-----Original Message----- From: Terry Blanton > It would seem to me that the hydrogen molecule must first be dissociated before being robbed of its atom's electron by Ni.
That would be hydriding, if I understand where you are going, and this is what one wants to avoid initially. This is all in the formative stage of hypothesis, and not simple to verbalize, plus my viewpoint is a minority, but in the event that it helps anyone - here goes. I may be pushing the meaning of "spillover" here, as it is a rather complex subject with many overtones, going back to its origins in petrochemical processing - but in general, nickel is not a good spillover catalyst as it "wants" to retain hydrogen as a hydride. A good spillover catalyst (in terms of promoting secondary densification) merely makes the molecule monatomic but without bonding, or without ionization. This molecule splitting process is energetically unfavorable at STP, and is a near-field phenomenon on the catalyst itself, so usually these catalysts work better at moderate but not high temperature; and in a situation where the atom can be "spilled" onto a ceramic. This is Lawandy's great insight. > Could this catalyst assist in dissociation? If so, could it be Pd? Pd works with deuterium but for some reason, less well with H2. That is a great mystery. > If not dissociation, what is the function of the catalyst? Some intermediate energy state a la Mills? That doesn't seem right since we are trying to ionize the hydrogen. Not at this stage. And it is similar to Mills. If you look carefully in his patents, you will find the term "spillover" being used. However, much of what Mills mistakes for hydrinos is instead "pycno" or dense hydrogen at ground state, but in a quasi-BEC form and it is only stable in a cavity. Based on what is admittedly "too little evidence" my feeling is that first you want "densify" or convert molecules to "pycno" or the "inverse Rydberg state" which is even denser. For some strange reason the molecule does not permit this, but the monatomic atom does permit it and at the normal ground state. Go figure. Yes, it is all Millsean sounding, but without the reduced ground state. The smoking gun of the failure of CQM theory is sodium. Sodium has been long known to be a good spillover catalyst, but not a hydrino catalyst - until one day, lo and behold, Mills finds it works like a hydrino catalyst and he squirms and contorts the definition of catalyst in order to make it fit. In this way, about two thirds of the periodic table is now in the category of the new kind of hydrino-catalyst. IOW the most general theory has collapsed under its own weight. Plus, and most damning, Mills removes the old paper from his website where sodium is used as a "control" to show how well potassium works :-) Nevertheless, one must give Mills the lion's share of credit for some of these details. It is simply a quirk of history (and ego) that Mills did not tie it into LENR, where it belongs. It always goes nuclear eventually, and he knows it. Jones
