Unraveling the Mysteries of WindHexe: How Does it Achieve Dehydration?

[SkepticJ]

How the heck does http://vortexdehydration.com/" work?

It http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mg7uu373To" it might be for real, but how?

 

[Jack21222]

According to wikipedia, it's like a blender and a blow dryer. Apparently, compressed hot air dries and "bangs around" the object.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windhexe

I also found a decent article about the product.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4723367/

And a quote from that article:

Brooks speculated that what is going on is that the highly pressurized air streams are banging particles together and against the sides of the Windhexe in a speeded-up version of the way lapidaries polish gems in a tumbler.

Other scientists said that as the air is forced down the funnel at the bottom, the pressure and speed have to increase proportionally, the same way a stream of water builds up pressure and shoots out farther from a hose when you put your thumb in the way.
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“It may just be a very efficient way to knock things into walls very fast,” Brooks concluded. “Fast, but in a gentle way — not like a cannon into a wall.”

No laws of physics being broken as far as I can tell.

 

[SkepticJ]

I had a look at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...,971,594.PN.&OS=PN/6,971,594&RS=PN/6,971,594" and the inventor claims to not know the mechanism by which it works. I guess that's understandable, he's not an engineer by trade, but a farmer.

A backyard inventor came up with something pretty cool.

Still seems weird that it can pulverize stone to a fineness that bests lunar dust. It took meteorite impacts to pull that off!

Someone needs to create a refrigerated air powered version--crush up ice for the finest snow you've ever seen!

 

[Nicodemus]

I looked at it, seems legitimate, Snopes is undecided by their forum seems to think it's legitimate. I think the issue really is: without data, how does this stack up against frying everything until it's syngas? Seems like it would be pretty energy intesive to keep that going, and the grit also seems as though it would be devestating to the interior surface at those speeds.

I think SkepticJ has it: it's more cool than it is practical unless you crave regolith.

 

[SkepticJ]

Why would you do that? Its intended purpose isn't in energy production.

The question is how does it stack up against other methods of grinding/chopping things to powder, as far as energy use goes? Longevity could be in its favor--no blades to go dull.

The internal abrasion is a good point. When grinding anything harder than biological materials, the inside should probably be coated in a really hard alloy, or that recently developed shatterproof ceramic.

 

[Nicodemus]

Why would you do that? Its intended purpose isn't in energy production.

The question is how does it stack up against other methods of grinding/chopping things to powder, as far as energy use goes? Longevity could be in its favor--no blades to go dull.

The internal abrasion is a good point. When grinding anything harder than biological materials, the inside should probably be coated in a really hard alloy, or that recently developed shatterproof ceramic.

I think a better question would be: if you can dump your waste and get energy out of the process, why would you do anything else? I could see it being the first stage of a longer process, but on its own I'd be LOOKING for a way to get energy back to run the process in the first place.

The materials, I really don't know; my reaction is that ceramic which withstood the impacts, would still be essentially sandblasted as well. You can use a hard alloy, but then you either add brittlely, or expense.

 

[SkepticJ]

There's really no way to prevent wear over time in something like this. The best one can do is slow it. Even if the inside were lined with a centimeter thick layer of solid diamond, eventually it'd be worn down.