Man trying to discover a cure for cancer comes up with possible cure for fossil fuels: a way to make salt water burn. You’ve almost got to say “Well why hasn’t someone else come across that already?”
pushing the sky
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Karan, man, you hurt me by posting things like this. :P
I guess the immediate question is how much energy is released in the combustion of the saltwater compared to the energy used to transmit the radio waves? You’re going to need a big battery pack to continuously transmit radio waves on the fly…
haha, sorry dude, just thought it so cool :)
Yeah, amount of energy released is a good question – though from what the “techs” in the video are suggesting, if the flame’s heat is 1500 degrees Centigrade, that’s pretty decent :D I think it’s probably got more application on the electricity generation side, perhaps – being more suited to external combustion from all appearances. The engine used in the demo, a “Stirling engine”, is also more suited to constant power generation as opposed to the variable requirements of a car.
Still, it’s early days yet :)
Decent’s a relative term, considering petrol burns at about 3000 degrees in the cylinder. ;) You did cause me to do some quick calculations, though – a rough estimate puts the energy output of this combustion at around 21 MJ/kg, or about half of standard petrol, based on burning purely the hydrogen. Not huge, but reasonable. For it to be a better solution than existing hydrogen or electric storage ideas, though, the power needed to generate the radio waves would have to be low…and I have no idea how much power this thing would need. Things like this always throw up “SKEPTIC ALERT” flags when I see them, but who knows, it might have promise.
My skeptic alert flag was way, way up before I even looked at the video; the science behind it apparently is that “though the radio frequencies weaken the bonds holding together the salt, releasing hydrogen which is ignited when exposed to the RF field.” – which sounds even more sus, but apparently it’s been verified by one professor at least. And yeah, efficiency remains the key at the moment.