[NewCandle] Constrained hydrolysis

[Nick Reiter]

Hello all,

Just when it seemed like aluminum - water hydrolysis
was a fun but dead horse, something sort of novel got
kicked onto the plate...

Still suspecting that the tight twisting and folding
of aluminum foil had something to do with the healthy
evolution of H2 from aluminum in distilled water, Sam
Faile tried a novel variant.  Rather than shred the
foil to get more surface area, or scrunch it tighter
to make more creases and folds, Sam carefully removed
the cardboard tube from a 200 ft roll of kitchen foil,
and put the snugly would foil roll in a tall plastic
container of distilled water.  It took a few minutes
for the water to wick between the turns of foil...but
within about 8 to 12 hours, Sam claimed the vessel was
spouting bubble spurts of H2 with such vigor, that it
was kicking water out onto the table.  Much more
vigorous than previous passive Al-H20 hydrolysis rigs.

Earlier this week, I set one up too - putting about a
50 ft. roll in a 500ml plastic graduated cylinder with
distilled H2O.  Mine took longer to kick in, about 48
hours... but darn, if it isn't spouting some neat
streams - nay geysers of bubbles.

So OK, the thought here is this.  In a snug roll of Al
foil, you are setting up a lot of square footage of
miniscule gap where maybe anywhere between 0 and 100
microns might isolate some turns of the foil roll,
making some regions where I would be sure that vacuum
mode exclusion could be going on in a significant way.

What happens if you introduce a chemical or
electrochemical reaction into a gap or planar region
where you have significant vacuum mode exclusion
possible?  Would electrolysis take more or less eV to
initiate?  WOuld reactions take off quicker or be
delayed?

This gets some wheels turning - maybe serendipitously.

I recall that Scott n' Hal's results when they were
going for ground state modification in hydrogen in a
slot orifice a few years ago were negative to
inconclusive.  What about reactions in a "squeezed"
zone..?

Chemistry in a very tight place...what sayeth the
august minds of the group?

N


 
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