On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 11:08:39 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:

That's why the results of the tests were so bizarre.
What I was doing was heating an object of a certain mass.
When heating it with conventional means (or those used for the
state-of-the-art at the time)
the time required to heat the object ..... in this case to 200 degrees C.
took many, many times longer when compared to the plasma configuration,
using roughly the same amount of input power. I'll have to review the notes
to get the actual numbers.

I don't profess to understand what is going on, except for the facts that
this occurs in a vacuum, under a partial pressure. Argon gas molecules are
energized to an ionized (plasma) state within a confined space and are used
to bombard the object, using a 400 - 500 volt DC potential difference. In
some cases, I actually was able to begin to melt (actually evaporate or
sublimate) the aluminum object in very short order, something that never
occurred with the other means of heating. It's not dis-similar to a
process called "sputtering", but you don't apply enough power to knock atoms
of material off of the object (target).

It's possible that you triggered an exothermic reaction of some sort
in one of the materials. That would be a one time event, and excess
heat production would stop once the reaction had run its course.