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Posted on 06/19/2005 12:49:53 AM PDT by IAF ThunderPilot
Israeli inventor Alon Bodner has found a way to use the small amounts of air already in the water to provide oxygen to divers and even to submarines.
Bodner's device has the potential to overcome limitations imposed on divers by oxygen tanks. The tanks limit not only the amount of time a diver can remain under water, but also affect the diver's buoyancy and they empty out over the course of a dive. Divers carefully monitor their buoyancy - the tendency to either float up toward the surface or to sink - and actually wear weight belts to be able to keep it at zero. This enables them to concern themselves only with swimming in the direction they want, without having to fight against a potentially increasing tendency to float up or sink. In addition, of course, tanks must be brought to refueling facilities to be reused.
Nuclear submarines and the international space station have long used systems that generate oxygen from water by performing 'Electrolysis' – the separation of oxygen from hydrogen. However, these systems require too much energy for standard submarines, let alone divers, to use.
Bodner told IsraCast that he got the idea for his invention from fish, who do not perform chemical separation of oxygen from water. Instead, they use the dissolved air that exists in the water in order to breathe.
The system uses a physics principle known as "Henry's Law," which states that the amount of gas that can be dissolved in a liquid body is proportional to the pressure on the liquid body.
Using a rapidly rotating centrifuge to create increased pressure inside a small sealed chamber containing sea water, Bodner was able to extract enough oxygen from the water for a human being to breathe.
A laboratory model of the system has already been built and tested. It runs on rechargeable batteries, and can be worn in the form of a vest.
Bodner is now building a full-sized prototype, has already received a patent for the invention in Europe, and is expecting to receive one in the US as well.
Way cool!
all I can say is WOW!
Very cool. How long can someone stay underwater with this gizmo?
It sounds like you can stay underwater for as long as your battery can keep the rapidly-rotating centrifuge going. An even better question would be "How big is it?"
Absolutely fantastic!
Would you please add me to your ping list. Thanks.
Israel is full of good ideas just waiting to find a market.
Next question is what is the combo of gases released? If mostly oxygen and carbon dioxide, which is what is probably the case, you could deep dive for quite some time without worry of the bends and have to decompress.
It does make sense. Good old pv/nrt.
Carolyn
bttt
Better keep track of available battery power. Surely it will have redunant batteries.
Israel creates so many technologies to enrich our lives. Arabs create nothing and destroy everything. Why do we treat them equally?
Yes. So why are we taking good land away from them and giving it to people who will grow dates and build bomb factories? They could do that just as well in Syria or Eqypt.
It's NOT oxygen,it's compressed air.Breathing pure oxygen below 33feet is toxic!
I bet this new invention seperates clean air out of the water.So to all of us divers don't be tossing your dive tables and dive computers we will still have to keep track of our "down" time.:)
I have been an avid diver for 11yrs and all I can say is WOW!!!!
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