KARPEN PILE

[profitis]

That's all fine phil but we want to make sure that pomodoro is not going to bring negative news on purpose.how do we know that he's not sarkeizen or mark E? He must simply prove to us that gold foil or platinum foil will corrode in sulfuric acid solution.in this instance it will be the gold that is suppozed to corrode so he must forcefully try to corrode it chopchop and show us. He must heat it to speed up reaction rate.

[Philip Hardcastle]

@profitis, I must say that your comment was not reasonable, firstly it is patently obvious that he is not Sarkeizen, or MarkE, secondly if he were out to do your subject harm he would simply lie about doing the experiment and report detrimental (to your argument) results. If you want to progress you should have respect for pomodoro and others that engage in practical ways. Pomodoro has chosen of his own free will to do some actual experiments and he should be congratulated, but he does not have to do what you tell him to do.


Taking your suggestion on a purely scientific basis it proves nothing other than the chart that pomodoro posted is correct, clearly Pt and Au should not react in the proposed solution, however the chart does not qualify Karpen cell operation over a long period of time, you say it will not corrode in 60 years, or ever, pomodoro proposed to test that by having such a massive number of electrons transfer across the cell such that if it was ion there would be a predictable concentration of Au or Pt, or both in solution.


My view is that the solution will have traces of metals in it, irrespective of the chart data, simply because water erodes glass, plastic, ceramics, metals etc. The issue is to gently operate a Karpen, and to take solution samples periodically, if the concentration of metals in solution does not rise then you have your first test passed. Boiling metals will 100% for sure dissolve metals, I would predict that if you boil in pure water a gm of Au or Pt for 100 years the metal will be completely dissolved, that is not chemistry, that is to me common sense physics.


@pomodoro, what do you think?

[profitis]

phil I'l bet you my house that platinum or gold will not chemically react with water beyond a few picograms over a period of 100years of boiling in a liter water.the  equilibrium constant for reaction of gold or platinum with H+ ions in sulfuric or phosphoric acid solutions is dead fixed on something like 10-15 and is reached in a matter of seconds in a glass of acid. Platinum and gold do not even combust with O2 at red heat.all I'm asking is for mr pomodoro to accelerate the conditions of alleged corrosion in order to rule it out.I'm not panicking I'm just suspicious of reasons for abandoning the agreed upon test.indeed any karpens commercial value will be sized against a normal slow galvanic corrosion in any case. 

[pomodoro]

Calm down everyone,  first of all I can't rush these experiments even if I tried.  I work, and this is just a lunchtime hobby for me.  I haven't read up all  there is on Karpen and I don't know these other people's names that have been mentioned.

The Ag/Pt experiment seems interesting, but I don't see any correlation to the Karpen pile. Why introduce hydrogen gas? I'm sure you do get a voltage as you say   but that will probably be due to oxidation of hydrogen at one of the electrodes. That's not free energy nor conversion of heat to electricity.

Does Au or Pt corrode in boiling dilute acid? Of course not, not even going to try, but Pt does form an oxide layer and absorbs hydrogen as in the scan below done in 0.5M H2SO4 (from the web). So its not as inert as gold in an electrochemical sense in the same volt range.. 

Truth is, I don't know what is happening and that's what I want to find out.  You may choose to not believe the results, but it wont hurt to pay an electrochemical lab to run the same tests and compare results.

Back to the experiment,  I do have sensitive equipment that should detect ppb gold levels, not sure about platinum, but I can always send the sample out to a lab. I also have a balance that can measure down to 0.01mg, but at such low weights its easy to introduce errors.

So for now I have to successfully plate gold on Pt or another electrode and worry about the rest later....one slow step at a time.  Keep the ideas coming though, some sound great.

[profitis]

What would combust H2 gas under an atmosphere of pure H2 gas mr pomodoro? Purge the system. You will get much more power density in the H2 system and make it easier to rule out chemical corrosion of the Pt(-) anode.we want to get catalytic hydrogen spillover(google) to power the cell Pt/Ag/NaOH or easier Pt/graphite/NaOH permanently.