[NewCandle] still bubbling

[Nick Reiter]

Hi all,

Regarding Steorn, I'll second Keith's sentiment that
for me its interesting from a sociological
perspective, but I haven't followed it technically.

Still doing some hydrolysis runs with large area tight
rolls of aluminum foil.  One 200 foot roll of kitchen
foil sawed in half in a half gallon vessel with 4tbsp.
salt in distilled water gave me a sort of "borderline"
profile a couple of weeks ago - I maxed out at about 1
liter per minute of gas for around 3 hours at a
temperature peak of 40C.  The foil remains are
interesting - millions of micro-perforations but
otherwise the aluminum surface gets to a point where
the oxide thickness exceeds the sodium and heat's
ability to break it back down, I think.

Now over the 4th holiday, though, I repeated that run
but added 10ml of D2O to the brine.  Interesting
stuff.  The onset of bubbling began about 6 hours
ealier, my peak H2 production was a little under 2
slpm versus 1 slpm, and the vessel itself went above
50C (which of course may have been why I got more H2
out!)  Other than that, same foil mass, same brine
volume, similar (within maybe 2 or 3 degrees)
temperature regime ambient.

For giggles - never knowing what to expect with D2O in
any experiment - I watched the jar with my Geiger
counter, and I do declare that I saw occasion runs up
past 100CPM, compared to the typical room ambient of
20 to 50 CPM.  As the bubble rate went down, these
bursts went away.  No idea what I would have been
picking up in concept.  I just think everything in
life needs a Geiger Mueller tube watching it once in a
while.

Is there any history of experimenters adding D2O to
hydrolysis or electrolysis schemes (for the purpose of
getting more hydrogen  or "X-gas" as opposed to CF of
course!)?  I'd say it may have made some qualitative
difference over control.

Next run will look at limiting the amount of brine and
increasing the number of turns of foil in the roll.

While at its peak, the vessel made a nice hissing
burbling kitchen table centerpiece candle!  Got about
an inch flame off of the brass vent fitting on the
lid, tinted sodium orange.  Bellisimo!  Went well with
linguine.

n


       
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