[NewCandle] Mega-roll goes critical

Mon Jun 4 12:57:40 EDT 2007

Hi Nick,

Wow, that sounds pretty exciting!

It does sort of match my limited experience
with the plain water/al foil experiment. That
is, the corrosion begins, increases over time,
then diminishes. On disassembly, the inner turns
of foil are still shiny while the outermost layers
show some corrosion. 

This with a small ~500ml distilled water cell.

The big difference being that the peak reaction rate
is much larger in the larger cell.

So now that you have a protocol that works, what
were you doing before that wasn't? I'll try something
here but I don't want to do a large device for
safety reasons and if I understand you, smaller ones
weren't working... What I'm sorely tempted to try
now is a small one with a heater. I think that's
part of the magic, the large thermal mass allowing
a buildup of heat and the reaction hastens. Alternately
I could do a cell in a dewar, to trap the heat and
simulate a big cell.

K.

-----Original Message-----
From: newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com
[mailto:newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com]On Behalf Of Nick Reiter
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 9:52 AM
To: New energy for the new world.
Subject: [NewCandle] Mega-roll goes critical

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

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