Difficulties with the diffusers and pumps paled into insignificance besides those with the porous barrier. To work, the gaseous diffusion process required a barrier with microscopic holes, but not subject to plugging. It had to be extremely porous, but strong enough to handle the high pressures. And, like everything else, it had to resist corrosion from uranium hexafluoride. The latter criterion suggested a nickel barrier. Foster C. Nix at the Bell Telephone Laboratories experimented with nickel powder, while Edward O. Norris at the C. O. Jelliff Manufacturing Corporation and Edward Adler at the City College of New York worked on a design with electroplated metallic nickel. Norris was an English interior decorator, who had developed a very fine metal mesh for use with a spray gun. Their design appeared too brittle and fragile for the proposed use, particularly on the higher stages of enrichment, but there was hope that this could be overcome.