[NewCandle] Mega-roll goes critical

[Jones Beene]

Hope that the Nazi-esque enforcers of the "Patriot's Act" do no hear 
about this one - or else, one will have to show a valid ID to purchase 
aluminum foil at Safeway with a limitation of one per month ... ;-)



Nick Reiter wrote:
> I suppose Mega-roll could be a new pokemon...
> 
> Anyway, good morning, all...
> 
> Just a little vignette and accounting of a further
> adventure with rolled Al foil-in-water hydrolysis.
> 
> I hadn't worked with this for a couple of weeks at
> least; just too much else on my life-plate.  Things
> had sort of ended up in state of non-reproducibility,
> as far as me getting results similar to what Sam Faile
> had been seeing with rolled foil in salt (NaCl) water.
>  I was having trouble getting much of any H2 evolution
> at all from a scaled down version.  The smell of the
> "Joe Cell" factor was in the air.  However, Sam
> prepared a "reactor kit" for me, with a half gallon
> PETE container, and four cut roll sections of 100 ft^2
> each aluminum foil inserted.  All I needed to do to be
> verbatim to his experimental set up was to add Kroger
> brand distilled water mixed with four tablespoons of
> Morton table salt.  I agreed to fire it up, and see if
> there was some "X-factor" trigger involved.
> 
> Despite a busy weekend, on Saturday early evening I
> mounted a hose barb to the container lid, so I could
> attach my flow meter.  I mixed up the salt water, and
> added.
> 
> By 6:30 the next morning, gas evolution in the form of
> tiny bubble geysers from the foil turns was beginning.
>  By noon, the bubbling had increased to about a steady
> 5 sccm of (presumably) H2.  No sign of Cl or HCl smell
> at all, which I found curious.  Of course, I found it
> curious anyway that the reactor was taking off so
> soon, whereas my smaller version sat there in salt
> water for 2 weeks with nary a bubble.  Anyway, I left
> the assembly on the kitchen table, while we had to
> leave for a graduation ceremony.  We were back to the
> house by about 4:30PM, and the gas evolution was now
> up to 15 sccm.  I foolishly figured it would still be
> ok to leave it bubbling away merrily whilst we went
> out again for a couple of hours for dinner.
> 
> The family and I all departed.  About 6:45 PM, my
> oldest son arrived back home ahead of the rest of us,
> as he had driven separately.  About 7:00PM, I got a
> panicked call from him on my cell.  "Dad, your
> experiment is exploding!"
> 
> According to Trevor, when he arrived home, he first
> was tipped off that something was awry by a loud
> hissing and roaring sound from the kitchen.  The
> reactor was steaming, spewing gas and water, and
> literally jumping around on the table.  "Like the jar
> of mood-slime in the court-room scene in Ghostbusters
> 2" said he.  Trevor grabbed potholders, and managed to
> toss the vessel outside into the yard, where it lay
> there steaming and bellowing until it apparently
> boiled itself dry.  He captured some of the fun with a
> digital camera - good scientist the lad is.  The PETE
> container had shrink wrapped itself around the foil
> rolls, and the plastic sealing lid had melted and
> popped off.  By the time I arrived home at about 7:30,
> the vessel was still probably a good 60 to 70C to the
> touch, laying there in the yard.
> 
> Cleaning up the salt water spew in the kitchen
> consumed the rest of my evening.
> 
> So what does it all mean?
> 
> 1.  This particular design / geometry may have some
> sort of "critical mass" of foil layers (and cavities?)
> needed to get into dramatic reaction rates and gas
> evolution.
> 
> 2.  Otherwise, aluminum foil in salt water will either
> just sit there or react slowly in its own good time.
> 
> 3.  Either by an exponential temperature rise (as
> Keith had suggested a while back) or some other
> factor, the particular arrangement / design can go
> literally explosive in a short period of time.
> 
> 4.  There may be some subtle catalyzing elements
> involved, as suggested by the wide range of "start"
> times and performancees.
> 
> 5.  One particularly odd observation is that upon
> examining the foil rolls after all cooled down, there
> was very little sign of corrosion.  The foil turns
> were still bright and shiny, and no visible
> consumption had begun yet!
> 
> Wily electro-chemical hydrolysis taken over the top...
> or hints of some form of Casimir cavity enhancement? 
> Either way... DO NOT TRY THIS unattended.  In your
> kitchen.  bwooha.
> 
> N
> 
> 
>        
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha! Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo! Games.
> http://get.games.yahoo.com/proddesc?gamekey=monopolyherenow  
> 
> _______________________________________________
> NewCandle mailing list
> NewCandle at ipdiscover.com
> http://ipdiscover.com/mailman/listinfo/newcandle_ipdiscover.com
>