Results
After running electrolysis of light water and sulfuric acid, and light water and nitric acid for a culmulative of 11 hours, it seems that the sulfuric acid is much better of an electrolyte than the nitric. We're not actually doing any "cold fusion" yet, just testing electrolytes with our catalyst (coconut charcoal). Our cumulative weight loss for the nitric acid cell was well over twice as high as for the sulfuric one, indicating that there were higher pressures in it. This suggests that the recombination catalyst reacts more readily with sulfuric acid. Since sulfuric acid is so reactive, this is an expected result. Although the data is inconclusive, there is some grounds to hypothesize that the lifespan of the recombination catalyst is higher with the nitric acid. Of course, this would make sense, as there are fewer reactions with it. Tomorrow we're going to run electrolysis using the same electrolytes (we're switching the cells that they're in though) but with alumina catalyst that we've tried to reclaim from use in previous experiments by heating to 1600 F.
I made a bunch of data entries today and decided that I really don't like Excel very much. It wouldn't allow me to calculate a logarithmic line of fit for my temperature values which were clearly logarithmic; it only allowed polynomial and exponential. For my voltage values it wouldn't let me calculate an exponential line of fit. What nonsense. Also, my fellow intern Andy broke a brand new printer toner cartridge today. Luckily it still fit in place and seemed to work fine. It was slightly humorous.
By "better" electrolyte, you mean a solution with higher concentrations of ions, correct? That would imply that a solute with a higher level of dissociation (acids, of course, would be great since they split into H+ and the conjugate base, obviously), and a solute with a higher Van't Hoff factor (number of ions the solute dissociates into) would make a better solution to work with. It's not too surprising sulfuric acid worked better, since it'll readily transform from
H2SO4 -> HSO4ˉ
and even some additional dissociation from
HSO4ˉ -> SO4²ˉ
So you have three ions: H+, HSO4ˉ, and SO4²ˉ, giving it a Van't Hoff factor of 3 :P this would make it a stronger electrolyte. Ugh, it's 1:46 AM and I'm in chemistry-rant mode.
Another question: what's "light water"? I'm gonna make a guess that it would be less-than-normal-density water, which would imply irregular water molecules. Do they use a hydrogen with no neutron or something?
Deuterium is of course H-2 (1 (+), 1 (n)). Deuterium oxide is commonly referred to as "heavy water." "Light water" is just normal water, having H-1 atoms. I haven't studied the Van 'T Hoff factor, but from the 3 minutes of reading I just did on some random website, I think you're correct. Basically, we test to see how much mass escaped from our cells, and the more mass that escapes in a particular cell the higher the pressure is. If the pressure is higher, then logically one can deduce that the process of recombination of the gases is proportionally less efficient. From that one can qualitatively and quantitatively find which match of recombination catalyst and electrolyte solution is best. I really should run by the library tomorrow after work and read up on some more chem stuff. First year chem is really a waste of time. All I learned was some rudimentary chemical reaction junk. It's kind of funny because I know at least as much chemistry and far more physics than my fellow intern who's always touting some IB-this or -that, or science thing that he did at his school. He also could hardly believe we were using an analog ammeter. By the way, make sure you remind me to tell you some "funny stories."