From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Subject: What should I do next?
Reply-To: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 23:06:04 GMT

Thanks to all of you that have tried to teach me some electrochemistry.  I 
have not replied as I would like, since I have to absorb (or is it adsorb) the 
information. 

The vote seems to be to keep up discussion in this open forum.  So I would 
like to interact with you all in the same way that I would with colleagues in 
the halls and lunchroom if I were anywhere else but Fermilab with 500 hostile 
physicists. 

My present problem is what to do next.  At 35 days into a run that per P&F 
might take 70 mean days to show heat, I suspect that this might not be the 
best way to use my calorimeter.

There has been from the start the suspicion that time to first "anomalous 
heat" might go as the square of the smallest dimension.  Note that Appleby got 
results in a rather short time with fine wires.  Also now Takahashi found heat 
in 5 days with a 1 mm thick plate.  

Some of you have supported the symmetry argument to achieve high loading.  
Dieter Britz suggested (FD 233) "..., with the important proviso that the top 
and the bottom of the cathode are flush with the cell top and bottom and not 
electrochemically accessible."  How does one do this.  At the "enormous 
fugacity" (I guess this means pressure) won't the gas just blow out the top 
and bottom no matter what is used as a seal?  Note there have been some 
reports of success with one sided plates with a different metal on one side.  
But wouldn't this just blow off.  My favorite reference, G.A. Moore's 1939 
princeton thesis has pictures of absorbed H lifting off sections of metal.  
Some of the reports indicate plated seals.  My brother, an electroplater, does 
not think a plated surface would seal anything, as it tends to be made up of 
dendritic spongy growths.  

So what do you all think of using long, fine, wires.  The idea would be to 
load them faster than the gas can work its way out the ends which are 
necessarily not sealed.  I would argue that this is why Takahashi was able to 
achieve high loading.  His plate was 1 mm by 25 mm sq.  So maybe only the 
center spot was loaded.

Moore used 100 mm lengths of 0.05 mm wire.  A very high aspect ratio.  Things 
were still changing after 10 hours of charging.  He thought he achieved 
loadings of 2+ to 1.  What could take so long??  If a linear effect then my 
present 3 mm cylinder should take 600 hours to stop changing.  But if higher 
order, say a square effect as implied by rumor, then changes could still be 
going on for 36000 hours.  We are presently at about hour 860.  

I have a Takahashi style cell almost built (by Cam Tibbals who will do a 
precision job).  This cell will have a 1 cm by 1 cm by 1mm cathode.  I also 
have some 0.5 mm wire coming.  

By loading the electrolyte after the calorimeter has been closed up, one sigma 
error is about 100 microwatts.  This means that 2 or 3 milliwats would be 
fairly convincing, but would take a minimum of one day to measure.  10 to 20 
milliwats would be visible in an hour or so.  If we assume that 20 watts per 
cc is the going performance, then a .5mm by 50 mm wire would give 200 mw and 
be well above our sensitivity.  

So here are some of the possibilities, act like I have cornered you in the 
hall and react: 

1) Keep running the present cell.  3 mm dia by aprox. 12 mm long cathode with 
spherical ends.  How long to run before giving up?

2) Run the Takahashi style cell when I get it.  

3) Run the Takahashi style cell but machine the plate thinner to get a higher 
aspect ratio.  How thin?

4) Run the Takahashi style cell with a thin plate of the Pd-Ag alloy provided
by Mark Hugo

5) Run a long thin wire, .5 mm by 50 mm.

Wile I would welcome a collaborator or two, here is an opportunity to tell me 
what to do without being responsible.  

Tom Droege

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion