KARPEN PILE

[Philip Hardcastle]

Rex Research adds more. It is said to convert ambient heat into electricity, but how gold and platinum electrodes in high purity sulphuric acid does this is anyone's guess:

http://www.rexresearch.com/karpen/karpen.htm
.

Thanks Paul.


@profitis, the more detailed article raises a question or two that perhaps you can answer.


Is it the case that a Karpen cell of figure 1 (2 liquids) provides a continuous output?


If so is there a plot of its electrical output v ambient temperature? if not why not?

[profitis]

Figure 1 with 2 immiscible liquids and 2 same eg platinum electrodes:amyl alcohol dissolves a different quantity of O2 gas and electrolyte than the bottom layer of water and thus sets up both a gas and ionic concentration potential difference between electrodes ie. Its a concentration cell and the nernst equasion applies there.since the concentration differences can never even out permanently it too violates kelvin rule.fig2 is the variety that I used for example in quentron thread where 2 same electrodes have different equilibrium exposure to gas resulting in a strictly permanent concentration difference.the nernst equasion applies here too.fig 3 is of the original karpen pile variety,the one we're interested in.fig 3 is explained in terms of gas overpotential differences or more easily in terms of a phenomena known as catalytic gaseous SPILLOVER.so figure 1 and 2 are simple concentration cells that have a concentration difference AT rest equilibrium.that'swhat makes them different from all other concentration cells which are not at rest equilibrium when there is a voltage present.like any cells their performance and efficiency goes up on a warm day but they work just fine in siberia too so they,l throw heat to the environment on discharge and then the environment will throw the exact same heat back into them when they rest for recharge,contrary to kelvin rule.why? Simply because they possess a voltage AT maximum rest equilibrium.fig 3 is better pictured in terms of gaseous SPILLOVER which occurs due to factors like gas concentration differences,adsorption differences,work function differences etc.the electrochemical overpotential difference explained for this type cell is simply the electrochemical manifestation of the gaseous spillover gradient force.we need to go deeper into gaseous spillover to get get to the bottom of this phil because the assymetry will become more apparent there as will the thermodynamics.

[profitis]

ok phil,was getting lonely here.the heart of the matter is a CONTACT POTENTIAL DIFFERENCE. This is what ties the karpen device to your device.a piece of zinc and a piece of copper shoved in electrolyte eg in the daniel galvanic cell will give a voltage exactly equivalent to the contact potential between the two metals in vaccuum.the galvanic setup is just one way to utilize this and it is spontaneously irreversable.the contact potential difference between gold and platinum under oxygen is utilizable galvanicly and totaly REVERSABLE.thus it is essentially the work function differences at play here in a totaly reversable setup.the oxygen gas and electrolyte in the karpen setup are merely a spectator piggyback molecules for carriage of electric charge through the circuit..and make it useful.

[Philip Hardcastle]

No the unanswered question of great importance is this one:

"On the same idea as a Demon, if I play the Devil's advocate I could say it is not thermal but driven by light, do you know if tests have been made to rule out such things?"

[profitis]

Got it phil.First of all,and I must say this here and now to all demonologists,ou seekers etc: get the idea of maxwell demon out of your mind.its an erronius idea that a system must possess one in order to circumvent kelvin rule eg..the system as a whole must simply have at least 2 superimposed assymetrical maximum entropy states.if its got those two states in one then its a contender to bypass kelvin rule.its the orderliness of the system as a whole that counts here. When you begin 2 experiment with karpen-type cells you will quickly notice that it has nothing to do with light,sound,vibration phil as its power-outage does absolutely not correlate with variencies of these natural resources.ie you can shove a cell in a lighted room or in complete darkness and the power changes zilch.the power densities that I have seen,even of the weaker versions have also zero correlation with noise.you can take a cell to the furthest jungle and it works exact same as if your in the middle of a city peppered with radiowaves.the power-discharge-pattern of these cells correlate only with what you'd expect from the nernst equasion or from textbook electrochemistry.it is too obvious when its in front of you.