[NewCandle] lithium chloride aluminum cavity hydrolysis

Mon Oct 27 19:33:57 EDT 2008

I sent the package today, I emailed you privately
with the details of the contents.

I think that the pure al would be interesting, but
I doubt it was part of the claim so perhaps later.

I'm interesting in polishing the Al for the reason
that we will get more information out of the micrographs
if we have a standard surface for the reactions to
be working on. Small imperfections like scratches
tend to act as focal points for corrosion, plating, etc.
It's of great interest to me to understand how
anodic and cathodic regions form during these
displacement reactions, without the interference
of edges and points.

I'll look around for a source of phosphoric acid.
I tried dissolving some "superphosphate" fertilizer
I had around in some sulfuric acid. We'll see how
that behaves later tonight. I should just buy
some commercial polishing solution, but I can't
resist fooling with this stuff.

BTW, I'll be kind of
busy the next week or so as I need to do a spot
release of the IP-Discover product. Seems the wily
Euros have changed their document server again... 

-----Original Message-----
From: newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com
[mailto:newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com]On Behalf Of Nick Reiter
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 10:56 AM
To: New energy for the new world.
Subject: Re: [NewCandle] lithium chloride aluminum cavity hydrolysis

Hi Keith,

Sounds good.  I have some phosphoric acid, but not
sure how I would be able to safely send you some.  The
one techie in my lab has done some electro and
chemical polishing, I'll consult with him...

What grade of aluminum had you used?  I have a
quantity of 99.99 evaporation pellets, and a big hunk
of 99.999 sputtering target.  If rolled foil would be
desired, plain kitchen foil is about 99.5% pure (1000
series)

N

> Hey Nick,
> 
> Yeah, thanks for reminding me, I'll drop the sample
> and some aluminum in the mail on monday. The silver
> nitrate was a technical grade I made by dissolving
> silver
> in nitric acid and recrystallizing to remove
> impurities.
> I found my old notes on these experiments, and at
> the time I was using a solution of 1 gram of this
> material in 40 ml of water. Typically I would load
> up some small test tubes and _completely_ submerge a
> sample aluminum electrode. It takes about 4 to 5
> days at these
> concentrations to deposit the silver. About 10 ml
> of solution is a good amount for a test tube.
> 
> The actual transmutation experiment was a solution
> of aluminum nitrate in water, with a catalytic
> amount
> of silver nitrate. This experiment would take about
> 6 months to complete, and as you might imagine there
> are a lot more questions than answers at this point.
> I could set up a test cell, but I'm not sure what
> the goal would be ( my initial experiments involved
> dissolving a known amount of silver and measuring
> how much was recovered by the displacement reaction
> ).
> 
> I was looking around last night for a formula for
> electropolishing the aluminum, this would be very
> useful to do before the displacement reaction so
> as to better understand the nature of the surface
> effects on the deposition. All I could find were
> formulas using phosphoric acid, something I don't
> happen to have around the shop. Any ideas here?
> 
> I will set up a sample cell today, identical to what
> you will have. 
> 
> K.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com
> [mailto:newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com]On Behalf
> Of Nick Reiter
> Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2008 10:45 AM
> To: New energy for the new world.
> Subject: [NewCandle] lithium chloride aluminum
> cavity hydrolysis
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Quick note for the weekend here, to update all on
> the
> most recent run of aluminum foil roll hydrolysis. 
> The
> recipe this time was LiCl in normal distilled water,
> no D2O.  Foil roll masses, etc were the same.  LiCl
> started out a bit differently, maybe just due to the
> surface alloying process.  Whereas NaCl seems to
> require a period of time where the surfaces of the
> Al
> become conditioned in some fashion (the "swelling"
> phase"), and bubbling hydrolysis takes up to 48
> hours
> to really kick in, the LiCl seems to dig right in,
> and
> a modest bubbling appears to ensue after only a half
> hour or so.  However, the rate of hydrolysis is much
> lower - fine bubble streams, that taper off within a
> few days.  Much less consumption of the Al, and much
> thinner non-contiguous oxide crust formation.  Very
> few of the erosion pinholes or craters, and not much
> metal embrittlement.
> 
> Did the usual thing with EDS, examining samples of
> metal and oxide, near and away from pinholes;
> assuring
> spot size is set for a modest count rate to reduce
> the
> Ag - Alx2 overlay.
> 
> Spectrum is pretty pristine.  Taking the resolution
> up
> to the point where potential minor elemental
> anomalies
> might be otherwise seen, we don't see much of
> anything
> new... HOWEVER... of all things, a noticeable signal
> for B is now seen again in some spots, as well as a
> possible Ce signal in the grass.  The last time B
> (and
> vague hints of Ce) showed up was the last time I ran
> a
> combination that DIDN'T have added D2O in it.  NaCl
> in
> normal distilled H2O
> 
> Next run up on the plate will be a recipe going the
> other way - using KCl instead of NaCl.
> 
> On a semi related note - hey Keith, are you still
> sending any of that silver nitrate?
> 
> best,
> 
> n
> 
> 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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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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