[NewCandle] Return of the son of aluminosquid

[Nick Reiter]

Good afternoon, all,

An overdue update from the world of aluminum and brine...

A little over a week ago, I started a quasi replication of the aluminum foil roll hydrolysis in KI solution version of the pixie bucket reactor that had produced the nanosquid forms about a month previously.  I say quasi replication, because there was one planned deviation in the protocol, which had been intended to keep with the comparative effort of studying the addition of D2O to the hydrolysis runs.  In essence, a duplicate run, but with 10ml of D2O added to the water at the beginning.

At semi-regular intervals, I would reach into the bucket with plastic tongs and snip out a little foil from off of the roll outer turns, to see if the squid forms would return, and when.

The auto-electrolysis of the system apparently begins quickly, because within about 2 hours, the green yellow hue was seen, as it had been the first time.  I sampled foil at 16 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48, 58, and 72 hours.  By 72 hours, the foil was visibly corroding and bubbles were coming on fiercely.

And indeed, squid were found, in an amazing apparent "life cycle".

At T+36 hours, scattered tiny craters are seen on the foil surface, amidst what look like dendritic stains spreading out on the Al surfaces.  No visible build up of oxide is yet seen.  However, at high mag, in some of the dimpled craters, very small (1-5 micron) seeds or straited blobs are seen.  By EDS, these have the composition that appears to be the signature of the squid - a ternary Al-K-I system.  Some of the tiny seeds or proto-squid at this point show the beginning of dendrites in a bundle or cluster.

By 48 hours some scattered fully formed squid were seen, though nowhere near as many of them as in the first test.  However, it wasn't until I examined the 58 hour foil that I finally found an astonishing truth... the squid weren't squid... they were uprooted sea anemonies!

The 58 hour foil showed some wonderful forms, although not many - maybe a few per square cm.

Photos and EDS shots are coming your way, Keith.

The full grown anemonies look like they could grow out to 200 to 300 microns at the tentacle tip.  Large enough that I can see them with an optical microscope.

Now here is another fascinating aspect.  The anemonie / squid are conductive enough that I don't have to gold coat them to get photos... however by the optical microscope, they are glassy clear white - like delicate coral made of glass.

The composition also does not seem to include carbon as a necessity.  It may have been there in some as a feature.  The forms are generally stoichiometric K-I-Al, however near the bases of the anemonies, they are more K-I than Al.

The anemonies also seem to love to grow around larger pinholes.

Doing some EDS shots into the base and stalks of the anemonie forms shows some surprises also... they seem to be concentrators of Fe... and some unexpected species can be seen as well.  Very minor hints of Pd and Ir in one case, but also Ni in very undeniable amounts.  Ni is absolutely not seen in any of the incoming components.

I really can't go a lot further into describing this until photos can be posted.  I don't know what they are any more than I did in the first round where we discovered them.  I can say this though:

1.  Before hydrolysis begins in masse in the KI - Al foil reactor, there is a period of surface alloying and reaction.
2.  It is during this time that small "seeds" or clumps of an Al-I-K compound form and begin to grow in a dendritic, but oddly non-crystalline form.
3.  When fully grown, some of these forms can extend up to 300 microns in length.
4.  The "anemonie-like" forms can become uprooted and when strewn across a surface, look like beached squid.
5.  EDS performed on the forms discloses that there are some surprising lesser elemental components of an unknown origin.
6.  The outer tendrils seem to be Al rich, the lower stalks and bases seem to be Al deficient.
7.  To the eye, with a low powered optical microscope, the forms are glassy clear.
8.  However they do not charge excessively with an electron beam, like a glass or even a salt would.  This suggests to me that they are semi-conductive at least.
9.  By the time full hydrolysis and consumption of Al foil begins, the forms are apparently destroyed.

All the best,

nr