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Smudge
A diagram called "Kapanadze's Boot" was circulating online.
The diagram indicated that a long coil contained a chemical substance labeled "
borenium salt"
Considering the forum postings that this was some kind of military technology, and the presence of other devices in Kapanadze's possession, such as mechanical generators with pressure gauges, pressured gas tanks, and internal combustion engines, it can be assumed that he used a substance capable of generating electricity or gas, such as hydrogen.
The substance, which can be used to create powerful current sources or to generate gas and is called "borenium salt," is most likely sodium borohydride.
Between 1990 and 2014, sodium borohydride (NaBH4) and its analogs were considered revolutionary "solid fuels." If you encountered the term "borenium salt" in reference to the white powder in power sources, there's a 95% chance you were talking about direct borohydride fuel cells (DBFCs).
Unlike conventional batteries, where energy is stored in metals, the primary energy source here was the borohydride powder.
Process: The powder was dissolved in alkaline water and fed to the anode of the fuel cell.
Chemistry: Direct oxidation of the borohydride ion occurred over a catalyst. The reaction released 8 electrons per molecule (for comparison, hydrogen produces only 2 electrons, and methanol 6). This provided colossal energy density.
Result: The theoretical specific energy capacity of this “salt” was about 9300 Wh/kg, which is tens of times higher than that of the best lithium-ion batteries of the time.
Sodium borohydride was used for:
- Military portable power generators.
- Prototypes of "eternal" laptop batteries.
- Emergency power systems.
In the 1990s, it was considered a "magic powder" that would replace gasoline and lithium.
A direct borohydride fuel cell (DBFC) resembles a conventional battery in design, but operates like an internal combustion engine: as long as "fuel" is supplied, it produces current.
Anode (Negative Electrode): A solution of "salt" (sodium borohydride) in alkaline water is fed to the anode. A chemical reaction occurs on the anode's surface, which can be coated with a layer of gold, platinum, or even nickel, causing the borohydride molecule to disintegrate, releasing 8 electrons into the external circuit.
Cathode (Positive Electrode): This is where ordinary air is located. Oxygen from the air absorbs the electrons coming through the wires.
Membrane: Between them is a special polymer membrane that allows only sodium ions to pass through, but prevents the fuel from mixing with the air.
Why is this technologically complex? Despite its fantastic energy density, the technology encountered three "walls" that prevented its widespread adoption from 1990 to 2014:
Hydrolysis problem: When sodium borohydride comes into contact with water and the catalyst at the anode, it tends not to simply give up electrons, but to instantly release hydrogen bubbles.
Result: Instead of current, you get a "boiling" foam that inflates the housing and can rupture it. A huge portion of the energy is wasted.
Expensive catalysts: For the reaction to be effective, precious metals (gold, palladium, platinum) were required. The use of cheap nickel resulted in very low efficiency.
"Clogging" by reaction products: The "exhaust" of this element is sodium metaborate (NaBO2). This is a solid salt that eventually clogs the pores of the electrodes and the membrane. The cell would start working powerfully, but after a few hours, its output would plummet—it would choke on its own waste.
Technological Complexity of the System. Unlike a lithium battery, which simply sits in a housing, a borohydride cell is a miniature chemical plant.
It requires the following:
- container for the powder solution.
- pump for circulating the liquid.
- system for removing the released hydrogen.
- cooling system.
https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA481395/page/5/mode/2upThe operation of these DBFCs was accompanied by effects that seemed “anomalous” or extremely unexpected to engineers of the time, sometimes giving rise to controversies.
Result: From 1990 to 2014, such systems were successfully used in military developments (where cost is not a concern, but the lightweight nature of the battery pack is) and in deep-sea vehicles.
The operation of these devices was accompanied by effects that, to engineers of the time, seemed "anomalous" or highly unexpected:
1. The Superefficiency Effect:The most common "strange" effect was associated with the device suddenly beginning to produce much more energy than expected based on the current.
The strangeness: Hydrogen accumulated inside the housing and began to react at the cathode, as in a conventional hydrogen fuel cell. Engineers observed "excess" power that did not correspond to the consumption of the main solution at the anode. It appeared as if the system was drawing energy "out of nowhere," although in reality, it was simply an unaccounted-for chemical process.
2. Voltage Oscillations (Oscillatory Effect)In borohydride fuel cells, self-oscillations of voltage were often observed: the voltmeter needle would jump rhythmically without changing the load.
Why this was alarming: This resembled the operation of "active" media or dynamic chaos.
Reality: A thin film of reaction products formed on the anode surface, periodically breaking through with gas bubbles. This dramatically changed the cell resistance. To an observer in the 1990s, this looked like instability in the physics of the process itself.
3. The "delayed" energy effect:Users noticed that even after the load was turned off, the element continued to "work" (heat up and emit gas).
Oddity: In a classic electric circuit, the current stops instantly. Here, however, the chemical inertia was so great that the system continued to operate long after the circuit was opened, which was sometimes interpreted as the presence of "hidden capacitance" or etheric currents.
4. Cold Fusion and BoronBetween 1990 and 2005, amid the hype surrounding "cold nuclear fusion" (LENR), some researchers attempted to link boron-containing salts to anomalous heat generation.
Boron has isotopes that actively interact with neutrons. Theories arose that under certain conditions (electrolysis of boron salts on palladium electrodes), something more than just chemistry might be occurring.
Result: None of these studies passed the reproducibility test. It was later determined that all the "extra watts" in such experiments were the result of errors in measuring the heat of chemical reactions.
Furthermore, such systems could exhibit a semblance of a violation of
Kirchhoff's law due to the charge carryover effect.
Charge carryover along with gas bubbles in electrochemical cells is a real physical effect that, under certain conditions (especially in systems with borohydrides), can visually resemble an "anomaly" or violation of classical electrical laws.
Balistic Charge Carryover Effect (Balloelectric Effect)When a vigorous gas (hydrogen) evolution occurs in a sodium borohydride solution, bubbles form on the electrode surface.
A gas bubble in an electrolyte is not neutral. An electrical double layer (EDL) forms at the gas-liquid interface. When a bubble detaches, some of the ions from this layer are carried away with it. Gas bubbles at pH > 2–3 (which is typical for alkaline borohydride systems) typically have a negative charge. If bubbles leave the cell en masse through the gas outlet, they literally carry the electrical charge with them into space.
https://luo.chem.utah.edu/_resources/documents/gas-bubbles-in-electrochemical-gas-evolution-reactions.pdfThe charge carried away by the gas can accumulate on the walls of the housing or filters, creating static electricity where it should not be according to the device’s design.
The literature and history of current source research have documented effects that were visually interpreted as "violations of the laws":
Balloelectric effect (Lenard effect): This is the separation of charges when liquid droplets break apart or gas bubbles burst. In the 1990s, researchers noted that in borohydride fuel cells, the device recorded a voltage drop that did not correspond to the load. This occurred precisely because part of the energy was spent "charging" the escaping aerosol.
"Anode effect" in industrial electrolysis: In the aluminum industry, the effect of a gas "coat" forming around the electrode has long been known. The current in the circuit drops almost to zero, but the voltage across the cell jumps sharply to 30-50 V. To the casual observer, this appears as the current disappearing while the potential remains constant, which seems strange from the perspective of classical circuits.
Faradaic efficiency paradoxes: In studies from the early 2000s, it was often noted that the fuel efficiency (Faradaic efficiency) in borohydride cells sometimes exceeded 100% in calculations.
The reason: the previously mentioned hydrogen carryover, which "burned out" at the cathode. Engineers observed more energy than "passed through the ammeter" in the anode circuit. This was often described in papers as "anomalous excess energy" until the mechanisms of hydrogen crossover were studied in detail.
Kirchhoff's law works for closed conductors. In a borohydride fuel cell, the cell becomes an "open" system:
The charge leaves the cell not through the wire, but through the gas outlet pipe.
The sum of the currents in the electrical circuit may not match, since part of the "current" was a flow of charged particles in space (ionic wind).
(The investigation was conducted with partial use of AI resources.)
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Topic: Kapanadze replication (Read 246901 times)
