At 11:41 AM 7/5/2012, Finlay MacNab wrote:
Wait!
Suddenly you admit that the authors don't believe the field is
3000V/cm within the electrolyte? Maybe you should read the paper
again in order to fully understand it.
No. While I'm not a mind reader, it does appear that the authors
believe there is an electric field within the cell, created by the
external field, that would exert forces on the surface morphology,
they refer to this again and again.
They never estimate the field whose effects they are "seeing." The
only statement of field intensity is the 2500-3000 V/cm. value. There
is no discrimination between "placing the cell in an electric field,"
and what field might actually affect the contents of the cell.
It's extremely odd. The appearance is that they assume that there
would be some effect within the cell, some significant force exerted,
and exerting a force was their goal.
When I read a paper, I often read it with some interest in mind. I'd
seen this paper before, but never read it with full attention and
full critical resources. When Rich made his notice about SPAWAR's
alleged failure to "respond," I looked for the original work and came
back to this paper. I simply read it, this time, looking for values,
and saw that the paper had a lot of explanatory text that was
general, like "the effect of the field on different parts of the cell
will be different for each part." That's not a quote, it's an example
of the kind of text. I.e., a lot of fluff. There is no coverage of
different effects shown by different parts.
Really, Finley, look for what this paper actually shows. Is what is
claimed supported by the evidence reported?
Has anyone ever confirmed any of this?
Is it at all plausible?
What exactly is the effect of an electric field on the deposit? Is it
described clearly and discriminated from the obvious wide variation
seen *regardless*?
If their goal was to show an effect of a force on the cathode,
applying an *external field* would not be a way to do it. That
applies no force, there would have to be an internal field, which is
not possible separately from there being an internal current, if
there is a conductive electrolyte containing the cathode. Want a
force? Well, one could fun high electrolytic current across the cell
--- independently from the regular electrolysis. That high current
would likely affect the cathode. It would exert an electric field
effect. Definitely.
SPAWAR has done work with "external magnetic fields." Those fields
penetrate the cell, practically as if the cell materials aren't
there. There are known effects of a magentic field.
Nobody else has ever shown an effect from an "external electric
field." And I doubt anyone is going to try. This paper provides no
reason to do so! There is no comment on any possible enhancement of
the heat effect or any other possible nuclear effect. This appeared
in an electrochemistry journal. It was presumably of some interest as
to shifts in the complex deposits formed with PdD codeposition or
deposition/evolution. It has some pretty pictures. For comparison,
there is one image of a "non-electric field" deposit that doesn't
look a whole lot different from one with a field, and then lots of
various images of complex structures, with an implication that these
are related to the electric field. No real survey of what structures
are found under either condition.
But once we realize that the "external electric field" cannot be
exerting any significant force on the cathode, we know that any
possible DC electric field effect is completely buried deeply in the
noise that does exist because of the electrolysis current
(electrolysis is pretty noisy, the resistance varies substantially as
bubbles are generated and released), we can easily see that the
effects ascribed to the electric field must have some other cause, or
don't exist, they are just illusory, as easily happens with
subjective reports of "difference."
There is a possible other cause, this is a high-voltage source from a
television, I think, and those often have a high-frequency element
because of how the high voltage is generated. There may be a level of
vibration in the cell, possibly above the audio range, I don't know
what it would be. That vibration of the cell at some frequency would
affect morphology is quite believable. Easy to test. But probably not
worth the effort! There is *so* much else to do, with much greater
implications.
Rich Murray noticed the error, and, this time, brought it up, I
think, because Duncan referred to some SPAWAR images. Then Rich
confused this electric field work with other work where the little
"volcanos" are shown, and came up with speculations about how leakage
of the high voltage could somehow sneak into and burn holes in the cathode.
Nope. Totally irrelevant, those volcanos are not part of this work,
apparently (though maybe there is some reference or image elsewhere).
The paper cited shows one "cavity." With unknown implications. No
controls, so it's very difficult to determine causation or common
cause. (They have obviously done a great deal of work without
electric fields, but there was no *parallel* control, where all the
conditions were necessarily kept the same. They also ascribed an
effect to the field being turned on that easily could have been from
the simultaneous doubling of electrolytic current, and probably was.
That's not directly stated in the paper, you have to put it together
from the description at first of the protocol. Later, they just say
that when the HV was turned on -- or "the cell was placed in the
field" [not a quote] -- the palladium deposit swelled. Turning up the
current can be expected to increase loading, which can be expected to
swell the palladium a bit.
