Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Transmute C2H2 to Iron

Transmute C2H2 to Iron

ChrisWhewell - 23-12-2009 at 16:57

I can verify this:

http://amasci.com/freenrg/carbiron.html

Back in 1992 in connection with my patent 5269953 I needed to make buckyballs. So I took a section of lab countertop, the heavy black stuff and cut it to about a two foot square using a carborundum blade. Let me say, that stuff is tough. I drilled two holes through it, supported it and fitted it with two brass gas valves. Over the stubs of the valves that protruded, I hung upsidedown graphite crucibles. A large bell jar I acquired for $3 at a garage sale (and it was a nice one, an inch and a quarter thick, what it was doing at a garage sale I don't know) To one of the valves I attached the vacuum pump / trap and to the other a source of acetylene, welding grade, and argon. I'd pump it down to 10 torr, fill it with H2C2, and then re-evacuate it, repeating this process four times until I was happy there was no O2 present. I had also attached the leads of a 30 ma 15kV neon sign transformer to each of the valves on the underside. When the transformer was energized a big arc ensued with formation of copious amounts of soot, which was later collected. For whatever reason, I observed the soot to act odd and checked it with a magnet and sure enough there were particles present that were attracted. I thought this was impossible. But I observed the same thing repeatedly, every time I checked it. Only later after reading the works of Louis Kervran, did I lose my surprise. Eugene Mallove, PhD's confirmation (God rest his soul), I have only learned of recently.

Edit: the yield of ferromagnetic particles was very very low, I would estimate on the order of about 0.1 % . This method makes a bunch of PAH's but very little C60.

The best way to make C60 according to me is by supporting graphite crucibles so they're free to rotate horizontally, one atop the other but not touching, their axes of rotation being parallel, with the axis of the top one being free to move up and down somewhat. He is directed into the gap betwixt them, each rotatable crucible being made a pole of a hi amperage source of DC. To make the c60, a graphite rod or sheet is fed into the gap to cause the crucibles to rotate, like a spaghetti machine. The current passes through the cross section of the rod in the area of the rod disposed between the rotating crucibles at a given time. Various metals may be electrodeposited on the rod prior to its insertion into the apparatus, and in the alternate the rod may first be intercalated with kalium, etc. per the usual methods.

[Edited on 24-12-2009 by ChrisWhewell]

12AX7 - 24-12-2009 at 02:00

What?

not_important - 24-12-2009 at 04:08

Once upon time there was a tavern..

oops, sorry, wrong story.

Back at the end of the 17th and into the 18th century the then current theories of matter, the Three Elements and Four Elements, were being displaced by newer theories; however they did persist to some degree well into the 17th century.

One nail in the coffin lid was provided by Lavoisier. An oft repeated experiement that supposedly showed the conversion of Water to Earth was the boiling of water in a flask for a prolonged interval, and the appearance of flecks of solid matter in the water or after the water was evaporated. There was no control of the state of the vessel, the quality of the water, the keeping out of contaminates dropping into the vessel; nor was there much attention paid to the nature of the solids formed.

Lavoisier used careful procedures, clean flask, as pure of water as he could do, and so on. He weighed both flask and water before, and then those and he solids after. Doing so he showed that the weight of the solids formed matched the weight lost by the flask; the 'Earth' was bits of the flask that came loose (there was some ionic compounds formed and remaining in solution, but their mass was too low to be detected by his balances)

You did no further test on the magnetic particles. Not only iron is magnetic, but so is nickel, cobalt, alloys of manganese such as the original Heusler alloy Cu2MnAl, compounds such as CO2 of magnetic tape fame, various stable organic radicals (see doi:10.1016/j.jmmm.2004.09.113 ), and just plain carbon and graphene oxides.

Nor did you provide an analysis of the crucible to show they contained no magnetic elements; you didn't give much information on them at all; many common foundry "graphite" crucibles contain 30 to 40 percent clay and the quality of that clay isn't too critical - it can contain over a percent of iron.

Indeed, avoiding contamination by magnetic elements is a real problem. Iron is everywhere in dust, coming from rust, eroding iron rich rocks, wielding and steel production, and meteors entering the atmosphere. Many of the early reports of magnetism in carbon were corrected when contamination from Fe, Ni, or Co was discovered.

Now you could argue that those cases are further proof of your cause, that those were not contaminates but resulted from transmutation. So next we must delve into more mathematical realms.

The general claim is that iron is being formed from carbon, contrary to conventional scientific thought. But the conventional scientific view will fight back:

Consider 6C12. Four atoms of this simply fused together would yield Cr24, five would give Zn30. Neither of these are magnetic, but neither is stable against radioactive decay. The chromium isotope decays away from the iron triad to give titanium. The zinc will decay to copper which decays again, both with half lives on the order of 2 or 3 days, to give stable 28Ni60.

But those are radioactive decay steps, lasting for days, they should be detectable; furthermore the nickel builds in over that period, the amount found should increase over an interval of a week.

And there's the problem of lost mass, meaning excess energy. The binding energy as MeV per nucleon for 6C12 is about 7,68, while for 28Ni60 it's somewhere around 8,79. Taking off my shoes I calculate that the fusion of carbon to zinc whose decay chain leads to nickel should release, for each mg of nickel formed, about 1,07E+008 Joules, or 25624 Kcal, 101687 BTU, 29,8 kWh, or the equivalence of detonating a bit more than 23 kg of TNT.

It can be countered that the results claimed do not depend on straight forward fusion of carbon nuclei. In stellar nucleosynthesis iron-56 is formed by the decay of nickel-56 to cobalt-56 to iron-56; the nickel being formed by a series of capture/fusion reactions that include alpha particles; that allows mass increases of +4 and makes Ni56 accessible.

Yet those reactions depend on conditions as extreme as simple fusion of carbon nuclei. These puts low energy fusion in the position of not only proposing that fusion and reactions equivalent to photodecay can happen at energy levels many orders of magnitude less than commonly believed, but also that those reaction include the true destruction of mass/energy - the binding energy just disappears instead of vapourising the experimental apparatus.

An alternative explanation is given, that the fusion happens with a number of nuclei coming together to produce a number of product nuclei without a simple N:1 relationship. This concept has a number of problems mechanistically and statistically, requiring very improbable situations.

I must note that the detection and control of small amounts of elements can be difficult. Trace element studies face this problem; the establishment of the needed levels of zinc in the diet were failures until done in building without galvanized iron in them, the zinc vapour in air coming from heating ducts was enough to satisfy the needs of many experimental animals. Small flying insects caught and eaten by the test animals bring them trace nutrients, again causing problems.

If transmutation is indeed happening, the isotopic composition should be unusual (except for cobalt with only one stable isotope). XRF and mass spec analysis should be enlightening, an outside party could be given a sample presented as possibly being from meteoric origin and a request to see if this can be demonstrated.

I'll agree on your C60 formation note, I've read several accounts stating that "smoldering arcs" are one of the best sources. The mix of resistance heating and short duration arcing in dense vapour may be important contributors to this.

JohnWW - 24-12-2009 at 04:13

Here is his U$ patent 5269953, obtained from http://www.pat2pdf.org, for graphite intercalated with buckminsterfullerene, C60 (1993).

Attachment: USpat5269953-C60.pdf (800kB)
This file has been downloaded 538 times

[Edited on 24-12-09 by JohnWW]

hissingnoise - 24-12-2009 at 05:27

Chris, I don't know where the iron came from but I think it's safe to assume that it wasn't from the acetylene. . .

ChrisWhewell - 24-12-2009 at 05:34

Maybe you feel "safe" in making assumptions like that, and I'm ok with it.

I only reported what I observed, and an account by others observing the same phenomenon.

I realize that in a million years I'll not convince anyone of this, excepting those who've also observed the same.

Just ask yourself if Walton and Cockcroft could in 1932 transmute lithium by hitting it with protons, isn't it reasonable to suspect other transmutations are possible, when plasmic matter comprising a mess of protons and other gobbleydegook is subjected to a 15 kV arc in vacuo ?

I think one can find some Japanese groups have also reproduced Kervran's work.

ChrisWhewell - 24-12-2009 at 05:46

Quote: Originally posted by not_important

Once upon time there was a tavern..

oops, sorry, wrong story.

I think you've raised some good points. It would certainly need further investigation, and quantification.

Here's a short article involving many many others probably far more knowledgable than I on the topic:

http://www.rexresearch.com/adept/aa3car~1.htm

When I see so many others reporting similar results, it really makes me wonder. We've seen matter travelling faster than the speed of light and in addition to Einstein's theories, I'll never be surprised at seeing other dogmatic concepts tossed out.

Edit + :

I'll look to see if I can find Bockris' reference for this passage in the above, and reply if I can find it:

" In 1994, R. Sundaresan and J.Bockris (Texas A&M) reported that they had observed "Anomalous Reactions During Arcing Between Carbon Rods In Water:

"Spectroscopically pure carbon rods were subjected to a carbon arc in highly purified water. The arc current varied from 20 to 25 A and was passed intermittently for several hours. The original carbon contained ~ 2 ppm Fe. The C rods remained cool to the touch at >2 cm from their tips. Adsorption of iron from water or the surrounding atmosphere was established as not being the cause of the increase of iron. There is a weak correlation between the iron formed and the time of passage of current.

"When dissolved O2 was replaced by N2 in the solution, no iron was formed. Hence, the mechanism

2 6C12 + 2 8O18Þ26Fe56 + 2He4"

[Edited on 24-12-2009 by ChrisWhewell]

ChrisWhewell - 24-12-2009 at 06:00

Here's one:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...

A quote from http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BockrisJaccountabi.pdf :

"The difficulty of getting a change of paradigm is well illustrated by the occasion on which I had a long lasting (1 month!) Tritium production experiment. I invited four professors individually to come and witness the increasing tritium concentration. They all refused, thus, providing in 1993, a repetition of the type of occasion on which the Cardinals refused to look at the moon through Galileoís telescope. " - Bockris

[Edited on 24-12-2009 by ChrisWhewell]

ChrisWhewell - 24-12-2009 at 07:01

and here is an article that's fun to read, certainly better than anything on TV these days.

I note the involvement of Mitsubishi at the end, and that many groups have reported low-temperature transmutations:

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BockrisJthehistory.pdf

not_important - 24-12-2009 at 07:08

Quote: Originally posted by ChrisWhewell

...
Just ask yourself if Walton and Cockcroft could in 1932 transmute lithium by hitting it with protons, isn't it reasonable to suspect other transmutations are possible, when plasmic matter comprising a mess of protons and other gobbleydegook is subjected to a 15 kV arc in vacuo ?

The voltage of an arc isn't too important, the plasma means the particals are more or less in thermal equalibrium. What is the temperature in such an arc?

1 eV = 11600 K, and the Cockcroft and Walton's machine was about 700 keV slapping a proton into a not particularly stable nucleus, while carbon is a fairly stable one.

hissingnoise - 24-12-2009 at 07:12

Quote: Originally posted by ChrisWhewell

We've seen matter travelling faster than the speed of light.

Sorry for the scepticism Chris, but have we?

ChrisWhewell - 24-12-2009 at 08:06

Well, maybe not everyone has, we're all students in different ways. What some accept as fact, others know to be not so.

"The electrons travel through the water at a velocity greater than that of light in water and hence cause the characteristic ``Cerenkov glow''. "

from http://www.physics.upenn.edu/balloon/cerenkov_radiation.html

Here, you can see for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I3JKYdGWTE

Edit + :

I did a little search, and the author of the statement above appears to be the Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. I bet if you have any short questions on the topic, he'd reply. His email is at the bottom of that web page.

[Edited on 24-12-2009 by ChrisWhewell]

ChrisWhewell - 24-12-2009 at 08:29

Quote: Originally posted by not_important

Quote: Originally posted by ChrisWhewell

...

The voltage of an arc isn't too important, the plasma means the particals are more or less in thermal equalibrium.

Respectfully disagree. I saw different product compositions when using 15kv versus an 8 kv transformer. Moreover, plasmas have different zones of temperature within them that can vary significantly.

Although it is not clear from your message which particles you are referring to. If you mean all particles in a plasma are always more or less in thermal equilibrium with one another, my work using inductively coupled plasma as an analytical technique, among other things suggests otherwise.

I'm not sure what you mean by 1 eV equals so many K. If you mean degrees kelvin, you may want to re-think that.

not_important - 24-12-2009 at 08:35

That is true, Cerenkov radiation is the shock wave of objects traveling than the local speed of light; but light travels slower through matter than thru vacuum, and it's the speed of light in a vacuum that is considered "the universal speed limit" not the pokey speed of light through water or glass fibers. Cerenkov radiation stays within the "dogmatic concepts", no one in physics considers it breaking any of the rules.

Note that the various 'warp drives' proposed obey that limit by wrapping the object up in heavily strained and bent space-time; the object travels slower than c in the local region.

And in real world happening the phase velocity of radiation can propagate faster than c, but the group velocity decreases proportionately so the signal takes longer to reach its destination. At infinite phase velocity the group velocity drops to zero and the signal doesn't propagate at all; this can be observed in waveguides near their cutoff.

12AX7 - 24-12-2009 at 23:33

Look up Boltzmann constant, which is in energy per temperature. eV/K is a typical unit.

Room temperature 300k is k_B*T = 25.9meV. Juuuust enough to excite electrons into higher energy levels in suitable crystal lattices, thus giving rise to the last revolutionary century of semiconductor physics.

In a dense atmosphere, an arc powered by 20V has exactly the same temperature as one powered by 15kV, or by 1MV. The energy is limited by ionization energy and thermal losses. Only if the current density is extremely high will the temperature rise, due to Z-pinch and increased ionization (supposedly, lightning, which is on the order of 100kA, gets to the 50kK range). The temperature will rise in a continuous manner as current is increased, since progressively more ionization levels will be reached. Only when all atoms are ionized will the plasma be completely drift limited, at which point energy will be linear with current density. Sheesh, I wonder if the Z machine even gets anywhere near that high; it makes x-rays, which would be expected given energies sufficient to ionize even the inner core electrons.

This is why x-rays were not discovered until the hard vacuum was developed: a soft vacuum has too much stuff in it to allow energies anywhere near the applied voltage.

Tim

not_important - 27-12-2009 at 09:18

A quick note, I've more but I need to go gawk the blip. Regarding patenting things as evidence of their validity, consider United States Patent 3882312, out of a university later noted for another bit of poorly done experimentation that harmed research in a field related to the topic of this thread. In the case of the aforementioned patent, the evidence given turned out to mostly be due to a slightly defective pack of sheet film. A side effect of this may have been to delay into research leading to laser HHG, the sloppy experimental design creating a dismissive attitude towards the topic in a fashion similar to the "boy who cried wolf" effect.

ChrisWhewell - 27-12-2009 at 10:39

Definitely. Issuance of a patent should not in itself be construed as evidence of their validity. Whether a patent is valid or not is a legal question that can often be difficult to determine, which is why typical validity opinions can easily cost upwards of $ 30k.

Aside from validity, I've seen quite a few that are inoperative, or at least while being operative to some small measure do not provide widely-applicable, commercially-viable technology. An example could include some of Gschneidner's thermoelectric materials. Just remember that profitability is not a requisite to patenability, but from the inventor's side is obviously desirable. Indeed, there can be many reasons why companies choose to patent or not patent various developments. In the case of some solid state materials, it is possible in some instances to obtain broad coverage that can include what others might do in the same area in the future.

gregxy - 31-12-2009 at 14:54

For a good example of the value of patents (or lack there of) look
at dietary supplements. If everything that was patented "worked"
all women would look like supermodels and there would not be a
single bald man to be seen, plus we would all be living to the ripe old
age of 1000!