ECCO - When is Molybdenum not Molybdenum?

There were two type of fuels that Suahas sent us, one with and another without Molybdenum. He also sent us a sample of this Molybdenum for testing. Here is a shot of the packaging and it laying on the SEM table ready for analysis.

Figure 1: 'Molybdenum' powder on carbon tape / SEM platter, ready for analysis

Under the microscope

Figure 2: Powder grain average size was between 3 and 5 microns
The manufacturer quoted that this powder should have an average particle size of 30um, however, it was well below that. This is not the first time that quoted figures were well of the actual.

Elemental composition

Figure 3: EDX data shows essentially pure Nickel with just a little oxidation - wait what?
Not an atom of Molybdenum in sight - this came as quite a shock to Suhas Ralkar as he had spent 100s of hours processing the fuel samples and running them in the reactor on the assumption that the supplier had delivered what he was supposed to, only to find out they had sent him a different mesh size of pure nickel!

When the so called 'reputable' supplier was informed of the error, their response was, oh, yeh, sorry.

Conclusion

It is clear from testing various Suhas input feedstocks, that suppliers are economical with the truth at best and plain wrong at other times. Particle sizes were wrong in most cases - however, in this case, the wrong element was supplied.

This just goes to show the importance of having SEM and EDX to hand when conducting this kind of research, otherwise, you may be working with completely different structures and materials to what you thought you were.

Of course, this does mean that none of the ECCO fuel and ash supplied for analysis had Molybdenum in it, but at least those using this powder had a different average Nickel particle size.