Terry - I did address this point about two months ago, and it should be in the archives. My guess then was copper chloride was either missing, under-applied or did not bind properly to the nickel, in the later (nonworking) batch.
Besides nickel and palladium coating the beads, JP used copper chloride to initially treat them (ostensibly as a binder) and it was originally thought (till the Romanowski paper) that the copper only functioned to bind the nickel. This is in the recipe that turned up after his death. If there was an additional process that served to alloy the two - it was never mentioned. However, if both were applied as electroless (liquids) then they would have alloyed in situ. JP may have been trying to avoid this in the non-working batch. To summarize - the copper was used by Patterson for a reason that made it seem expendable, when in fact it was all-important for it to alloy with Ni. But since it was not deemed by anyone to be active - like the Ni and Pd, it could easily have been overlooked. Moreover, Cu was there an ion, and it would have migrated outward to alloy with the Nickel as it was being applied ... IF there was enough of it and if the nickel was being applied as electroless. And if you read Romanowski - the palladium would have actually interfered with that alloy and nullified its effect! Therefore, if there was MORE of it (Pd) in the later batch, since by then it was deemed by the experts to be the active metal - that is the clue that solves the case. IOW - if copper chloride was inadvertently not applied or added in too low a concentration, OR if too much palladium were used (or some combination of the two) or if palladium were added before the nickel to seal the copper - then this happenstance in the later batch would NOT have registered as meaningful at the time to JP, nor even later-on ... when the new batch did not work. This scenario may or may not be accurate, depending on replication of the cupro-nickel effect - which is about a factor of 5 more powerful as a catalyst than palladium. But if Brian's finding is rapidly replicated by others, and in an unpowered situation, then that confirmation of Romanowski would make the case stronger for this explanation. -----Original Message----- From: Terry Blanton > JR: It was heartbreaking. It was one of the most disappointing frustrating > infuriating incidents in the history of cold fusion, which has had many > dreadful incidents. But, what most of our list members might not know, as they were possibly not privy to the information, is that Patterson ran out of the working microspheres and new batches did not work. The real question is why could he not replicate the balls? The key must lie in the method of deposition of the materials or the materials themselves. T
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