ENVR 44 |
| Several rare reactions have been reported, many of them anecdotal and none of them repeatable at will. Regardless, some reports have been documented, and all have been of sufficient magnitude to warrant notice. In 1992, Fleischmann and Pons did not replenish the electrolyte in a cell and allowed it to run dry. When the electrolytic circuit was broken as a result of the absence of the electrolyte, the cell continued to give off excess heat for three hours. A Kel-F plastic support melted, indicating temperatures above 300°C. At an MIT symposium in the early 1990s, Lawrence Forsley of JWK Technologies Inc. reported on a cell in which the electrolytic current was turned off momentarily. The cell had been running at 80°C, at equilibrium, for one day. After the abrupt power interruption, the cell temperature shot up to 125°C, cracked a plastic insulator, and boiled off all the electrolyte – at a power input far below that required for Joule heating. In the early 1990s, Mizuno of Hokkaido University reported the boil-off of a cell initially running 24 Watts of input power that, in its last eight days with current turned off, boiled more than 15 liters of water. Mizuno had placed the cell in a bucket of water after disconnecting it from the power supply. According to his calculations, during the time the cell was turned off, it evaporated enough water to account for 8.2 x 107 joules of energy. Other researchers reporting excess heat after boil-offs are Giuliano Mengoli of the Instituto di Polarografia in Italy and Miles of the U.S. Navy's China Lake Weapons Center. |
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New Energy Technology
1:30 PM-4:50 PM, Monday, March 23, 2009 Hilton -- Alpine Ballroom West, Oral
Division of Environmental Chemistry |