Burning Salt Water

[Dale In Corona]

Dale, I really wish you'd educate us. ... [edited for brevity sake] Also, how do you compute Faraday's Theoretical Limit?

Gee Anna, if only I could...

Unfortuneately for me, I am neither that smart nor that well educmacated.

I think that in my lame attempt at humor I might have mis-represented what it was that I was trying to impart. I can not pretend to understand any of Faraday's theories well enough to explain them, nor do I have the first clue as to how to calculate the theoretical limits of them.

The smart a$$ remark was intended tounge in cheeck and I was simply alluding to web searching technique and not trying to imply that I understood Faraday's theories.

Reference:

"...when you should really be searching for "Faraday theory" or something like that"

Sorry for any confusion...

Dale


NOTE TO SELF: Must remember that sarcasm, inflection and tone do not translate in writing very well...

[Anna]

Gee Anna, if only I could...

Unfortuneately for me, I am neither that smart nor that well educmacated.

I think that in my lame attempt at humor I might have mis-represented what it was that I was trying to impart. I can not pretend to understand any of Faraday's theories well enough to explain them, nor do I have the first clue as to how to calculate the theoretical limits of them.

The smart a$$ remark was intended tounge in cheeck and I was simply alluding to web searching technique and not trying to imply that I understood Faraday's theories.

Dale, I really hope my response didn't come out as sarcastic or anything. I just really wanted to know. It bothered me that, if this guy is for real, I had no idea what the "limit" was that they were talking about because it implied some sort of efficiency. If we know what that number is, it's easy to prove that his "engine" can't work.

[Anna]

These guys have the best explanations so far.

[Thom2]

These guys have the best explanations so far.

and the only words I understood were "very expensive light bulb"

pretty much sums up what I was getting from it, and I never made it to college

[leehljp]

Five inputs and a caveat from someone totally ignorant on the subject:

1. I remember having a discussion in the mid/late 60's about making an electronic voltage or (was it amperage) regulator.(I used to know that stuff.) I was told that it could not be done with transistors as the higher the amps, the larger the wire that would be needed to regulate it. Today, there are electronic controllers for just such things that the experts in college physics classes were being taught as impossible.

2. Twenty years ago, IT experts were saying that computers could not access more than 640k of memory no matter what and would get vehement about it. In '89, I showed a 1 meg of memory Mac, I was told that it could not access the full amount of RAM.

3. Concerning the power consumed by the electronics needed to produce the environment for the flame - that full set of equipment shown could more than likely be reduced in size and increased in efficiency a hundred fold. 15 years ago, no one would believe amount of light that could be produced by LEDs with as little a power needed.

4. This is what INVENTIONS and DISCOVERIES are all about. All of the above is arguing the known as it is today and applying theoretical limits in ways tainted by our current understandings.

5. Caveat - having said the above, One "invention" that I missed 30 years ago: After Microwaves appeared, I envisioned that with a different technology, "instant" freezing machines would appear in refrigerator freezers, some in counter top forms. Not yet, although our refrigerator has a "quick freeze" section.

[scorrpio]

Upon some reflection, I think I have some idea as to what is may be happening here.

Original idea: have gold nanoparticles fabricated so they have an affinity to cancer cells, and once they attach to those cells, use RF to superheat just those particles, causing them to kill the cancer cells.

This basically leads me to believe that this RF emitter is capable of producing very specific frequencies that can target a specific element.

In fact, microwave is an emitter that has a rather broad scope and can excite most elements - but lighter ones (hydrogen, oxygen, carbon - primary organic matter components) are likely to get heated up first, which is why microwaves are so good at heating food. In conductors, microwaves cause strong electric currents that produce heat.

And here we have an apparatus that can target specific elements. I guess the whole idea of trying to use it for desalinization was that if you target sodium, it would essentially evaporate from water. It kinda makes sense, really. Seawater, in general, has about 3.5 grams of salt per 1 liter (1kg) of water. Standard desalinization process involves moving this 1 liter of water via evaporation and condensation, and leaving the 3.5 grams of salt behind. So, if instead, you could find a way to eject those 3.5 grams of salt while leaving water in place, it would make for far more efficient desalinization. It raises a few questions, since chlorine is not something you want to just outgas into atmosphere - it is toxic, and it is the primary ozone-destroying component of freons.

I suppose the rig worked, superheating sodium ions and expelling them from the water. And being a base metal, superheated atomized sodium would quickly burn - hence yellow flame color. If that is the case, however, here are some observations:
1. The sodium content is seawater is relatively low. You'd have to lug around a LOT of water to get enough sodium to produce a decent amount of energy. You'll probably be better off lugging around some firewood.

2. If product formed is sodium oxide, it easily dissolves a water, forming a corrosive base.

3. What is left in the tube is essentially a chlorine solution that will be acidic to some degree, and thus a hazard - plus chlorine will outgas, contributing to ozone depletion.

In other words, hardly a green choice.

[crokett]

Assuming this is even true, when you burn hydrogen, you get water. So you are taking the hydrogen out of water (which requires energy) and making water again which gives off energy (the heat from the burning). Care to guess what the net energy you get is? The oil guys won't care.

[norwegianwoodworker]

Inductively Coupled Plasma - ICP

At work, I use several instruments for chemical analysis - two of them feeds the liquid to be analyzed into a burning argon flame. The flame temperature is between 6000-10,000 degrees K, and the liquid is completely vaporized (very simplified). The argon gas can burn as it is being heated by a RF generator/coil. One instrument measures the elemental masses (mass spectrometer - MS), the other can measure the different elements (color) spectra (optical emission spectrometer, or atomic emission spectrometer - OES or AES, same technique, just different names).

So there is no mystery that a RF generator can get most liquids or noble gases to burn, just use the right input parameters (energy). But you never get out more energy than you put in. The ICP technology has been on the market for many, many years.

To find out more, go to Wikipedia and search for Inductively Coupled Plasma.

[leehljp]

To me, Most of the presuppositions above are headed in the wrong direction. Of course you will not get more energy out than is put in, and that is a given. However, to me it is a matter of cost efficiency that makes something viable.

You will not get more energy out of solar panels than is put in!

You will not be able to use all the energy in a drop of gasoline in an internal combustion engine.

You will not be able to use all the energy in a drop of fuel in a turbine engine.

So the question should be:Does, will or can the 'green' cost efficiency of burning abundant and free sea water justify its use? In the cases of the solar panels, internal combustion and turbine engines - many cases it does, even though they are not real high in their energy conversion efficiency.

[dkerfoot]

To me, Most of the presuppositions above are headed in the wrong direction. Of course you will not get more energy out than is put in, and that is a given. However, to me it is a matter of cost efficiency that makes something viable.

You can't get more energy out of a machine or process than you put in, but clearly we can release more energy out of most of our FUELS than we put in. i.e. The battery in our car starts a process that releases energy from gasoline.

If this process is indeed causing a chemical reaction, it is possible (though I personally doubt it in this case) that releases more energy than is required to start and sustain it.

Generally speaking, when I hear about a guy trying to cure cancer or create a fusion reactor in his home, I get a little skeptical about everything else they say. Certainly one of them may prove me wrong some day, but so far, I have been right hundreds of times. I can live with those odds

[leehljp]

If this process is indeed causing a chemical reaction, it is possible (though I personally doubt it in this case) that releases more energy than is required to start and sustain it.

That is the point of investigating. Will it or will it not? Inventors the world over did things that the physics and chemistry community said could not be done. ON the other hand, we have yet to see "cold fusion". But we have seen super bright and cool light in LEDs.

Starting doesn't appear to be a problem energy use wise, sustaining it is where the energy use would be judged as viable or not.

Should he be encouraged to investigate it or just stop because most people who are not experimenting say that it cannot be done efficiently enough in their minds.

Shucks, most of us would have ARGUED that seawater can't burn except in some kind of super lab that basically vaporizes it first. That was only a garage.