Burning salt water for fuel?

Evo

Does anyone think anything will come from this?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070910/...rning_seawater

LeonhardEuler

I saw this in the news and searched here to see what has been said about it:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthr...ght=water+burn

It seems that what's happening is that the RF beam separates the water into H and O, which is then combined back into water in a flame. Of course, you wouldn't get any energy out of the process: you have to use more energy in the RF generator than is given off as heat over the flame. I'm surprised how no one mentions this in the article. It seems clear that this process can not have a net generation of useful energy.

Chi Meson

It's been discussed, and dismissed, here.
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=172018

Evo

Thanks, nothing came up when I searched.

zoobyshoe

Actually, it would have fantastic potential as a desalinization method. The burned H and 0 would be pure water and the heat generated could be used to help generate more radio waves.

edward

OH NO I just filled my gas tank up with salt water and strapped an old radio to it.

Kurdt

I've been constantly amazed in all these water energy claims how nobody ever mentions the fact that one needs energy to split the molecule and unless your process is 100% efficient you will lose energy. There is no way you will ever gain any. The same with perpetual motion machines. Unless the process is 100% efficient it can't be perpetual and even then if you extract energy from the system it will eventually stop. So whatever is used to set the thing off may as well be used as the source of energy generation.

Evo

Disclaimer: PF is not responsible for news articles linked to from this site.

On the positive side, you now have a musical fish tank.

edward

You may just have something there. From salt water to fresh water in a flash. And solar could also be used to generate RF.

Astronuc

I cringe when I see headlines like that. It's the hydrogen that burns, and the hydrogen comes from dissociated water. Electrolysis has been used to achieve the same result, so I don't see this as a necessarily new discovery.

I imagine there's probably some chlorine gas and HCl around as well, and with H gone, the water would become more alkaline.


I imagine the energy lost producing the microwaves and then lost in the dissociation process make for an inefficient process. The objective for hydrogen production is to have a fuel that can be transported or used in a tranportation process. Burning hydrogen at the source would be a wasteful use of energy. It would make more sense to collect the hydrogen in an inert carrier gas for storage or chemical synthesis.

The overall scheme might be worthwhile if solar energy is used as the top level source of energy, but converting solar energy to microwaves may not be practical.

Roy has been around a long time, and I remember his work for nuclear waste processing and waste forms from the 70's and 80's. He certainly knows how to get funding.

http://www.rustumroy.com/

Ivan Seeking

Geez, I jumped online and found two emails about this. Then I find two threads about it here.

The generation of microwaves is a little over 60% efficient. Then you have the coupling to the water, and dissociation. I would bet that you would never do better than 30 or 40% efficient overall.

Electrolysis is about 50% efficient in practice, so it seems very doubtful that this process would have an advanatage.

Chi Meson

Rustum Roy appears to be a bona fide chemistry professor. Is he running a sham for funding? Or has he never stumbled upon the laws of thermodynamics? Or is it possible that there could be something there? Specifically, is there more than just the hydrogen burning?

I just find it incredible that a university professor would risk his credibility on a PPM. Or am I naive?

Ivan Seeking

Is he interested in the energy or the process?

edward

OK then I can see where this concept may show up on late night Television informercials..

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am I in trouble or what?

Evo

He seems to have a number of papers concerning microwaves. Perhaps that is his interest.

Evo

You're in trouble, it's possum urine, monkey urine just sounds more exotic.

edward

He has a patent on: Method and apparatus for microwave phosphor synthesis