Yahoo! news: Scientist burns salt water

[Samr]

ERIE, Pa. - 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.


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.

link to the story (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070910/ap_on_sc/burning_seawater;_ylt=ApBRHfYoQr1vqVbqPZjBnDys0NUE )



Thought this might be a fun read for some people.... or at least the science nerds out there. :lol

[CosmicCowboy]

That H20 bond is a VERY strong bond. I'll bet it takes more energy to break the bond than the H2 will produce.

[Phil Hellmuth]

no money to be made, which means it won't get noticed by people who want to fund it.

[Cry Havoc]

That H20 bond is a VERY strong bond. I'll bet it takes more energy to break the bond than the H2 will produce.

Um, wow, so you mean that it won't produce more energy than is input into it?

Please find me a machine that does, and then sell me the copyright.

[CosmicCowboy]

Um, wow, so you mean that it won't produce more energy than is input into it?

Please find me a machine that does, and then sell me the copyright.

My aren't YOU cute. The point was economic feasibility. If it takes 2 btu of another energy source...(oil, gas, coal, electric etc.) to produce 1 btu of Hydrogen from saltwater thats what is called being theoretically possible but not economically viable.

[ShoogarBear]

http://www.mrfs.net/trips/2003/Las_Vegas/Las_Vegas/mirage_water.jpg

Unfortunately the word didn't get out in time to the kids listening to their radio out on the beach.

[Twisted_Dawg]

This story has made the rounds of the interent and email for sometime now. I just wonder if this is some clever urban legend?

[Cry Havoc]

This story has made the rounds of the interent and email for sometime now. I just wonder if this is some clever urban legend?

It's on engadget. I'm pretty sure it's legit. Not that engadget is the grand pubah of all true things, but considering how many outlets are picking it up, if it's a scheme, it's a good one.




My aren't YOU cute. The point was economic feasibility. If it takes 2 btu of another energy source...(oil, gas, coal, electric etc.) to produce 1 btu of Hydrogen from saltwater thats what is called being theoretically possible but not economically viable.

Oh come now, you left yourself wide open for that one. *Mike Myers voice* I was just trying to get a rise out of you that's all!

Secondly, I think it's rather pointless to speculate at this time, wouldn't you? Localized radio waves do not typically require massive amounts of energy. Of course, it's unclear the exact frequency being used or how long this took, but it's also likely true that if they did it once, they may be able to streamline the process.

It's worth a shot. I mean, saltwater is the most abundant not gaseous resource on our planet.

[ShoogarBear]

Oh great, so now we'll be fighting over the Dead Sea.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

H-H bond 436kJ/mol

H-O bond 460kJ/mol

So breaking the H-O bond to form the H-H bond takes 24kJ/mol more energy than you will receive from burning the hydrogen (ie. the H-H bond), plus system inefficiencies which are really the key (eg. coal fired power plants convert about 30-35% of chemical energy in their fuel to electrical energy).

Also, people who see hydrogen as the future of transport fuel fail to account for the technical difficulties of storing the stuff and transporting it - eg. to contain the same quantum of energy as sits in your petrol tank, an equivalent hydrogen tank would be bigger than your car!

If this story is true, burning seawater to produce hydrogen could be viable if a very efficient process for doing so could be developed. Sounds like it's 20-30 years of R+D away to me though.

[Cry Havoc]

Oh great, so now we'll be fighting over the Dead Sea.

Your mom.

[1369]

No blood for water?

[TDMVPDPOY]

im pretty sure this was discovered long time ago by some unknown dude who was shot dead

these big firms dont want to move to alternative fuel resources

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

im pretty sure this was discovered long time ago by some unknown dude who was shot dead

these big firms dont want to move to alternative fuel resources

Did you even bother to read my post? :rolleyes

Yes, firms lock up patents to prevent their use, and it is a DESPICABLE practice, however if burning seawater was already the answer to our energy problems it would have come to light by now. There are simply too many people and means of communication for the word not to get out.

It may be a way to produce hydrogen, but the technical difficulties are real, and the transaction will COST energy which has to come from somewhere else to maintain the process. As I have already stated, the key to the process will be the efficiency with which H2 can be produced.

People really should get over this idea that energy can be created from nothing. There is a little thing called The First Law of Thermodynamics, one of the fundamental tenets of physics on which all other science is based, and which has withstood all manner of testing, which means that no process will ever create more energy than it embodies.