A finding challenging the standard theory of electrolytes

I received a link to an interesting article “Double-layer structure of the Pt(111) aqueous electrolyte interface” about the findings of Ojha et al (see this) . The reader can also consult the popular representation of the finding (see this) .

The experiments demonstrate that the physics of electrolytes is not completely understood.

1. Pt(111)-aqueous electrolyte interface is studied in a situation in which there is a circulation of H₂ molecules part of which decay to H ions and electrons at the interface of the first electrode.
2. Electrons give rise to a current flowing to the second electrode, which also involves the Pt(111) interface. There is also a proton transfer between the electrodes. At the second interface there is a circulation of O₂ molecules: part of them transforms to water molecules at the interface.
3. A double layer of positive and negative charges of some thickness acting like a capacitor at the first interface is formed. Two plates of this kind plus electrolyte between them form an analog of a continually loaded battery and electron current is running when wire connects the plates.
4. The prediction of the standard theory is that when the salt concentration of the electrolyte is lowered, the current should eventually stop running at some critical salt concentration determined by the potential between the electrodes. There would be no free electrons anymore. OThis critical potential is called the potential of zero charge.
5. The experimental findings produced a surprise. The potential of zero charge did not appear for the predicted salt ion concentration. The reduction of ion concentration by a factor 1/10 was needed to achieve this. It would seem that the actual concentration of ions is 10 times higher! What are these strange, invisible, salt ions?

I have confessed to myself and also publicly in (see this and this) that I do really understand how ionization takes place in electrolytes. The electrostatic energies in atomic scales associated with the electrolyte potential are quite too small to induce ionization. I might be of course incredibly stupid but I am also incredibly stubborn and wanted to understand this in my own way.

The attempt to do something for this situation, and also the fact that “cold fusion” also involves electrolytes, which no nuclear physicist in his right mind would associate with electrolysis, led to a totally crazy sounding proposal that electrolysis might involve some new physics predicted by TGD and making possible “cold fusion” (see this, this, and this). Electrolytes actually involve myriads of anomalous effects (see this, this, and this). Theoretical physicists of course do not take them seriously since chemistry is thought to be an ancient, primitive precursor of modern physics.

Part of the ions of the electrolyte would be dark in the TGD sense having effective Planck constant h_eff> h so that their local interactions (describable using Feyman diagrams) with the ordinary matter with h_eff= h would be very weak. There these ions behave like dark matter so that the term “dark ion” is well-motivated. This does not however mean that the galactic dark matter would be dark matter in this sense. TGD based explanation for the galactic dark matter could be actually in terms of the dark energy assignable to cosic strings thickened to magnetic flux tubes carrying monopole flux (see this, this, and this).

1. The presence of dark ions in water would explain the ionization in electrolytes. Water would be a very special substance in that the magnetic body of water carrying dark matter would give rise to hundreds of thermodynamic anomalies characterizing water (see this) .
2. Biology is full of electrolytes and biologically important ions are proposed to be dark ions (see this). As a matter of fact, I ended the TGD based notion of dark matter from the anomalies of biology and neuroscience. This notion emerged from the number theoretic vision about TGD much later (see this, this, and this). Pollack effect would involve dark protons and would be in a key role in biology. The realizations of genetic codons in terms of dark proton and dark photon triplets would also be central.
3. “Cold fusion” is one application for TGD view about dark matter (see this). The formation of dark proton sequences gives rise to dark protons and perhaps even heavier nuclei for which the binding energies would be much smaller than for ordinary nuclei. The subsequent transformation to ordinary nuclei would liberate essentially the ordinary nuclear binding energy.

The notion of dark matter also leads to concrete ideas about what happens in electrolysis (see this). In the TGD framework, the finding of Ojha et al would suggest that 90 per cent of ions are dark in the electrolyte considered.

See the article TGD and condensed matter or the chapter with the same title.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.