[NewCandle] Salt water aluminum roll hydrolysis update

[Keith Nagel]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the update.

If you have new pics, send them to this email address, rather than the
old gis account. I stopped using them when I moved, and frankly I
am loathe to ever use an ISP provided email address again because
ISPs are unwilling to provide any kind of forwarding when you cancel
service. These domains ( especially k at kpnconsulting.com ) will remain
for as long as I will remain.

By their nature, corrosion processed inply a voltage gradient. Where
the cathodic region ends up depends on a lot of things, but mostly
geometry of the corroding metal. I would expect regions inside the
roll, where corrosion is minimal, to be slightly negative, as you
see. The full gradient will be much larger, but difficult to measure
as it is on a micro scale rather than the macro scale of your entire
roll. For example, edges tend to preferrentially corrode, and thus are more
positive.
Protected inner areas will then be forced negative.

I too have a few tubes of aluminum / silver nitrate going from
our last discussion. Mine are slowly producing hydrogen at
the bottom of the tube, where there is still a large amount
of bulk silver dendrites. There are patches of clean metal
on the larger surface area samples, which are no doubt anodic.
The smaller surface area sample remains covered with dendrites.
A black "rust" has corroded back many of the dendrites.

I don't see any gray gell in this experiment, but I have certainly
seen it before. I think it's aluminum hydroxide. I have for
example seen it in a solution of aluminum nitrate using an
aluminum cathode and aluminum anode, with a few volts applied
across the two with a DC supply. What I assume has happened
is that enough hydrogen has been generated to push the
pH of the solution basic ( if those -OHs can't be released as
O they've got to do something to the pH, huh? ).

The lozenge shape of my current aluminum samples was an attempt
to control the macro voltage gradients, and I am gratified that
they did do so. The lack of sharp corners prevent anodic
hot spots from forming.

K.

-----Original Message-----
From: newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com
[mailto:newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com]On Behalf Of Nick Reiter
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 1:41 PM
To: New energy for the new world.
Subject: [NewCandle] Salt water aluminum roll hydrolysis update



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





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