tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17555522.post386746111357405942..comments2009-10-12T15:18:58.518-07:00bwhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07541279438184352860noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17555522.post-47696641548857093352009-10-12T14:11:53.585-07:002009-10-12T14:11:53.585-07:00Oh Lord ... <br /><br />PLEASE don&#39;t perform thermodynamics calculations without understanding thermodynamics.<br /><br />In a system of an inner container surrounded by an external vessel, only radiative, conductive and convective heat transfer mechanisms exist for shunting the heat of the sample to the environment. That a sample that starts at 70ºC drops to ambient (23ºC) over several hours does not in any way indicate that some reaction is keeping it at an elevated temperature for the duration. <br /><br />To me, from a the graduate thermo course I took at UCBerkeley, it looks like a classic binding-energy release curve. For whatever reason, D likes to bind to nanometer scale palladium, and upon so binding, releases a fair amount of caloric energy to the suspension water. Enough to take a liter and raise it to about 70ºC from about 23ºC (delta = 47ºC, at 73.3 J/K/mol = 191 kJ) or 0.05 kWh.<br /><br />The part that isn&#39;t spoken of (seriously) is that activation &#39;bake time&#39; ... which easily could require as much or more energy to activate the nanoparticles suspension.<br /><br />If the experimenters had really wanted to show that there was a continuous evolution of energy after the obvious initial-phase activation energy release, then they would have compared a vessel heated to 70ºC by the admixture of 300 ml 23ºC and 700 ml 100ºC water into the inner vessel (no palladium), then measuring the temperature decrease over time as a reference system standard. I&#39;d bet good money that the curves are VERY similar. <br /><br />[PS: there may be an additional scavanging heat-of-formation release between the remenant partially unreacted palladium and the free D2 in solution ... again, it is chemical energy, not nuclear driving this, if measured.]Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00811613577415967650noreply@blogger.com