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?”
never could get the hang of thursdays
never could get the hang of thursdays
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?”
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.