Crystal Power CeLL by John Hutchison

[Koen1]

@Bill: Thanks for that ball-milling info.
I've done some searching but the cheapest ball mill I can find at a
second hand lab equipment shop still costs about 2000 Euros...
And that's without alumina balls.
That's quite a price for smashing some rocks, although of course it does
produce a more even and finer powder than the hammer and mortar
method...
The T-shirt approach is one I have tried, but in my experience I end
up with a totally ripped up T-shirt, rocks that are somewhat smaller and
some gravel and powder, but mostly still too large chunks of rock.
And because the shirt rips open I lose quite a lot of the finer dust
which very helpfully spreads itself over everything in a couple of meter
radius. I have tried other cloth types as well, and I have even packed
the rocks in a double cloth layer and then in a good layer of old magazines
to keep all the dust in. No such luck, the stuff keeps ripping.
Perhaps some of my harder rocks are simply too hard for this method?
Or maybe I need Kevlar T-shirts?
I am going to try the hammer approach again, but this time with
metal plates sandwiching the rocks, and the lot wrapped in cloth;
with a little luck the metal will keep the cloth from ripping.

@Ian: Lol yeah, you did say 34C. Easily spotted that that could not be right.
But still, thanks for pointing it out. Similarly, I think I told you Cobalt blue powder
is CoCl4? Well, obviously it is not, it is in fact CoAl2O4, Cobalt aluminate.
Don't know where I got the Cl from... then again, it was very late when I told you

@Nihilanth: ah, the Schuman resonance, a golden oldie Yeah, why not? It's worth a try.
And pulsing magnetic and/or electric fields through the material as it is solidifying may
indeed have interesting effects. I'd say go for it! The more things we try, the greater chances
of stubling onto the ultimate cell.

@Sutra: You said you're planning to use Hematite? If you're only using it because it
is an iron compound and may react to the magnetic field, then you might want to try
other iron oxides as well..? Quick review of what springs to mind: Hematite is the red variety
of iron oxide, Fe2O3. Other iron oxides are: grey/black iron oxide, "Wustite", FeO, and
Magnetite aka Lodestone, Fe3O4. All of them react to magnetic fields, as iron is the main
component and is ferromagnetic (duh!).
Just an idea.

[sutra]

@ Koen1

Trying to crush quartz with steel is like trying to comb a porcupine....quartz WILL eat your bearings in no-time... you'll need CARBORUNDUM grit or somethink of much highier hardness that you'll have to separate at the end of the treatment...

To crumble rocks, try heat' em nicely hot and drop'em in cold water....if they eill not burst in to shreds, at least will be damaged and crack enough to be easily crushed.

The choice of hematite is simply 'cause I had to cut some hematite gems lately and I' didn't clean yet the instruments...so I'm left with a nice quantity of fine hematite scrap dust.... (I'm an unbelivably lazy man  ......  ) moreover, the hematite is paramagnetic only if heated over a certain temperature, I'm not interested in  keeping the magnetisation after full crystalline formation: I just want carbon platlets aligned.

ciao

[Koen1]

Lol!

well at least you're honest

[sutra]

Hi all
I've experimented the following compound:

40% borax
30% trated sea sand (only HCl cleaned not crushed)
20% powdered graphite
10% Hematite dust

baked to cherry-red hot and swept through the centre of a powerful toroid magnet.

The amount of borax is not sufficient to bond compound together.

I've obtained only several little beads stuck to the iron base (bottle cork) big as much as the double of a needle tip. these beads gave 0.5 mV each before coming off the cork... I dont' know if to consider a good sign or not...I'll have to increase the amount of borax to achieve an hard glassy cell...

Second attempt, this time, as follows:

3 gr. sea sand
1 gr. white sugar (it is piezoelectric and melts at low T.)
0.5 gr graphite
0.2 gr Hematite

Mixed everyting, rod of copper inserted in the mix and melted in a aluminum foil cup, soldification in strong magnetic field.

The sugar made a very nice "sweet" the reading in 0.1 mV....nothing....the crystal is not conductive. I want to try increasing the components ratio compared to the sugar (expecially graphite and sand).

I've tried also to pass the pulse of a disposable camera flash unit several times during solidification....no change.

I wander if the sand I'm using is enough rich in quartz.

That's the actual status of my experiments so far... any comment? 

[jeanna]

@sutra,
I am curious, How do you measure the voltage? Is the metal base of the cork on one side?

've obtained only several little beads stuck to the iron base (bottle cork) big as much as the double of a needle tip. these beads gave 0.5 mV each before coming off the cork.

What if you made a flat plate of this material then cut it up into layers? Would you get a series effect?

jeanna