[NewCandle] Silver aluminum screening experiment

[Nick Reiter]

Hi Keith and all,

As I reported a couple of days ago, I had a small
piece of Keith's aluminum alloy strip in a volumetric
flask undergoing the Ag-Al exchange reaction, as a
precursor or screening experiment.  The objective here
was three-fold:

1.  Get an idea of the rate of reaction with Al of
that particular alloy, at room temperature.

2.  Get an idea of the effectiveness of the ionic
exchange.

3.  Get an idea about how effective the overall
protocol was... if a piece of aluminum undergoing some
very slow transmutation anomaly produces extra silver,
how confident can we be in our protocol to observe
this clearly, if it would occur.

The growth of silver dendrites in the weak AgNO3:H2O
solution on Keith's metal occured.  In 24 hours, it
appeared to the eye that no further growth was
occuring.  At T+30 hours, the liquor from the flask
was decanted, the metal and dendritic silver was
gently irrigated as a rinse, drained out again, and
the system was dried on a hotplate at 120C.  When
cool, I re-weighed the flask system.

By calculation, there should have been 43.4 milligrams
of Ag available for exchange, and thus dendritic
deposition.  This equalled 4.02336E-4 moles of silver.
 If we consider the exchange of Ag for Al, then the
weight of Al placed into solution (and decanted off)
should have been 10.9 mg.  Thus, if the exchange was
100% effective in 30 hours of time, then the flask
system when re-weighed should mass out at 32.5 mg more
than original.

Our measured final weight of the flask was 26.0 mg
greater than start.  Therefore, one could say that for
all losses involved, in 30 hours, the exchange of Ag
for Al was about 80% effective.

This gives me some decent confidence that we can
mass-out and track the long term transmutation
experiment described by Keith, with some decent
confidence.  if we make extra silver, we will know it.
 The remaining unknown for the test is the degree with
which the reaction of the "seed" silver will be
attenuated by the AlNO3 already added intentionally.

OK last call for some starting parameters.  I propose
a seed amount of AgNO3 that would be adequate to salt
the Al surface with some Ag over time, but not be
enough to constitute >1mg of weight to the final
system.

Now, for the concentration of AlNO3 to start with...
Keith, any vague notes or recollections from your end?
 Was your old colleague starting with something pretty
strong, or just a whiff?

nr

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