What did Galantini actually say? We finally have
a detailed report from him after so many months,
but it leaves many, many questions unanswered. It
should be remembered that Galantini does not
appear to have qualifications as a steam expert.
He's a chemist and he has a company that provides
environmental analyses, and probably just
happened to have the Testo meter on hand.
Report of the measurements of the steam
qualità generated by means of the E-Cats made by Leonardo Corporation.
1- The probes which have been utilized and the
connected elaborators measure the quantity of
evaporated water in grams/cubic meter, with a margin of error of +/- 12 grams
http://www.testo.de/online/embedded/Sites/INT/SharedDocuments/ProductBrochures/0563_6501_en_01.pdf
The Testo meter does not measure "the quantity of
evaporated water," rather obviously. It actually
measures humidity, using a capacitative sensor,
and is insensitive to the wetness of steam. It
will display a calculated value from the sensor,
which is a poymer dielectric which changes
capacitance with water vapor vs. air. The meter
is less accurate close to 100% humidity; in any
case, humidity is what it measures, which is
derived from evaporated water, but the meter
provides no indication of what liquid water is
present. The humidity probe has a rated accuracy
of +/3.5% at humidity greater than 95%. In any
case, what the meter reads is just the relative
humidity translated into absolute humidity based on temperature and pressure.
2- We chosen as a parameter the temperature of
101.1 Celsius, at which at atmospheric pressure
at sea level (100 kPa) in 1 cubic meter must be
contained 585 grams of vaporized water, if the
steam is saturated, as well known
The pressure in the E-cat will be different from
atmospheric pressure. On the one hand, the device
is not operating at sea level, which would lower
the ambient pressure, and thus the boiling point,
but if steam is being evolved inside the E-cat,
there must be elevated pressure. Because we can
assume that the steam is saturated and at least
somewhat wet, the temperature will correspond exactly to the pressure.
3- The pressure in the system has been regulated
balancing the induced aspiration of the chimney
after the sink with the pressure drop along the
pipe, until we reached the atmospheric pressure
in the chimney and the pipe of the system. The
pressure has been measured with a deprimometer
with an error margin of +/- 0,5 Pa, which is an
error irrelevant to the boiling point of the water
The first sentence makes no sense to me. The
pressure at the end of the hose must be ambient.
There is some pressure drop along the hose,
though it is likely small. The largest pressure
drop will take place as steam flows and then
expands through the outlet port. The inner
dimension of that port is a critical dimension,
it will produce a given flow rate from a given
pressure of steam. If accurate data were
collected, then it could actually be possible to
estimate the evaporation rate. It wasn't
collected. One would need to know the temperature
more accurately, to get a better measure of the pressure inside the E-Cat.
What pressure was measured? If he means "the
pressure in the system," where in the system?
How, physically, did he measure it? He says a
"deprimometer," which appears to be an Italian
term for a pressure meter. The Testo 650 does
take a pressure probe. 1 Pa is 10-5 bar. He's
claiming pressure accuracy of 0.5 Pa, but the
pressure probe for the Testo 650 has an accuracy
of 0.1% or 0.2% of full scale, it depends on the
specific probe. Full scale is 2000 hPa. (2 bar)
So the accuracy would be +/- 200 to 400 Pa. Not
0.5. But this should still be accurate. But he
doesn't say what pressure was measured,he doesn't
give the reading. So what's the point of saying that he measured the pressure?
4- The thermometers have a margin of error of +/- 0,05 Celsius
This depends on the probe. However, from other
data (such as probe rated temperature of 150 C.)
the probe has an accuracy of +/- 0.4 C. He's
greatly overstated the accuracy, it seems, and
that is crucial here. The *resolution* is 0.1 C.,
and I think he munges that into +/- 0.05.
5- I made my measurements only when the temperature was exactly 100.1 Celsius
Plus or minus 0.4 C.
6- Since the amount of evaporated water , for
the saturated steam, is 585 grams/cubic meter,
as a consequence if the measured amount of
evaporated water is less than this figure, the
difference must be or water not evaporated, or
condensed water. Conservatively, we calculated
the missing steam totally as if it was non evaporated water
This is totally bogus. Non-evaporated water will
be present as wetness in the steam. This will not
affect the humidity of the steam, thus it will
not affect the g/m^3 display. The accuracy of the
meter above 95% is +/- 3.5%. The meter is going
to be reading as low as 96.5% even if the
humidity is 100%. That would be 20.5 grams short, if all is well.
7- Conservatively we always considered the
error margin of all the instruments as if it
was always in favour of the amount of energy
produced, so that we always have reduced the
amount of energy produced of the possible error
margin. In any case, such amounts of energy due
to error margins resulted to be irrelevant.
He's doing energy calculations? I thought he was reporting on steam quality?
8- The amount of vaporized water measured has
always been between 570 and 580 grams/cubic meter.
In other words, this is saturated steam, 100%
humidity, within meter error of the value for the
temperature and pressure, though I haven't
checked that. It will read this regardless of the
wetness, though I'm not sure what this meter will do if immersed in water.
9- We considered the minimum limit of 570 grams,
conservatively, plus we considered the error
margin, so that there is a lack of 12 + 15 = 27 grams of vaporized water.
10- This amount of 27 grams is the 4.73% IN MASS of not vaporized water.
He absolutely has no clue what he's doing. He's
lucky he came up with a reasonable value (5% is
normal boiler steam wetness), because the steam
quality could be 50% and the measurements would
likely be the same. Notice that in his earlier
reports he stated that the steam was dry. I have
a strong suspicion that he just made up all of
the above, it's not what he actually did. But maybe it is.
11- Therefore the amount of energy produced by
means of the E-Cat has to be reduced of 4.73% ,
if all the error margins are calculated to
increase the lack of vaporized water; without
calculating the error margins, the reduction of energy skoulb be around the 2%
12- An empirical confirmation, not rigorous
though, is the fact that I extracted many times
the probe from the chimney of the reactor, and
it was ictu oculi dry: being the chimney a
small vertical cylinder, due to the gravity in
short time it would be filled by water, if
significant amount of water shouldnt evaporate,
with two consequences: i) the temperature could
not be 101.1 Celsius and ii) the probe would have been wet.
Many of us believe that the E-cat is likely to be
overflowing as a normal condition. It certainly
starts that way. It would be filled with boiling
water. He seems to think that 100.1 C could not
be the temperature of boiling water, but he's
neglecting the internal pressure, which could
certainly raise the temperature to that level.
Detailed records of temperature measured
precisely would tell us more of a story. The
temperature should reach boiling as the thing
heats up, then *very slightly raise* as steam
evolution increases, due to the increased
pressure from increased steam volume and flow.
But what about the probe appearing dry? He hasn't
stated which probe he pulled. The temperature
probe or the humidity probe. However, I'd assume
this was the humidity probe. The mechanics have
not been described. When the probe is pulled,
does steam spurt out of the device through the
probe insertion point? He doesn't tell us how he
was making the measurements. There were witnesses
to the January test, maybe they know what he was doing.
If the probe(s) can be inserted and removed
during operation, without spewing steam, possibly
scalding the person pulling them, then there must
be something in the instrument port that blocks
steam. It would also block water. It would "wipe"
the probe as it is pulled. The probe is at
boiling at an elevated temperature above ambient
boiling temperature. A thin film of water would immediately evaporate.
I did look at what a knife immersed in boiling
water and pulled out would show. Only the end of
the knife was supposedly immersed, this was in a
teakettle, through the pour spout. There wasn't
much pressure, I'm sure, because the opening was
large about an inch in diameter. The kettle was
making lots of steam. The knife was wet, but, in
fact, the *whole knife* was wet. Not just the
part immersed, supposedly. The water did not
disappear. I don't think I had any pressure, so
the effect I anticipate from pulling a probe out
of steam under a little pressure would not happen.
13- I have not been requested to make videos
We needed to know this?
14- To measure the pressure has been used a
deprimometer Testo, but I also used a water
column vulgaris, and the displacement has been less of 1 mm
How he did this and how that measurement applies
to pressure inside the E-Cat, which is the
critical pressure, is unknown. He doesn't say.
The Testo pressure probe, as I recall, is only
rated to 60 C. So he could not have measured the pressure of the steam.
15- To measure the temperatures have been used
Testo Data loggers, already defined in the reports, property of Leonardo Corp
He seems to have been unfamiliar with the accuracy of those probes.
Dr Gilberto Galantini, Order of Chemists of Ferrara N°A 194
Notice: Chemist. Not steam engineer.
