The Big Guns

Here's our new power supply. The grey thing on the right is the Variable Transformer we were using before. The Blue Box is a step-up transformer that can handle up to 4,000 V. The stuff in the milk crate is our capacitor array for smoothing out the 60 Hz ripple on the DC. This new setup now isolates the secondary side of the transformer, so we can actually ground the cathode. The white coil is going to be a choke I put in series on the Anode to prevent violent current fluctuations. Eventually I'd like to use a bifilar coil with the other strand being on the cathode, to maximize voltage and minimize current draw.

This equipment is heavy and is kindof overkill for our purposes. But safety first! :) I'm using it because it can handle the unexpected voltage jumps that occur when plasma forms.

Eventually, I'd like to use a Flyback Converter instead of all this, so that the entire system can run off a 12 V car battery.

Papers

Here are some papers describing what happens during plasma electrolysis. Some were published in peer reviewed scientific journals.

Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion

Mizuno describes the dank, underground laboratory. He does not mention that his own laboratory is the size of a broom closet and so crammed with equipment you can barely fit in the door. The roof leaks. A large sheet of blue plastic is suspended over the corner of the room, funneling the rain water down to a sink and away from the computers, meters, power supplies and complex, delicate, beautiful handcrafted experimental apparatus, made of aluminum, stainless steel, platinum, palladium, gold and silver.

Nuclear Transmutation

Call for Electrolysis Invisible College

How it's done:

1 liter of distilled water, about 100 degrees C (boiling).
27.7 grams of K2CO3 (Potassium Carbonate) making a 0.2 molar solution

You can use other electrolytes such as KOH.

Cathode surface area must be at least 1/3 of Anode surface area. Preferably much less. This causes the Current Density to be high enough to generate plasma.

Use about 200 - 350 V DC. Your equipment should be able to handle about 2,000 V DC, because when the plasma forms, the voltage will jump as the current falls off.

Good Luck!! :)

God Bless Alan Turing

British Government Apologizes for their Barbarism

Discussion of 9/05/09 Experiment

So this is what happened. I set the Variable Transformer to some reasonable voltage, like 200 V DC. I measured the voltage between the Cathode and the Anode. There was a purple plasma around the Cathode. I'm sitting there watching it, and after a while, it all of a sudden gets bigger, changes color; the bubbling becomes more violent, and the voltmeter goes crazy. And there were flashes of white light. The voltmeter jumps around 500 600 800 700 1200 1900 1300 800 700 600 400 500 400... when the voltage finally chilled out, the plasma got smaller and went back to being purple. Then after a few more seconds, the same thing would happen all over again.

The other weird thing that happened was at one point the whole cell turned blood red. It really freaked me out. I didn't know it could even do that. Why do these things happen? I don't know.

I ran the cell again today with the leftover electrolyte, and it didn't make any good plasma. just got sparkly. then the tungsten got hot like a toaster element. i guess you can't re-use electrolyte? have to get more distilled water. keep getting aqueus solution on my hands but it doesn't burn. it says "storage code GREEN" so i guess it's safe? I got the K2CO3 from amazon.com.

Oh wait, actually it says it's harmful and irritating :)

I want a bigger capacitor. I discharged my cap array with a screwdriver and it went CRACK and made a big spark.

Plasma is Hot

The melting point of Tungsten is about 6000 degrees Farenheit. The Cathode got fried. The ceramic sheath took a beating.

9/05/09 Plasma Electrolysis Run

Part 1 - What We're Doing.
Part 2 - Power Supply, Set-Up.
Part 3 - Mix up the Electrolyte.
Part 4 - Orange Plasma when Water is too Cold.
Part 5 - Good Purple Plasma at 200 V DC.
Part 6 - Beautiful Stable Blueish Purple Plasma at 150 V DC.
Part 7 - Weird Dark Bubbles and Voltage Jumps in Cycles.
Part 8 - Color Changes and Voltage Jumps. Over 1000 V.

YouTube has a bug whereby you must write &fmt=100 at the end of the video's url. On these links I added that in.