From: James Bowery
The thread about the H-Cat, as an inexpensive but meaningful
experiment in its base-level incarnation - raised the possibility that an
automotive catalytic converter ($40 -$100) - filled with hydrogen
Don't you mean deuterium? No - Not if you want to do this for lowest cost and especially to maximize the number of experimenters who will participate (as a grass-roots effort). Many experimenters have hydrogen tanks - not so many deuterium. Of course - there could be the possibility that deuterium gas would work better than hydrogen gas, and that is more likely to be true if the CC being used has more platinum than other catalytic metals. Apparently platinum works far better with deuterium than with protium- but in the CC there is also less of it. Different CC use different mixes, but almost none of them have much platinum due to its extreme cost. Iridium and rhodium are more likely - and nickel. There are a number of experiments in the literature where protium is more active than deuterium using the same catalyst. This probably gets down to trial and error at the start. The big question is whether an inexpensive CC is available which works well with hydrogen. That would be the first step towards putting together an experiment which dozens of participants will be involved in. Deuterium would be a deal-breaker for a grass-roots effort.
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