Somebody check the calendar. It isn't April 1 is it?
An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.
John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.
The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.
Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.
The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.
The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said.
"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."
Roy will meet this week with officials from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try to obtain research funding.
The scientists want to find out whether the energy output from the burning hydrogen — which reached a heat of more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit — would be enough to power a car or other heavy machinery.
"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Roy said. "The potential is huge."
I miss cold fusion. At least I was too dumb to know immediately how impossible that was.
16 comments:
Now we will have a use for all the rising sea levels. Suh-weet!
Here is a video demonstration.
http://www.rustumroy.com/May42007WKYCCleveland.wmv
"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."
Water is an element? maybe if you're an alchemist, Water, Earth Fire, you get the picture...
You know I only completed 12th grade Chemistry ... but I was always taught that water was a COMPOUND...
"It is everywhere"... yeah, including the void where ol'Roy's brain should be!
Conservation of energy isn't just a good idea - it's the law.
Mattwi: If it helps, Dr. Rustum Roy holds a doctorate in ceramics.
Now you've got me curious. These people all appear to be legitimate researchers. I'll have to dig and see what they are onto, if anything.
April,
Dr. Roy's study of ceramics isn't pottery. It's advanced material science in high tech ceramics. These ceramics are used in place of traditional metals and plastics. He should know chemistry better than most. Of course, as we learned with the cold fusion folks, that doesn't guarantee integrity.
I am aware of Roy's Doctorate and that is why I posted the comment.
I wonder if the majority of his thesis in ceramics research was more in the line of "Power Independence via The Perfect Bong"...
Complete crap. If I got a $1000 for each crank that came off the street with a perpetual motion idea when I had my research job with alternative power vehicles, I would be a millionaire.
OK, there is not much detail in the news story. How much RF power is he generating vs. the yeild of hydrogen he is getting? The frequency is not discussed but I am willing to bet that the radiated power hitting the salt water is less than 20%. Also what is the distance of the source to the target.
To tell you the truth, it sounds like he just doing electrolysis but not very efficently. To the uneducated liberals, Electrolysis is when a voltage of 1.2 volts DC is applied to two dissimilar metal rods in water to break apart the hydrogen and oxygen bonds. Electrolysis is only 50% effiecient. You can slightly increase the effiecncy of getting hydrogen out when you introduce a small amount of salt to the water but you end up corroding the metal rods faster.
There are more efficient ways to produce hydrogen like using high temperature steam on coal, that is about 70% efficient.
Every decade the scammers come out with hydrogen "discoveries" to dupe people out of money. This has been going on since the 70's.
If you want to learn more about hydrogen production, containment and applications, read: "Fuel from Water" and "The Hydrogen Economy".
it's easy to dismiss this device as a perpetual motion machine. but what if this discovery could be used to eventually create a cheaper method of power generation-- cheaper than coal power or nuclear power?
surely no one claims coal or nuclear power generators are perpetual motion devices?
Oh, puh-lease Jim. All this guy is accomplishing is electrolysis. Electrolysis of water to create hydrogen requires more energy than can be recovered by burning the hydrogen.
Michael, don't let this Jim get to you. This guy who reinvented electrolysis is just a scammer in my book. Perpetual motion, Over-Energy, Uniform Theory Energy, many names but they all violate the first law of Thermodynamics, you cannot create or destroy energy. The media loves junk science.
I also wanted to know how he can get the hydrogen flame "red". When you burn hydrogen, you cannot see it burn. Must be the RF hitting the oxygen when it combines with the hydrogen...
As for Jim's Coal and nuclear statement. What is he smoking? We convert coal to heat and to electricity. We cause Uranium -235 to collide and split other Urainium-235 atoms to generate heat which is converted to electricity. It is not perpetual energy.
Isn't it possible that the red color is a consequence of sodium being aerosolized as hydrogen bubbles burst on the surface? That's what I thought I was seeing.
You are probably right with the Sodium. I forgot the colors of substances being burned. It has been twelve years since I took Chem 111.
Sodium salts produce yellow flames, NaCl when burnt is in the 610-620 nm range... Red is 650nm, that would be strontium or lithium salts.
We got smart dudes readin' dis here blog.
I'm certainly no chemist or ceramics scientist. I'm glad other people can keep up with this kinda stuff. I'm a biology kinda guy, myself.
I wasn't sure I followed the hoopla myself when I first read about it. I'm sure they'll discover that the radio frequency used to burn the salt water causes skin cancer.
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