[NewCandle] hydrolysis of water by aluminum with no salts

[Horace Heffner]

On Jan 9, 2010, at 11:52 AM, Nick Reiter wrote:

> Good afternoon, all,
>
> Something of a puzzling and fascinating development.  Wrapping up  
> the uranyl acetate and foil roll experiments, and seeing the odd  
> actions of the Geiger counter looking at said rolls, prompted me to  
> try a basic foil roll bucket configuration that just had seemed  
> counterintuitive enough early on, that it had never been tried.   
> Almost 2 years ago, the first hydrogen generating reactors with  
> foil rolls and salt water had been tried by both Sam Faile and I.   
> As we have both have tended to do over many years, we followed a  
> vector generated from earlier experiments (in this case the anode  
> glow with aluminum in weak acids and alkalis)  Maybe because of  
> that, we never bothered to try a full sized foil roll reactor with  
> distilled water only, no additives or salts.
>
> I didn't really expect it to do anything except maybe slowly erode  
> or oxidize over many weeks of time.  Looks like I was wrong.
>
> The configuration was typical - six half-rolls (600 sq ft of foil  
> total) in a 10 quart polypropylene bucket (fresh) with 4.5 liters  
> of steam distilled water added.  For about 36 hours, no action was  
> noted.  However by about 48 hours, fine bubble streams were  
> observed.  By 60 hours, this had become a constant fizzing, with  
> ignition of bubbles confirmed by a lighter.  This past Wednesday  
> afternoon, at about T+70 hours, the temperature in the bucket had  
> risen past 70C, and hydrolysis was going full bore, foaming up to  
> the bucket rim.  From T+70 hours to T+96 hours, when the bubbling  
> had diminished off to a trickle, it appears as though the system  
> hydrolyzed a good honest 2 liters of water, before the oxide crust  
> on the aluminum capped the reaction.
>
> Haven't pulled any rolls yet, but will probably do so by Monday.   
> Not much to see, though, without my SEM:( (he sniffs)
>
> So maybe I need a good review - over the occasions we discussed all  
> of this here, I remember (maybe erroneously?) that the water- 
> aluminum system needed to have an alkali metal or alloying  
> component to work in the way we observed it to.  An ionic solute or  
> salt.  OR an applied potential of course.
>
> But such energy release with just distilled H2O and aluminum foil?
>
> Tutorial anyone, for a fady brain?
>
> n

It could be electrolysis due to impurities in the foil.  Grains of  
different metals near each other will have differing potentials.  As  
corrosion develops the impurity grains would become more exposed, and  
then eventually consumed, possibly ending up as electrolyte.  It  
might be worthwhile monitoring the conductivity and Ph of the water.  
Also, the plastic bucket might have been manufactured containing some  
soluable impurities.

Then again, there were those wild speculations from the lunatic fringe:


On Nov 29, 2009, at 9:59 AM, Horace Heffner wrote:

> Nick,
>
> Awesome work!  This is a stunning set of experiments!  This looks  
> to be a genuine chemically induced nuclear reaction. I'm at a loss  
> to see an ordinary explanation.  As before, neutron activation  
> might be the cause of an initial sudden rise in radioactivity, but  
> it can not explain why the radioactivity falls off in a few days,  
> or why lasting radioactivity remains on the top inner foil  
> surfaces.  This combination of events is very mysterious, and your  
> following experiments add to the mystery.
>
>
> On Nov 29, 2009, at 8:04 AM, Nick Reiter wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> Been off for the long holiday weekend and managed to sneak off to  
>> the basement laborium
>
> Laborium!  LOL.  Lose lips sink ships. Basement lips talk of  
> strange things.
>
>
>> to try some tests with foil rolls and the uranyl acetate.
>>
>> First of all, I did want to mention that I tried Horace's  
>> suggested test, of putting some new foil rolls into the presumably  
>> partially reacted or spent solution from the original Pixie 23  
>> bucket.
>>
>> Upon initial insertion, I again looked carefully for the rise in  
>> count rate, along the lines of what I saw before.  And indeed,  
>> while less in magnitude (an increase of maybe 1.5x instead of 2x+)  
>> the effect reproduced.  I immediately pulled a roll back out to  
>> see if it had gotten that "hot" in a short time by itself, and  
>> oddly, no - very little count rate noted, barely above ambient (30  
>> to 50 cpm)
>>
>> That was about a week ago.  Over the next few days after that, I  
>> pulled the same roll periodically, and have seen it become slowly  
>> more radioactive, up to about 2500cpm from the "roll end" and  
>> about 1000 cpm from the side.
>>
>> Overall suggesting that the mechanics were reproducing, albeit  
>> with less intensity, presumably because the bucket solution was  
>> already partially reacted and "spent".
>
>
> This is to me an unexpected result.  It is unexpected because in  
> the original experiment the counts died off in a few days.  This  
> indicates some kind of consumable.  I am surprised new foil can re- 
> start the process at a diminished rate.  This sounds like there are  
> at least two consumables involved, (1) the foil surface (either the  
> actual Al material or impurities or some surface features, and (2)  
> something in the uranyl acetate solution.   The fact the foil  
> surface was only "used up", i.e. activated, at one end indicates  
> the consumable should have been in the solution.  The above result  
> is therefore somewhat at odds with the fact the latent radiation in  
> the pixie 23 foil was all toward the open end.  If consuming of the  
> foil surface was all that was involved, and not consumption of  
> something in the solution also, then diffusion of the "active"  
> ingredient from the solution should have eventually carried the  
> reaction down deeper into the foil over a period of days, even if  
> the resulting counts declined due to partial consumption of the  
> solution.  This didn't happen.  The exterior counts dropped back to  
> the original values over a few days, and the more interior parts of  
> the foil did not become as semi-permanently (or permanently - still  
> waiting to hear what half-life the high count foil has)  
> radioactive. THis seems to indicate that whatever was active in the  
> solution was fully consumed.
>
> This raises the very odd, and I even hesitate to mention it because  
> it is so odd, possibility that something accumulated in the  
> solution while it rested between experiments.  It would seem there  
> was not enough time for significant daughter products to accumulate  
> in that short amount of time - though I suppose if a very small  
> amount of short half life daughter product *were largely consumed*  
> by contact with the foil then only a short period of time would  
> suffice to regenerate a large effect by bringing the daughter  
> product back up to par.  OTOH, that would be an astoundingly robust  
> effect between the foil and what must be a sub-microgram amount of  
> daughter product!!  Very hard to believe!  The alternative time- 
> accumulation hypothesis is even harder to believe.
>
> Wild speculation shield on!
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> That hypothesis is that something accumulates in the solution from  
> the environment, such as by cosmic ray effect. This is reminiscent  
> of the ou effects the Graneaus observed in high current discharge  
> in water experiments.  The water had to sit outside to rejuvenate  
> the effect.  They hypothesized solar energy was being stored in the  
> water. A bit of a far out hypothesis is it is cosmic ray secondary  
> products, like hyperons, that are being stored up - a very wild  
> hypothesis, but somewhat somewhat supported by my paper:
>
> http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf
>
> which has continued to evolve.
>
> The foil might serve to chemically accumulate a critical mass on  
> its surface.  It makes me wonder what might happen if the foil  
> surface had a nano-structure pre-deposited on it, so as to acquire  
> a volume effect.  This still doesn't explain why the effect is  
> primarily interior to the foil.  That might be explained yet again  
> by critical mass.  The outside layer(s) of foil just aren't as much  
> in a critical mass.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Wild speculation shield off.
>
>
>>
>> Now yesterday, I set up a more controlled separate experiment in a  
>> Nalgene 500ml graduated cylinder.
>>
>> I attached the counter tube firmly to the side of the cylinder,  
>> looking "in", and took first a background count with 250ml of  
>> distilled water inside.  Typical 30 to 50 cpm.  I poured out the  
>> water, and poured in 250 ml of ~.1M uranyl acetate (fresh) in  
>> H2O.  Solution-only reading was between 80 and 100cpm.  This was  
>> poured out, and a single 75ft foil roll was slipped into the  
>> graduated cylinder.  The uranyl acetate solution was then oured  
>> back in, down through the center hole and allowed to rise up and  
>> wick up through the foil.
>>
>> Within about 3 or 4 minutes, as the solution was wetting into the  
>> roll (as adjudjed by the changing top level of the liquid just  
>> above the foil, the cpm on the counter tube climbed up to dance  
>> between 150 and 200cpm.
>
> That seems to prove D2O is not involved. Good to have one major  
> variable out of the way.
>
>
>>
>> It looks like a legitimate effect, but what mechanism would  
>> produce it, I don't kow.  In a modestly controlled geometry, there  
>> appears to be an enhancement of emission rate from weak uranyl  
>> acetate as it permeates between aluminum foil roll turns.  Again,  
>> I ponder - is this a Casimir force related effect?  Or some  
>> coherency of emission from geometry of reflection?
>
> My guess is it is a critical mass effect, not solely neutron based,  
> but gamma-beta-neutron based. This might be checked out by cutting  
> foil samples from multiple layers, going inward from the outside.   
> If the counts increase going inward by layer, then the effect  
> likely has to do with critical mass.
>
> A great remaining mystery is what remains on the foil surface that  
> has such a high count rate. It would be good to cut some sample  
> patches, say 1 cm^2, and label them as to origin and count them  
> periodically. It would of course be ideal to get a spectrum and  
> look for distinct isotope half lives.
>
> Too bad you don't still have your SEM!  That would have provided  
> some important clues.
>
>
>> Or hey, anyone up for ORANUR?
>>
>> N
>
>
> Have you felt nauseous lately?  Smell anything strange? See:
>
> http://members.dslextreme.com/users/rogermw/Reich/oranur.html
>
> Best regards,
>
> Horace Heffner
> http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/