[NewCandle] Salt water aluminum roll hydrolysis update

[Nick Reiter]

Hello, all,

Been a couple of moons since I posted any updates on this project.  Amidst much else in life, I have continued to play with it, albeit at a snails pace.  A few more variations of salt -alumimum roll hydrolysis, and a bit more knowledge about the "squid" and anemonie forms I had examined over the winter and spring past.

One aspect I have been clarifying is the electrodynamics of the foil roll bucket systems.  Quite some time back, Keith had proposed the idea that the action of hydrolysis in the roll bucket had to imply anodic and cathodic regions existed.  I had concurred and still do - when I had tried simple sheets or rods of the same Al alloy in the aqueous salt solutions, hydrolysis would not kick in or begin.

In late May, I discovered where the potential gradient seems to lie.  Despite the low resistance of a foil roll from inner turn to outer turn, I was finding a consistent potential of about .1 to .15 millivolts, with the inner turn always being negative.  This potential difference was measured on peeled back foil tabs allowed to stick up above the liquid level on selected rolls.  It would start to appear right around the time the foil surfaces would begin to discolor, presumably as a result of alloying.  Why it should develop thus, I do not know.  I wondered if perhaps the alloying of K or Na with the Al was producing a rolled up one layer galvanic pair.  Or that the thin oxide layer forming on the aluminum would begin to insulate and isolate turn from turn, turning each roll into a helical ribbon inductor in series with an electrolytic rectifier!

I've kept working with KCl and KI, primarily, though the most recent bucket had a very small amount of potassium chromate added to the KCl, to toss another non-alkali metal into the mix.  This particular bucket, "Pixie 16" bubbled for a few days to a low degree, but never began to really consume or alter the Al surfaces.

In the search for subtle (hoping for not so subtle) "new element" transmutation products, I have still seen some very minor borderline signal for Ni, Ir, Na (where there should be none), V, Ti, Gd, Ce.  Nothing in the face eureka! wise.

But hey... I have found that my tiny growing and blossoming friends the ternary anemonies can indeed form in KCl as well as KI - the halogen is simply substituted.  The composition of the fronds or tentacles is often close to stoichiometric aluminum - potassium - halide.  The narrower regions of the fronds tend to be richer in Al than the trunk or body of the system.

KI does still seem to be preferred for number of anemonies grown - there will be fewer of them in the KCl systems.  The period of formation is the same - peak seems to be about 36 to 48 hours in - right about the time of alloying and beginning of the earliest bubble streams.

I have some nice shots of the latest crop that I will pass on to Keith soon, for posting.  KCl anemonies have thinner "blade of grass" type fronds as opposed to round cross section tentacles.

In other news - hey Keith, do you recall the little test tube experiment I had running with aluminum tabs very very slowly dissolving in aluminum nitrate, seeded with a tiny amount of Ag?  I have two tubes going, one with distilled water, the other with some deep well water.  Once I can find some time to write about this by itself, it will be quite a yarn to spin.  I have not cracked them open yet to do EDS, however in both the tubes, the Al tabs are about 80% eroded away (its been what... 8 months? I'll have to see when I posted it originally!)

However, the distilled version is forming a mass of whitish aerogel at the bottom of the test tube, as the tab dissolves.  The well water version is forming a clearer gelled mass at the bottom.  Nothing that looks like dendritic silver, in a gross sense.  But hey, maybe I'll look at it with EDS and see that its loaded with platimum group metals or some such.  I can dream can't I.

In completely different news, I shelled out some $$ and bought a fun fun FUN environmental and paranormal instrument - got me an air ion survey meter from AlphaLabs.  I am now the master of my ionic domain, bellowing orders to the kids seal down the house when the cationic winds blow.  Seriously, it is some wunnerful exploration to go wandering across the town and land finding pockets of positive and negative air ions, seeing which are "ill winds", and marveling at just how bodacious an ion generator a simple beeswax candle can be!

All the best...

nr