[NewCandle] Transmutation of aluminum to silver

[Keith Nagel]

Hey Nick,

Well, I'm sort of stunned and unsure what to say next...

I may regret this, but here goes.

There was once a research scientist who did work for one of the
big beverage companies. His job was studying corrosion of aluminum,
for the obvious reason that the products his company manufactured
were stored in aluminum cans. He claimed to have discovered a process
of transmutation, turning al to silver. In his basement were hundreds
of mason jars, each containing a pair of aluminum plates submerged in
a solution of aluminum nitrate. Slowly, over the course of months,
the aluminum would corrode. After the plates had dissolved, he would
collect the tiny crystals of silver.

How this story came to light was as follows. The guy died, without
telling anyone what (if any) secret there was to the process.
His children asked people for help, and came to my former employer
and close friend for advice. He experimented with the process a bit,
but could not make any solid claims of reproduction. 

Now, like all stories, there are some mitigating factors that must
be considered. Firstly, it was claimed by the family that the guy
bought a silver mine to "cover up" the silver transmutation process.
And it is well known that the common method of silver mining is
to dissolve the ore in nitric acid, then displace the silver from
solution by allowing aluminum to corrode in the acid. The nitric
acid becomes aluminum nitrate, and you get silver metal. So there
is this prosaic explanation.

However, the claim was that it took a _long_ time ( slow corrosion )
to get the silver in easily measurable quantities. Also, there
were words to the effect that you needed water from the bottom of
a deep well, which we now know to be more concentrated in D2O.

Is this starting to sound familiar?

In fact, the very observations you are making now may be the ones
that started our research scientist friend off on his adventure.

So, where do we go from here?  The obvious thing would be to start
with known pure materials, to eliminate the possibility of contamination
of silver which would plate out on the aluminum by the well known
displacement reaction. HOWEVER, it should be noted that there is
a strong chance that a certain amount of silver may be needed as
a "seed" to get the process going. So negative results with pure
materials may not mean the effect doesn't exist. Ideally, we
may want ratios, silver in/out. This is not an easy experiment,
due to the time involved, and the analysis required.  

I've been meaning to mention this story since you started writing
about your al corrosion experiments, but frankly I was afraid
that if I told you I would bias you to look for silver and so
the results wouldn't be credible.  But here you are, with some
silver results, so you ( and anyone else reading ) gets the
story...

K.

-----Original Message-----
From: newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com
[mailto:newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com]On Behalf Of Nick Reiter
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2008 7:07 AM
To: New energy for the new world.
Subject: [NewCandle] some new results with D2O salt hydrolysis


Good morning, all,

This past week, I spent some near shameful amounts of
time looking at the results of a second saltwater -
aluminum hydrolysis run, this time with 10ml of D2O
added to the roughly 3.5 liters of distilled water
used.  All other conditions were the same as they were
for the run before - foil, salt, water, plastic bucket
enclosure.

Whether it was due to the D2O (not likely) or slight
differences in temperature of ambient (more likely)
this run did not follow the same time-temperature-gas
evolution curve as the one before.  Things stretched
out with this bucket run, and for approximately a
week, the gas evolution rate (bubbling) was pretty
stable.  Finally, as the bubbles slowed last Sunday, I
selected one of the Al foil rolls, removed it, let it
drain dry, and then looked at small area specimens
with the EDS and SEM.  I elected to look at three
regions this time:

1.  A sample of outer turn foil - very corroded and
crusted with oxides; perforated with pinholes.

2.  A sample from a turn of foil close to the center
of the roll.  Oxidized with some corrosion and minor
pinholing.

3.  A sample fron about ten turns in from the inner
turn of the roll.  As one might suspect, looking more
like the outer turn sample, but a darker hue to the
foil remains overall.

For all input components being the same, except for
the D2O, this is a very interesting and different
story!

In the neutral water run previously, the main
un-accounted for element anomaly (if it was such)
appeared to be boron, and possibly a vague hint of Ce.
 The iron concentration near pinholes was also a
matter of debate certainly, though it was accounted
for in the original "input".

Guys, this time though I think we have something
pretty significant.  Ag and Y.  Up to several atomic%
for both materials, deposited on surfaces at least.

Here are some random notes:

1.  There doesn't appear to be any boron visible this
time.  No Ce either.

2.  The Fe re-distribution or enhancement effect near
pinholes appears to remain for all samples, to about
the same magnitude as in the normal water run.

3.  Looking at oxide crusts, crystals, and eroded foil
surfaces gave me a good idea of the distribution of Ag
and Y.  The Y seems to be bound up with the aluminum
oxide, the Ag seems to be alloyed or present on the
surface of the eroded Al.

4.  I did a cross sectional analysis of some central
foil.  The Ag signal vanishes after about .2 to .3
micron depth, so it does seem to be a bona fide
shallow phenomenon, not an artifact of some
manufacturing oddity of the Al foil.

5.  I dissolved about 10 grams of the foil from the
reacted roll in HCl, then washed and examined the
insolubles (apparently Al2O3)  The Y signal was
clearly present in about the same ratio as it had been
looking at it on in-situ.

6.  The samples from the center-roll and inner side
region of the roll had more Y and Ag than the outer
turn sample.

The Ag apparently is alloyed enough with the Al that
it went into solution when the foil was dissolved in
HCl.  I did not try to recover it.  ANy suggestions of
a solvent I can use for the Al foil which will allow
me to more easily recover the Ag?

If the Ag is a surface feature to maybe .2 microns
depth, and at most is 2 to 3 atomic% even there,
admittedly it isn't a cost effective technique for
recovery of mass amounts.  The yttrium seems to be in
much greater abundance.

I have some more SEM and EDS screen shots I will send
to you Keith, later this weekend when I get them
sorted out.

Looks like I need to hit up United Nuke for some more
D20... hope they are still in business.

I guess this is a big enough signal to me that I feel
a lot of confidence in stating the following:

In a simple scheme where tightly rolled aluminum foil
of a commercial 1100 alloy grade is allowed to react
with commercial table salt in distilled water, in a
clean polypropylene bucket vessel, in both light /
normal water and slightly D2O enhanced versions, there
appears to be evidence for elemental species present
in the reaction products that aren't there in the
incoming material assay.  The results with D2O
enhanced water are different than light/normal water,
and potentially more significant (better S/N ratio). 
No nuclear chemistry is offered yet to explain this,
but I am surely open to it!

In conversation last night with Sam Faile, he felt
that the most likely route to tweaking the output
products could be reaction temperature and reactive
starting halide (such as KCl instead of NaCl)

My eldest son was watching me peruse the EDS results
the other night, and commented, "Well, as alchemy goes
I guess you have the slightly failed version...silver
from aluminum instead of gold from lead!"

I suppose there's a market somewhere for yttria.

More to come!

nr

The Holy Grail 'neath ancient Roslin waits.
The blade and chalice guarding o'er Her gates. 
Adorned in the masters' loving art, She lies;
She rests at last beneath the starry skies.


      

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