Crystal Power CeLL by John Hutchison

[ian middleton]

G'day Nihilanth,  welcome aboard.

It looks like you've read all the previous posts and although a number of chemicals have been mentioned the most dangerous part would probably be the people using them. 

The idea being to produce a crystaline rock battery with common everyday substances. Kitchen chemistry if you like. As for the ratios of different chemicals to use, well thats research in progress for all of us I think.

Putting a cell under pressure while cooling may very well change it's characteristics, in fact I'm sure it would. How much pressure did you have in mind?

Please feel free to share any results you may get, Koen is very knowlegable about this subject and jeanna has an uncanny ability to throw in brilliant ideas from left field.

If you already haven't done so check out the researches of John Hutchison and Marcus Reid.
Have fun mixing and perhaps you'll end up like me, my kitchen looks like a rock shop. lol


Ian

[Koen1]

lol yeah, my workshop looks like a cross between a loopy bakers kitchen and
the room of an old cement mixer that went coocoo. There's bits of rock and
gravel, jars of sand, metal scraps, and other material powders, and various
types of solidified stains and puddles covering my work table and surrounding area.


@Ian: it occurred to me that opal mining is a big thing in Australia, and
that opals are in fact a type of compound chalcedone, which is in fact
a fancy name for non-crystalline quartz. Agate stones are the layered
and nice looking variety of chalcedone, usually formed in hollows inside
rocks/seidiments, where the agate "grows" from the outside 'wall' of the
cavity toward the center. The consecutive layers of chalecedone then
tend to have different colours (and compositions), and this makes for
a nicely varied and layered agate stone.
Opals are basically rocks that consist of a great many tiny chalcedone
"balls"/"pellets", which give rise to the specific colour plays that are
so typical of opals. Ok, so that was my quick visit to rockville
My point is this: if you are interested in and planning to get some
agate stones and use them in your experiments and studies,
you may want to take a look at opals too. Especially if you are
considering to grind/crush them into small pieces for incorporation into
your "cookies", the opal might be worth looking at...

@Nihilanth: hi there. Good to see there's more people interested in this stuff.
Yes, I think Ian put it right, the idea is to not get into too complex chemistry
so that we can basically do it "in the kitchen". Our current approaches seem to border
heavily on the ceramics side, and I don't think many people consider pottery
and clays to be very chemical per se.
Although I have been doing some experiments with some more aggressive
chemicals, but I would advise not to do so unless you are certain you know what
you're doing. Chemical burns are not nice and to be avoided at all times.
For the most part, the household chemicals we use, and certainly the ones used
by Ian and Jeanna in their experiments, are not really dangerous and there
is very little chance of creating a chemical fire, toxic gas, or explosion.
But of course, it helps if you have some basic chemistry knowledge.
As for the ratios, it all depends on which materials you are considering to mix.
I tend to use atomic/molar ratios and then calculate them into roughly the amount
of material in grams needed to perform the desired reaction, but since we're
very much in the experimental stages still the "estimating by feeling" approach
may work quite well. Simply adding a little bit more of the one and a little less of the
other, using educated guesses to determine the amounts, may work quite well
at this stage. Then, once you're confident you're getting some output that is
not a result of ongoing electrochemical reactions (usually when the compound has
has dried out completely), you can start to refine the mix to improve output.
I would like to see those lists/charts of yours some time, if I may.
As for the pressure idea, yes, I have considered that, but at present I do not have a
setup in which I can generate a high pressure and still be able to stirr, heat, and
otherwise work the material mix. Another idea is to perform the process at a
high temperature in an oxygen-free chamber, so that none of the materials
can oxidise excessively at that temperature, yet the silicium and other materials
do get hot enough to melt. That approach seems interesting too, but at present
is also not practically possible (in my case, at least). Have the plans for an argon
filled kiln lying around somewhere, but that will need to wait until I'm rich.
At present I am focusing on the temperature range between room temp and a low
heat of maximum 200 degrees celcius, and using mainly easily obtainable
chemicals such as silicon and other silicates, some borax, some sodium carbonate,
some sand, some metal powder/scraps, and various other materials that I would
not advise to eat. Or inhale, for that matter.

[Nihilanth]

   I only really thought of adding a little additional weight to the pies. I don't exactly have anything lying around that I think would be useful to put some weight on a still-hot, cooling mixture. Maybe around thirty pounds or so, possibly just using a big vice or something. If only to test to see if it has an effect on the voltage. The oxygen-free chamber idea sounds interesting, although that argon kiln thing does seem a bit too expensive. This seems like more of the type of thing I'd try: http://www.instructables.com/id/make-a-manual-vacuum-pump-for-under-%2420-by-convert/

   I've read plenty on John Hutchison and Marcus Reid, and similar experiments, I'm just getting back into experimenting with free energy after a fairly long hiatus which I spent researching hypnosis. I was thinking of adding aluminum to my mixture, and remembered aluminum reacts with water. I realized that was stupid, because aluminum foil wouldn't, but some of the other things I don't know the entire composition of might when mixed together. The fact that I don't know what will happen with some of the materials together seemed a tad unnerving, so I'm thinking of a few safety measures. I don't have any reasonably pure quartz, so I've thought of substituting it with silica gel from packets in shoes, I also thought of substituting Calcite with sidewalk chalk, maybe adding Bismuth, because Bismuth is awesome. 

   A month or so ago, after watching the TechTV video of John Hutchison I noticed that adding water wasn't mentioned in the process. One of the cans he showed contained the crushed rocks he picked, and the other contained an unnamed white powder. I think that the "secret chemical" he used was Zeolite, it boils when heated rapidly and the air pockets in it can probably be filled with the other materials in the mixture. It's not exactly expensive, so I might try it out as a substitute for water. http://www.google.com/products?q=Zeolite+Cartridges

   Also thinking that there might be some possible casimir effect involved to get a decent voltage, and have been considering adding Mica flakes from an art supply store (it's got great cleavage ). It might be a while before I get all of the supplies I need, namely a high-voltage low-amperage DC power supply, so I thought I'd stop hogging some of my ideas.

[jeanna]

I just though I'd mention that a pressure canner will give you 20 lb pressure at sea level.

I personally think the compartmentalization is part of the mechanism of producing voltage. Koen1 and Ian , you have both mentioned this along with the p-n boundary .

In answer to a question I was sent to a website about graphite and carbon having semiconductor properties. What I got from that site was that the slices of carbon are separate from each other in graphite and that seems to be the operative elemant in the ability to express voltage. It is a structure thing maybe more than chemical.

[I am getting tired, maybe not making sense]

In spite of tiredness I want to mention this about magnetism.

I know you know this...

Electricity doesn't always go INTO something. it travels around the skin. And if you really want to introduce charge into something you must induce it by sending a magnetic pulse into it. The magnetic pulse will make the electricity happen inside the skin.

Maybe this will spark (magnetize  )  those brilliant ideas.

Oh dear,

I need a nap, but it is almost time to go to sleep.........

cheers,
jeanna

[ian middleton]

G'Day all

@Nihilanth:  John Hutchision definately uses water in his mix, the water is then evapourated on his cook stove, but slow enough to allow his chemicals to crystalize. From what I can deduce this process takes about an hour. So he doesn't use a great deal of heat.
What are your thoughts on using bismuth. How do you think it may improve the mix ?

There are many sources of quartz, kids playground sand is ok, but as you have seen JH uses mainly
clinker. Clinker contains many silicates of Mg, Al, Fe and Si ect.

Zeolite, I like it. Also you mention mica. If you get some course granite and pound it into a powder you will get micron size flakes of mica along with all the other silicates. It's hard work crushing granite even with a 4 pound hammer and my left thumb doesn't like it much either 

Don't be shy when it comes to throwing stuff into the mix, but always keep acurate notes. I have one mix going at the moment that has 2 aspirin in it and another (don't laugh) where I used urine as the "wetting" agent  I'm going to call this one a P CELL 

Here is a picture or two of the "pie" and another cold hardened cell that has got 6000V  charge trapped between the lower silica base and the upper solid crystal crust.  I gave me a mighty jolt when I tried to move it.

@jeanna: Yes you are spot on with the graphite, the structure is all important.

Thats about it for now.


See ya'll later
Ian