found in palladium deuteride is a small part of that work, and
remains poorly investigated. The original Galileo protocol (circa
2007) prescribed the use of a magnet. That was dropped with an
explanation that assumptions from certain investigations had been
improperly carried over into others; the magnet did not appear to be
significant in producing the alleged radiation effects that were the
core of the Galileo project.
Each charged plate attracts enough ions of the opposite charge right to
the side of the conducting electrolyte against its insulating wall,
until the charge on the plate is exactly balanced --
thus each side is a separate charged capacitor,
connected by the "wire" of the liquid.
It's not exactly a wire, but, yes, the field intensity will be high
where the resistance is high, and low where it is low. The resistance
of the electrolyte is low compared to the cell wall, for sure, but
electrolye isn't a simple conductor like a metal. I'm not at all sure
how much difference there might be. There isn't much current flowing
through the liquid. I don't know if other effects take over when the
current is very, very low, as it would be. There are enough ways, it
seems to me, that the prediction that there would be no field inside
the cell, within the electrolyte, could go quite wrong. Should be
fairly easy to test! Just put some electrodes into the electrolyte,
one on the inside near one side of the field, and one on the other
side. Is there a difference in zero-current voltage between the two
electrodes, when the field is switched on and when it's off?
But I'm not exercised to test this one! For the moment, it's largely moot.
All the electric field exists only in the insulating walls of the two
capacitors -- no electric field exists inside the liquid.
That cannot be absolutely true, however it is substantially true.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax, a brilliant amateur on Vortex-L cold fusion
group, made me aware of all the activity re the SPAWAR claims, at
noon Monday, January 4, and the next day from 10 AM to 1 PM at
SF Community College library, I explored the complex results and
issues reported by Ludwik Kowalski:
Hey, thanks, Rich! Rich and I had a phone conversation that day. I
had hoped to meet him in person the next day, but that was not to be.
I'll be back in New Mexico sometime in the next few months, and hope
to meet with him and with Dr. Storms.
<http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/%7Ekowalski/cf/>http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/cf/
http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/cf/370spawar.html
370) What is going on? 11 pages
Ludwik Kowalski
Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA
June 11, 2009
<http://csam.montclair.edu/%7Ekowalski/cf/379spawar2.pdf>http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/cf/379spawar2.pdf
his journal rejected paper
I notice that the clear plastic cell with its clear electrolyte and
contrasting dark metal external plates with the hazardous high voltage
of 6,000 volts comprise a riviting archtypal image, not easy to relate
to ideas I grasped in 1960 in freshman physics at MIT.
Unfortunately, it's a distracting image, for the reasons Rich amply
explores, so I'll skip to what is not so distracting. Suffice it to
say that I've seen no reason to seriously explore the use of an
external electric field, as any kind of priority, and I'm assigning
more, but still little, priority to the use of magnetic fields. I
have not reviewed the early work on this in detail. Sometimes things
work for reasons we don't expect.
[...] In my case, the counterintuitive insight into the error took a few
hours to arise in my mind. About 4 PM, I called Hal Puthoff and
then Marissa Little at Earthtech International in Austin, Texas, airing
the idea. They hadn't heard about it, and were receptive.
It's not counterintuitive, it's obvious. However, as pointed out,
sometimes the "obvious" is a red herring. If electric fields produce
a measureable effect inside the cell, that's an experimental result
and not to be completely dismissed even if the thinking that
suggested the experiment was in error. And there are other results in
those experiments that are far more remarkable.
[...]In fact, that morning she had received a copy of Journal of Scientific
Exploration with their 3 page review, "Cold Fusion: Fact or Fantasy?",
stating, "We have never seen a successful cold fusion experiment.",
and also ""Extraordinary Evidence" Replication Effort"", a 7 page
version of their lengthly website report on 28 replication attempts,
concluding, "Our results do not provide a positive identification of
the origin of SPAWAR pits. However, they do show that chemical
origin is a distinct possibility and therefore that nuclear origin is not a
certainty."
<http://www.earthtech.org/CR39/index.html>http://www.earthtech.org/CR39/index.html
There are some serious problems with the Earthtech work. Let's just
start with the difficulty that they describe "SPAWAR pits," but what
they show in the experiments aren't SPAWAR tracks, it's chemical
damage, I'd conclude. Complicating this is that some of what has been
shown in various publications, including by SPAWAR, *includes* what
may be chemical damage. The appearance is quite different. Right off,
any area of extensive damage with a crisp edge, as distinct from what
one would see from a pattern of random holes with increasing distance
between them, looks very much like chemical damage and not damage
from radiation. What would more appropriately deserve the name of
"SPAWAR tracks" would be discrete pits, shown to be occurring at
frequencies far higher than background in controls.
They describe 28 experiments -- the last two, 9 and 18, are not in
their JSE review -- no Experiment 17 was listed on the website:
Nickel Cathode
Pam Boss reported (during the March 2007 APS meeting) that a
nickel cathode in the absence of an external electromagnetic field
would not produce SPAWAR pits.
However, we observed moderate densities of SPAWAR pits when
using this arrangement.
We also performed an experiment with a Ni fibrex cathode and
no Pd in the electrolyte (or any other plating metal).
The nickel fibrex was intended to mimic the dendritic palladium.
This test did not produce SPAWAR pits.
The lack of precision in describing "SPAWAR pits" damages this
report. There also isn't comparatively, as much work with nickel as
with other substrates or electrode materials.
By 2007, Ms. Mosier-Boss was apparently aware of tracks indicating
neutron radiation, but was not yet at liberty to disclose this. In
designing the Galileo project, she apparently relied upon some
results with nickel and assumed that the magnet might enhance the
effect with palladium as well, but had not actually shown this. The
Earthtech page notes the withdrawal of the claim about magnets being
necessary for the effect. This is in the report.
We performed four experiments that closely followed the TGP
protocol. Our first three experiments were based on the paper
referenced above and the fourth was a replication of the TGP active
cell (as opposed to the control cell). All four of these
experiments produced results very similar to those reported in New
Energy Times. Upon removing the cathode from the cell at the end of
the 3 weeks, a cloudy area on the chip was visible in the area
directly beneath the cathode. After etching, this cloudiness
resolved into well defined and copious pits (approximately 106
tracks/cm2 ). The table below lists the four experiments, including
links to logbook pages with more details about each (along with
photographs). The logbook on cells A and B contain the most detail.
Earthtech claims a "close" replication. As is common with CF
experiments where the mechanism is unknown, "Close" is not "Cigar!"
necessarily, unless the variable is irrelevant. Seemingly minor
changes can radically alter the results.
Earthtech used 420 mg of LiCl and 176 mg of PdCl2, starting with 33
grams of D2O, and 3.5 cm. of 0.25 mm dia. silver wire. TGP called for
636 mg of LiCl and 270 mg of PdCl2, with approx the same D2O, and
what seems to be about 6 cm. of the silver wire. Theoretically, the
controlling parameters should be
1. surface area of wire. I.e., length.
2. total palladium deposited.
3. current density profile.
In a later Earthtech experiment, the palladium was reported as
molarity. This is not the correct measure, since what would appear to
affect the result is total palladium deposited (plus the current
density profile). I'm not blaming Earthtech, they did some good work,
but this fact seems to have been inadequately considered, and not just by them.
The lack of precision in cathode specification was the biggest defect
I've seen in the Galileo protocol. I do intend to reduce the size of
the cathode, because that will not only save on cathode cost, it will
also, then, require less palladium to create the same surface
structures, and, because maintaining the same current density
likewise indicates reduction of current, which reduces evolved
deuterium, it should save on deuterium as well. Keeping cell cost low
is important, but I'm quite aware that any deviation from a published
experiment risks loss of the effect. I'm hoping that this one won't
alter the effect, but if I don't see an effect, I'll have to nail
this down. Note that any "failure," carefully enough handled, will
help characterize the effect.
As to what values I choose for the parameters, I will probably use
what I can derive from a most recent SPAWAR publication using three
different cathode substrates: platinum, gold, silver, and that showed
vastly stronger effects as to *backside tracks* with a gold wire
cathode substrate.
I do not believe that Earthtech successfully produced "SPAWAR pits,"
except in part.
Chemical damage, in general, seems to be confined to the "front side"
of the detector, which is directly exposed to a complex chemical
environment at the cathode. The areas which seem to be chemically
damaged have a relatively crisp edge, not to be expected from
radiation damage, which would merely show a decline in track density,
no sharp point at which the tracks disappear. Thus, properly, "SPAWAR
pits" -- the ones of interest -- would refer to two kinds of tracks:
tracks outside areas of heavy damage where the entire surface is
damaged, and tracks on the reverse side of the detector. Reverse side
tracks cannot be alpha tracks if they are coming from the cathode.
These detector chips are 1/16 inch of CR-39, alphas cannot penetrate
more than a few microns in such material. Back side tracks would
almost certainly be the result of neutron secondary effects: knock-on
protons and the occasional characteristic "triple-tracks" of C-12
breakup from an energetic neutron.
And recent SPAWAR publications show copious back-side tracks. In the
images (p. 329) in the SPAWAR paper in the American Chemical Society
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook (2008), backside tracks can
be seen heavily associated with the gold wire, clearly associated
with the platinum wire, and practicaslly none associated with the
silver. Front side track densitities for all three wires are roughly
equal, and the plotting was done with automated recognition that
ignored overlapping tracks. I.e., the central areas where chemical
damage may also be a major complication.
[from Earthtech]
Magnetic Effect
The first version of the protocol we received for the TGP specified
magnets on the active cell and no magnets on the control cell.
The magnets are 2.5 cm square by 0.635 cm thick NdFeB
magnets placed on the outside of the cell on the sides closest to
the electrodes.
It was reported in "Extraordinary Evidence" that an external field
was necessary to create the SPAWAR pits.
It can be seen from our initial replication effort that we did not
observe any difference with the use of magnets.
This observation was later confirmed by Pam Boss and the TGP
protocol was changed accordingly.
The control experiment using magnets was removed and replaced
with one that used CuCl2 as the plating metal instead of PdCl2.
Yes. The whole EM field approach may be a big red herring. It's worth
revisiting later, I'd say, and once there are standard cells, known
to be performing consistently with consistent conditions, it should
be easy to investigate. First things first, and my conclusion is that
the first priority is codeposition with consistent materials,
geometry, and current profiles, and, in particular, with a gold cathode wire.
Because of the possibility of chemical damage, front-side wet
configuration detection of radiation is unreliable. However, the wet
configuration is highly advantageous for other reasons, among them
simplicity and proximity to the cathode. A later variation on the
Galileo protocol used a windowed cell, as shown in
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MosierBosscharacteri.pdf. Notice how
tracks are no longer associated crisply with the gold or platinum
wires, but track density is higher with gold. These would be
front-side tracks, I assume, caused mostly by knock-on protons from
the mylar window. I don't know if there would be any alpha tracks
left, assuming that there are alpha particles being emitted.
Comparison to Alpha Particles Tracks
We exposed CR-39 chips to alpha particles under a variety of
conditions.
By varying the length of the air path between an Am-241 alpha
source and the chip we were able to explore the effect of alpha
energies from near zero (3-4 cm spacing) to ~5 Mev (nearly in
contact).
We also used other alpha emitters such as U ore placed in contact
with the chip to observe the effects of highly oblique incidence.
We noted that the SPAWAR pits were strikingly different from the
alpha tracks we had created from Am-241 and other sources in our
lab.
Indeed. Again, what are the "SPAWAR pits"? I think Earthtech was
comparing chemical damage with radiation tracks. It's not clear that
they managed to create nuclear active environment, but exactly why
remains unclear. I don't see any photos from Earthtech that look like
what SPAWAR has most clearly reported.
In several cases, we also substituted light water for heavy water in
the electrolyte.
These tests showed no discernible difference in the quantity of
SPAWAR pits produced.
This seems quite significant as the nuclear behavior of deuterium,
at least in high energy experiments, is significantly different than
that of protium.
This is actually definitive. They were not seeing effects from
Nuclear Active Environment. I will be running a control cell in
series with the heavy water cell, everything identical, but for light
water and the proximity to my refrigerator ;-). The history of CF is
replete with "replications" that weren't; it's now known, with many
of these experiments, why they failed to see NAE. In this case,
though, for whatever reason, Earthtech was getting heavy chemical
damage, it's obvious from the photos, which could mask whatever
radiation results might exist. Using a single measure of result
(radiation, in this case) is tricky. One of the things I hope to do
is to identify other charactertistics of the special reaction.
Finding radiation, and neutron radiation in particular, if artifacts
can be ruled out -- looks like they can with the back side evidence,
most clearly -- is conclusive as to nuclear reactions, but there may
be other effects that turn out to be associated, that, in themselves,
are not conclusive, so they haven't been given weight. But once those
other effects are known, their absence would be an indication that
NAE, for whatever reason, did not form. I'll be looking for some
simple ones: acoustic phenomena, easy to look for and previously
reported, emitted light (visible region, not reported, but no clear
sign of investigation, and likely if the local heating effects that
appear to melt palladium are real), possibly heat anomalies (without
careful -- read "expensive" -- calorimetry, not conclusive at all),
or other effects. Other possibilities would be RF emissions,
post-reaction trace element analysis, etc.
Isolating the CR-39 from the Electrolyte
We protected the CR-39 from contact with the electrolyte in
various ways with varying degrees of success.
When we were successful, we did not observe tracks (above the
background).
No NAE, no tracks above background! Note that any "protection" will
greatly reduce or eliminate any alpha tracks and will reduce neutron
effects (due to simple distance of the detector surface from source.)
With CR-39, the distance is the thickness of the CR-39 (about 1500
microns), plus any distance to the actual NAE (perhaps another
100-200 microns). My plan, eventually, is to use CR-39 material that
is much thinner, it's available, and to use stacks of such, inside
the cell. However, I need to proceed with actual cells and can't wait
for the characterization of new CR-39 material, so I may jump the
shark and simply put the cathode next to the cell wall, it's
trivially simple, and put an LR-115 SSNTD next to the cathode on the
outside of the cell. I also have windowed cells and some 6 micron
polyester, but simple, simple, simple. The acrylic cell wall is also
1/16 inch, so I should see proton knock-on radiation similar to the
SPAWAR results, if I create NAE. Simple, eh? I'll have the front side
of the LR-115 next to the acrylic cell wall. Later, I might figure
out how to put LR-115 inside the cell, protected from chemical
damage. Or use a window, with 6 micron mylar inside the cell, and a
piece of LR-115 right next to it ("inside" the opening in the cell
wall). Might even pick up some alphas, that way.
(With the cathode against the cell wall, the palladium deposit will
presumably build up on the "inside" of the cathode, the side away
from the detector, toward a hole in the cathode support, but for
neutrons it should not matter, assuming that the neutrons are emitted
in all directions. I'll see a kind of cross-section of palladium
deuteride, and possibly still the gold wire itself, a little. So I
might even be, a little, peeking below the surface. What will I see?
I don't know. That's why I'm looking!)
www.newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2008/2008BossTripleTracks.pdf
8p
Triple tracks in CR-39 as the result of Pd-D Co-deposition:
evidence of energetic neutrons.
Pamela A. Mosier-Boss
<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/post?postID=1rpuTUR2d_UxUiCIy44BPZeqBMpGvIzSVFyyvTBz_KJyPt2GTMlPIBrtQmE51HIdCCBOv_ZsuMY>pam.b...@...
Stanislaw Szpak
Frank E. Gordon
Lawrence P. G. Forsley
Naturwissenschaften (2009) 96:135-142
Received: 30 July 2008 / Revised: 3 September 2008 /
Accepted: 14 September 2008 / Published online: 1 October 2008
c Springer-Verlag 2008
[ Here is the only mention of external electric or magnetic fields. ]
"Microscopic examination of the CR-39 detectors used in Pd-D
electrolysis has been done in areas where the density of tracks is less.
In these areas, what appear to be triple tracks are observed
interspersed among the solitary tracks.
The number of these triple tracks is very low -- on the order of a ten
or less per detector and are only observed in heavy water
experiments.
These triple tracks have been observed in every Pd-D co-deposition
experiment that has been conducted using Ag, Au, or Pt cathodes in
both the presence and absence of an external electric or magnetic
field.
When Ni screen is used as the cathode, tracks and triple tracks are
only observed when an external electric or magnetic field is applied."
Yes. Nickel. Reason unknown, work not verified to my knowledge.
Complicating all this is a lack of discrimination between what is
seen on the cathode side of the detector, which may mix chemical and
radiation damage, and what is seen on the other side, which, if it
has chemical damage, would not be spatially associated with the
cathode. Probably! Earthtech also reported damage to the acrylic
cell, and they show far more damage to the detector chips than seems
routine in the SPAWAR results. How old was the CR-39? It can make a difference!
[... quoting something, Rich continued]
Because particles carrying millions of electron-volts of energy aren't
created by reactions powered by a few thousand volts at most,
a larger question lingers: What is the source of the anomalous
energy that seems to be arising from within the LENR cells?
"We don't make claims that we've developed a new energy source,"
Gordon emphasized. "Our hope is that, by developing an
understanding of the processes and how to stimulate them,
we'll be able to use this knowledge for whatever benefit it may offer."
It's unlikely that codeposition will be a basis for a robust
energy-generating technology, but, because of its alleged
reproducibility, it becomes a relatively quick and easy technique for
investigating the basic phenomenon. I should be able to produce and
sell, at a decent profit, codeposition cells for under $100,
including everything but the power supply(s) and any other desired
data collection equipment. Processing of the radiation detectors
would require additional effort and expense, but I expect that I or
others will offer processing service. Obviously, before marketing
these cells, I need to confirm that they work! There would be some
value, a different kind of value, if they don't work; the issue will
then become "Why?" I make no presumptions about that answer, but will
cross that bridge if I see it in front of me.
I'm interested in the science. Cheap energy for the future may come
out of all this, but that's still quite speculative, and hundreds of
millions of dollars have apparently been spent pursuing the
possibility. So far, no cigar, but there are always tantalizing
possibilities. Almost everyone involved, though, thinks that a lot of
work must be done before engineering scaled-up devices, with adequate
reliability, is possible.
On the other hand, very few are left who are both aware of all the
work that's been done in the field and who still think there is no
nuclear effect. The SPAWAR neutrons seem to have pushed many over the
edge, but there is actually something even more conclusive, showing
that the fundamental reaction almost certainly takes in deuterium as
a fuel, pours it into a black box, and helium comes out with the
right amount of energy having been generated, from what would be
expected from that fuel/product combination. Helium-heat correlation
is very well demonstrated, and, compared to that, much of the rest is
details. But it's hard to measure that helium, and when excess heat
is low, as it would necessarily be with the kind of codep cells I'm
looking at reproducing -- so low I'm hardly bothering to look at
anything but comparative operating temperature -- the absolute levels
are often down near background. It's correlation over many
experiments that proves, as well as could be proven, that there is a
nuclear reaction, because environmental helium would not be
associated with evolved heat, and especially not at the theoretical Q
factor for fusion. (Which would be anywhere from about 24 MeV/He4 to
double that or so, depending on how much of the helium is captured
for measurement, and complicated by the fact that there may be other
reactions taking place as well.) While it remains possible that some
other nuclear reaction is at work (off the top of my head, something
is causing alpha decay of elements present in the cell, or transmuted
catalytically or permanently, which would, of course, produce
helium), I prefer to start with a simple (2*N*deuterium -> X -> N*He
plus energy) hypothesis.
Radiation, though, can be detected at quite low levels. As was
quickly realized in 1989, very little radiation is produced, compared
to what would be expected from a simplistic understanding of the
reaction as simple d-d fusion. Simple d-d fusion is almost certainly
not the reaction taking place. Any radiation produced is a secondary
effect, either from some low branching ratio for a minor pathway, or
from hot products from the primary reaction causing secondary fusion,
such as Mosier-Boss suggests might involve tritium. (Tritium is known
as a minor product in CF cells, and this evidence was often
discounted precisely because it was a minor product! Overlooking that
a small elephant in the living room may not explain the big elephant
tracks, but is a clue.)
It's something else than ordinary d-d fusion (such as my sorta
favorite, double deuterium *molecule* formation of a Bose-Einstein
condensate, facilitated by lattice confinement near the surface,
which fuses to a single Be-8 nucleus which then emits photons while
sitting around waiting for the fast decay to two helium nuclei,
possibly with energies as low as under 100 keV per nucleus, the rest
of the energy having been dumped to the lattice with photon emission
from the excited Be-8 nucleus. This is a reaction predicted by
Takahashi (Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate theory) from quantum
field theory, and based on his early work with deuteron bombardment
of palladium deuteride, showing evidence of much higher incidence of
deuterium fusion with more than two deuterons than was expected from
the ordinary cross-section.)
In the same spirit, he offered no theories to explain the nuclear
process he suspects is taking place along those thin layers of
palladium in his group's cells.
Right. Theory should follow experiment and predict it, it is not
necessary to explain experimental results, and, in fact,
unexplainable experimental results, especially if replicated, are the
most interesting kind.
"There's a saying, 'Theory guides but experiments decide.'
Consider our data," he exhorts challengers.
"If it is what it appears to be, and the scientific community confirms
it through replications, then new theories will need to be considered,
and this may be challenging for some people to accept."..."
Indeed.
Thanks for looking at all this, Rich. But don't miss the forest for
the trees. There is very little work that depends on these "electric"
or "magnetic" fields. The Earthtech work is problematic, they got
results that partly looked like what others reported, but which also
looked quite different. They should not have assumed that the pitting
that they saw was "SPAWAR" pitting. I've now done some etching of
CR-39 material, and it can be a mess. Echoing Kowalski and others, it
can be difficult. I'm turning to LR-115 for the moment, though,
long-term, I expect that CR-39 will be the best material. LR-115 is a
simpler material for this purpose; the active layer is 6 microns of
cellulose acetate, red in color. Radiation damage to the LR-115
causes, then, after etch, a hole to appear completely through the red
layer, which is carried on 100 microns of polyester, the hole appears
as a bright dot. It's much easier to read, and it will read higher
track density than CR-39, allegedly. For me, the down side is that it
is not easy to view the cathode through it, but I'll address this by
leaving some cathode exposed and visible, I want to be able to watch
the cathode under a microscope during the experiment. And while it's
cheaper than Landauer CR-39, it's much more expensive than commercial
CR-39, which I should be able to obtain in much thinner films. And,
yes, I'll have to deal with variability in background radiation
exposure. It's doable, I believe. LR-115 was the fallback path, which
I'm taking for now.
One anecdote: a worker in the field is located in Massachusetts, and
needed to photograph some of his work, which is a Kowalski-guided
replication of Oriani's work, and he thought he might need my
microscope. As part of this, he sent me some photos of CR-39 results
he'd gotten before. Absolutely clean, with a few isolated pits. How
did he get such clean etch? Possibly very fresh Landauer CR-39, plus
there may be secrets to etching. I've noticed the formation of
copious bubbles on the surface. Wouldn't those bubbles retard
etching? There are techniques that add some alcohol to the mix that
supposedly produce cleaner results. I tried alcohol as a last resort
for the CR-39 I was initially working with, and I ended up concluding
that the material was utterly unusable, ab initio. Wrong formulation.
There are other formulations that have been used, specifically, for
radiation detection. Lots of work to be done, and only a little time....
I will publish what I found with a description of the specific CR-39
material. The most serious failures in experimental work are the ones
not reported!
