At vortex-l, a mailing list and not a web based forum, a very interesting topic on nickel coins experiment has been the most favorite topic lately. The discussion surrounded on the experiment demonstrating an LENR effect. The experiment is based on work done by Chuck Sites. Many years ago, Sites conducted an experiment using nickel coin in an electrolysis cell and made a quite comprehensive review surrounding theory behind its operation. Here’s what Sites said regarding his nickel coin experiment:
“Here is a story about CF, from 1984 with Pons and Flieshman announced their discovery, I was a young excited physics student, and immediately want to test the concept of CF. I didn’t have palladium, nor deuterium. So I was looking for an alternative. I was thinking, Boron has a very large cross section (Q factor) and B11 could easily cold fuse given the right circumstances. So looking at what I had, what would be a good source of Ni? Not knowing it’s metal makeup I choose an American nickel 5-cent piece. (75 percent copper, 25 percent Ni) This was the Anode. A source of Boron, would be Borax (Na2B4.10H2O). The cathode, I used graphite. This was hooked up to a 65 Watt 5 Volt supply from an IBM PC. To my surprise, the Nickel got extraordinarily hot. Too hot to touch, and I melted several plastic p tree dish before changing to jars. I was always able to bring pint of water to 80C after running for about 8 hours.
Other metals used for the Anode, showed no indications of even being warm. (Steel, Aluminum, Copper, Zinc). So a US 5 cent piece gave great results. I even had a Geiger counter go off once, but it may have been a cosmic ray. Given that, I could never really understand how this Nickel got hot without radiation. I could never get a theory as to how it worked either, in spite of the fact that the experiment is very repeatable.”
There have been many people who are experimenting with this set up. As a matter of fact, some of them replied in the discussion thread. Interestingly, Sites also responded to the replies and made a follow-up regarding the message he made. Clarifications on some of the terminology have also been discussed. It has been reported that this set-up can be performed as long as necessary safety precautions are observed.