Duelling Cells

There are two test cells making progress right now - the Euro Cell and the American Cell.  Are you ready for twice as much stuff to see in the blog?  Am I ready??

Mathieu is getting his test cell set up.  We have been Skyping several times a day as we guide him through hooking up the wires and running the software.  Skype is amazing.  This level of international collaboration would have been impossible not too long ago.

One of the first things he is doing is calibrating the pressure relief valve to 7.2 bar.  He shared some nice pictures of this process.  The pressure gauge is certified calibrated.  It is important to get this accurate because the glass is rated to 8.6 Bar and we want to allow a comfortable safety margin.

We chose a different way to calibrate our cell.  We installed it on the cell and we are using the pressure sensor on the cell and the newly installed needle valve to carefully fill the cell to 7.3 bar and then adjust the relief valve till the pressure comes down.  This is what the new needle valve and the pressure relief valve look like installed.

But when we filled the test cell we noticed the hydrogen pressure was dropping, so we had to "sniff" for a leak.  We checked the supply manifold for the lab and we checked the test cell.  

We found that the glass to silicone seal was suspect.  This piece of glass was cut and not flame polished and looked like this.  

We just got in a new shipment of quartz tubed where we had them flame polish the ends, so we put one of those tubes in, instead.

We'll know in a few minutes how this does.  So far we know it holds vacuum well.

Obviously this is slowing down the calibration process.  The good part is that The Euro part of the team and the American part of the team are very close to being in synch.  

Another thing that may slow the calibration down is a really good suggestion from an experienced researcher that talked to me today.  He advocated for carefully measuring the wire resistance over temperature before we load with Hydrogen - such as in Helium.  Knowing how the resistance of the wire changes when it absorbs hydrogen and then if and how it changes if it starts creating energy will be important clues to understanding the process going on inside the wire.

And, finally, in the coming days we will start a conversation with all of our blog readers about how to do a more definitive calorimeter based measurement of excess heat with the next generation test cell.  Watch here for emerging details.