From: Dieter Britz <BRITZ@kemi.aau.dk>
Subject: RE: What about Yamaguchi?
Reply-To: Dieter Britz <BRITZ@kemi.aau.dk>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 17:44:20 GMT


Originally-From: blue@nscl01.nscl.msu.edu

>I feel the need for a refresher course on what Yamaguchi's experiment
>actually involves.  In addition to a Pd sandwich with an oxide and a
>gold side with Pd:D in between there seems to be a rather high ion current
>applied "perpendicular" to the plane of this sandwich.  Is this in
>vacuum or in liquid?  Either way I don't see anything too surprising
>about an observation that this thing comes apart.  Next how is the
>energy balance determined?  I would also like to know what kind of
>material properties the oxide layer is likely to have.  I know that
>wierd things happen when you form oxide layers on alumnimum, for
>example, relating to large electric field gradients on thin layers.
>Does an oxide layer on Pd have similar properties?  Next some elementary
>chemistry would seem to indicate that having an oxide in close contact
>with a layer loaded with deuterium might lead to an explosive situation.

I doubt that you'll get much real information until a paper comes out - if
indeed it does. I have the earlier paper, and they used an oxide of manganese,
calling it "Mn-O", of about 100 A thickness. An interesting point you make,
Dick, whether this layer's interaction with hydrogen might provide the heat.
With a quick calculation I make that of the order of 10 microgram MnO2, and
this might release at most 0.1 J per cm**2. The plate would have to very thin
to get hot. But if what they say is true (and I have this only from remarks
dropped here, and a brief report in Nature or Science, I forget), the plate
was charged from the (D2) gas phase - so I don't see how burning in air could
do the job. Neither can I see what these layers are supposed to do. There
seems to be some kind of idea here that after charging the Pd, there is a
large concentration of deuterons still on its way towards the far end, covered
with oxide (there is a diagram showing this). After some time, they all make
it out through, and there is an "explosive gas release". Hm, I don't believe
this.
 The original paper only inferred the plate temperature from the fact that it
bent, and that the clour of the gold film went away, i.e. that the Au had
alloyed with the Pd, and this requires, say the authors, a temp. of 1064 C.
 Market forces are a loony phenomenon anyway; I am not really surprised at a
change in share values. I watched, with amusement, the exchange value of the
US$ go up and down like a yoyo, during the recent election campaign. I
couldn't see why a punchy come-back from one or the other candidate should
have anything to do with that - but money people are not scientists, are they?
Scientists, now, they need real evidence, before they make up their minds...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk
Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion