Crystal Power CeLL by John Hutchison

[Koen1]

@ian: thanks for posting your experiment. Indeed, the increased output when heated appears to indicate pyroelectric effects, most likely due to the tourmaline in the mix. As you may know, different types of tourmaline react to different wavelengths of infrared, and I seem to recall that specifically green and blue/green tourmaline types are sensitive to a wide and fairly deep infrared spectrum. Perhaps using green tourmaline instead of the pink you used would give a higher output at normal "room" or "body" temperatures?
Also, your use of sodium carbide to increase the K, and subsequent remark "similar to an electret", are clearly parallel to TT Brown's approach...
He did indeed use carnauba wax mixed with crushed or small petroelectric rocks in some of his experiments. That is clearly a carnauba wax electret, with pieces of the naturally occurring petroelectric rocks he found imbedded, in an attempt to increase the output and make the electret permanent.
I don't know how much of TT Brown's research into this you have read, but he also studied high K materials and found some of them to exhibit petrovoltaic effects; he very clearly mentions barium titanate as a very good (high K) dielectric, which also exhibits petrovoltaic effects. As you may know, Barium titanate is piezoelectric, dielectric, and also used in "ceramic" electrets. Possibly interesting in this respect is the fact that before barium titanate was used as piezo and dielectric, they often used quartz for the same purposes. Now quartz, however, is not usually seen as a material for use in electrets... But it might be that it can be used as such...

@jeanna: Yes, I believe you are right, and that it is indeed the acidic reaction that dissolves the silicate compounds to a point.
Also, your assertion that adding the calcium at a later point might allow for greater decomposition of these compounds seems correct to me. This would probably yield a more homogenous reaction product, in the end.
However, calcium does have a tendency to bind with active chemicals, and is not exactly known for its good conductivity, nor for any other spectacular properties in electrodynamics... Perhaps reducing the amount of calcium might increase the voltage yield?
I merely suggest this because my own experiments and my correspondance with other experimenters appear to indicate that the closer the cell composition gets to calcite formulae, the less output voltage there seems to be... Mind you, this was not in experiments using the exact same chemicals, so there is always a chance that it might have positive effects on this particular mix.

In my latest approach I am trying mixes with no calcium at all, and I have not used sodium carbonate much either... But I have heard of all kinds of things beng used in experimental mixes, from sodium carbonate through simple sodium or potassium chloride, to lithium oxide even...

In the context of the tourmaline, this might be an interesting read: http://www.cheniere.org/articles/Coincidence%20or%20Suppression%20of%20the%20Self-Powering%20Battery%202.doc
It is about the recently deceased mr de Geus, an originally Dutch inventor who had developed a tourmaline energy cell, and was allegedly on the verge of production and marketing of the device. Not much clear information on the cell composition though, unfortunately.

[ian middleton]

G'Day all,

@Koen: Yes I am familiar with TT Browns work,I've been studying his lab journals (on and off) for a number of years.
He was a very innovative man and I don't think he was given the recognition he deserved. I've been experimenting with a variation
of his electrets, using silicon carbide and tourmaline bonded in polyurethane resin. 3000V across it while it is curing gives very
interesting results.
At the moment I'm working on marrying the two techniques of Brown and Hutchison to produce what would basically be a plastic battery. I find this an exciting field of investigation.

It would appear that the mix I made on January 5th has turned into a very sensitive thermometer. As the temp rises so to the voltage, when the temp drops below 10c the voltage reverses and goes negative. This confirms for me that it is the tourmaline
that is suppling the charge to the electrodes. It's now a case of improving the current density of the mix.

I would like to get my hands on some Barium Titanate but sourcing chemicals in Canberra is difficult these days so quartz will have to do for the moment.

@Jeanna:  Correct once again me dear. The clinker was the reactive ingredient.I can see now why John Hutchison does not need a lot of heat in his mixes. The hard work has already been done for him, the clinker he uses has already undergone extreme heat in its production. He just using and bonding the fused silicates. ( so what is his bonding agent?).

As always comments and suggestions welcome.

Kind regards  Ian

[jeanna]

G'Day all,

@Koen: Yes I am familiar with TT Browns work,I've been studying his lab journals (on and off) for a number of years.
@Jeanna: He just using and bonding the fused silicates. ( so what is his bonding agent?).

As always comments and suggestions welcome.

Kind regards  Ian

Ian.  My question to you is where are TTBrown's lab notes? Are they on the internet somewhere?

I think the answer to what the bonding agent is is the silicates themselves. They grow in the way of fibers through the mass of the stone. Calcium does this in the curing of cement if the silicates don't get there first.
I will find the exact page if needed, but I will describe what prof Davidovits claims has in the past been used to make artificial limestone or granite.
First add sodium carbonate to water. then add some clay. This dissolves the clay into Al and various silicates. Once these silicates are freed up from the chemistry of the clay, add some ground limestone or granite or whatever and let the water evaporate. In his example, the water evaporated in about 2 weeks at the temperature of a hot summer day.

He thought that he discovered a building material. (It is a building material that I was researching when I found his information.) Perhaps he gave the world something more interesting than a new building material.

I don't know if this is what J Hutchison is doing, of course, but it might be a clue to it. Professor Davidovits began publishing his theories in 1979. I will look up those pages if you can not find them. Please ask if you need them.

Thank you,

jeanna

[jeanna]

I just want to report about this little "stone" I made.

I made it by dissolving the clay (ala Prof Davidovits) with sodium carbonate. then I added some hydrated lime. I wanted crushed lime but it wasn't available, so I added sand just to see. Later I painted this with sodium silicate. I let it dry which took 2 weeks or so. It seemd a long time for something so little.

If I stick the probes on either side of it. (It is only a pebble 1" x 1" x 1/4") I get 0.048VDC which cycles to 0 or even - 0.20vdc sometimes. I do not get this effect at all on a similar pebble that I did not paint with sodium silicate.BTW I am very careful not to touch the probes. (My own gsr might be higher than the reading. Sometimes it is 0.09 but usually it is 0.024-0.048vdc)

jeanna

[Koen1]

interesting...
Can you please tell me what exact geopolymer formula/mix you used to make this stone?

And what form of sodium silicate did you use, exactly? Was it NaSiO2OH, or a sodium metasilicate of some type?
I ask because there's a lot of different types of sodium silicate compounds, and the most commonly available ones are metasilicates, or "simple" sodium silicate hydroxides. And of course these all react and also dry at different rates and diffeent manners, depending on the substance to which and the manner in which it is applied.

By the way, thanks for reminding me of the geopolymer approach; I knew of it but hadn't actually considered using it in this path of research... Might prove interesting after all. I've downloaded all of the pdfs Davidovits posted on his site, may try incorporating the geopolymer approach in experiments soon.