Experiment 2 - 100mA

 Cell:

• Cathode:  3.5 cm of exposed 0.25mm Ag wire as close as possible to 1 cm x 2 cm Landauer CR-39 chip.
• Anode:  Approximately 20 cm of 0.3mm Pt wire  
• WITH magnets

 Electrolyte:

• 33 gm D2O + 0.42 gm LiCl + 0.351 gm PdCl2

 Procedure:

• 100 mA until clear

Etch:

• see photos

Results:

• Upon applying the current, the electrolyte became almost opaque - similar to the way it looked before the PdCl2 went into solution.
• After 14 hours, the electrolyte was much lighter – about the same as after a week when following the standard protocol.
• Sometime before 40 hours into the run (while we were not at the lab), the electrolyte became crystal clear.
• There was no damage to the cell walls as in the three week run.
• The voltage started off at 6.10V and dropped to 4.47V after the first 14 hours where it remained fairly stable for the rest of the run.  When the cell was shut off at 41 hours, the voltage was 4.45V.
• After the run, there was a lot of debris in the bottom of the cell.  After about an hour of sitting, the debris started going back into solution.
• CR-39:
• After washing off the CR-39, a slight cloudiness was visible in certain areas. 
• Where there was no palladium (mostly at the edges), the CR-39 was perfectly clear.
• Performed incremental etch removing the chip every 30 minutes for 90 minutes
• A control chip exposed to 10,000 alphas/mm^2 was etched in the same manner.

		Video (3 Mb): Particles Orbiting (look behind the anode) fell when magnets were removed
14 hours into run	end of run (2 Mb file)		Cathode Cr-39	Electrolyte	After one hour

	40x	100x	200x	400x	Am-241 - 400x
Pre-etch					nothing visible
30 min					nothing visible
60 min		---
90 min

  Other photomicrographs:

40x
200x
400x