Burning Saltwater: Kanzius and Penn State Chemist Rostum Roy

independent source measured the flame’s temperature, which exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, reflecting an enormous energy output.

...but still less than 200W.

bttt

"One immediate question is energy efficiency: The energy the RF generator uses vs. the energy output from burning hydrogen."

Are they putting Science degrees in Kracker Jack boxes these days? A press release w/o this basic information? Gimee a break.

independent source measured the flame’s temperature, which exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, reflecting an enormous energy output.

...but still less than 200W.
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that would be really helpful if you could do a watts to degrees computation for energy input output....so for example...how low would Watts have to be in order to be equivalent to 3000 degrees.

Apparently, Kanzius’s invention–which uses just 200 watts of directed radio waves, not quite enough electricity to light three 75-watt light bulbs–breaks down the hydrogen-oxygen bond in the water, igniting the hydrogen.

No mention of how much hydrogen is separated.

A 200 watt light bulb creates enormous heat. How much heat is the burning hydrogen creating?

Any amatuer scientist knows that the crux is energy in vs. energy out. Energy out wouldn't be so hard to determine, so why not mention it? No sane person would announce this to the world without measuring energy out first.

"A press release w/o this basic information?"

Exactly. Why is this even news without this?

A 200 watt light bulb creates enormous heat.

Would appear we have a new form of light bulb. We can through away our candles now.

“Fuel” from Salt Water?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1894973/posts
Posted on 09/11/2007

Salt water as fuel? Erie man hopes so
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1893494/posts
Posted on 09/09/2007

Any amatuer scientist knows that the crux is energy in vs. energy out. Energy out wouldn’t be so hard to determine, so why not mention it? No sane person would announce this to the world without measuring energy out first.
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the process doesn’t need to achieve parity for it to be ground breaking

there is evidence to suggest that the RF is creating a synthetic catalyst for platinum. If so they could replace very expensive platinum for its atomic RF which could be created cheaply by the radio wave machine—and used in the industrial production of hydrogen—either in carbon steam reformation or hydrogen fuel cells for cars.

You grab hold of one when it’s been on for a while.

how low would Watts have to be in order to be equivalent to 3000 degrees.

It doesn't take very much power (watts) to heat a small volume to 3000 degrees. Consider a incandescent penlight powered by a single AAA battery. The bulb might be well under 1 watt, but the filament gets to around 4000-5000°F.

I'm interested in total power coming from the burning hydrogen. So far to me it just looks like a fancy electrolysis set up with the released hydrogen burning immediately.

the process doesn’t need to achieve parity for it to be ground breaking

True. All my points still stand.

I wonder if “Big Hydrogen” will want to suck up all the prime Anwar Seawater, leaving the Caribou to die slow painful deaths.

Are we sure sodium isn’t being stripped from its cloride ion causing the sodium to burn in solution?

No mention of any byproducts, which seems odd. Where does the sodium chloride go (assuming the H and O that burn come from the water)?

Not enough info to comment on its suitability as an energy source, but it would make a neat welding torch for shipboard use...

John Kanzius’s sister, Sophie goes to my church. This man is a true genius/innovator in the field of cancer research. His other works involving the use of radio waves for treating some forms of cancer were featured in Reader’s Digest last year. Unfortunately, Mr. Kanzius has had a recurrence of a type of cancer that his inventions may not cure, and he may not live to see the fruits of his labor.

" “The potential is huge.” "

There's absolutely nothing to this rubbish. They're doing the equivalent of taking a torch and heating some water. Same thing happens there. This just uses a light beam equivalent of a torch. It's incredibly stupid. You could torch a car and do the sme thing. You'll get all that energy back when the char cools. In the meantime, there'll be lots of bond breaking and reforming.

If the source power was solar would it matter if the energy derived was less than the power put in?....I don’t think we would run out of sun for about 5 billion years. The question is, could we ramp up a big enough project to make the solar transfer to salt solution to hydrogen to make it feasible commercially?

Any amatuer scientist knows that the crux is energy in vs. energy out.

From an economics standpoint, it depends as much on the intented application as opposed to the energy in vs out ratio. Batteries, for instance, are by definition a net energy sink, but for their application, they are "efficient."

“The potential is huge.”

We keep seeing how "huge" the "potential" of this "discovery" is but, as yet, we haven't been giving one factual, measured and peer-reviewed piece of information about it.

Until we start seeing some facts, this: ------------------------------------------- "is six inches, Honey."

I’m interested in total power coming from the burning hydrogen. So far to me it just looks like a fancy electrolysis set up with the released hydrogen burning immediately.
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I don’t think that’s whats happening. Rather the RF is tuned to the atomic frequency of platinum ie its creating a “synthetic” catalyst. The water is fooled into “thinking” that platinum is in the water. That destabilizes the water. The role of the Na in the process is much like any metal in a microwave. It gets hot fast. Na is a heat sink. The high heat is what cracks out the H2 from destabilized H20 molecule. The process is not greatly dissimilar to what happens in carbon steam reformation.

Both salt and water are inert molecules. They don’t come apart easily; it takes energy to “strip” them into component parts. The experiment in question admittedly requires 200W of energy input to do whatever it’s doing; therefore, the energy output (even if the flame is 3000 degrees) is less than 200W. It’s an endothermic process, but the guy is claiming exothermic results - which is plainly absurd to anyone who passed high-school chemistry and still remembers enough of it.

Put another way: he’s claiming a perpetual-motion machine. Put saltwater in, tear it apart, put it back together again, and when back to the beginning have more energy than you started with.

You can’t do that.
It’s a law of nature.
Apparently a lot of people don’t understand that “it’s a law of nature” means _you_can’t_do_that_even_if_you_want_to_.

Battery technology still focuses on in vs. out. It is just much more intent on “out” because you are talking about input and output being at different times.

Maybe it could be placed in the field of a current radar installation and piggy-back on the already generated RF.

Then bottle the fuel and carry it to a point of use.

the process doesn’t need to achieve parity for it to be ground breaking

True. All my points still stand.
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Your points are appropriate for a government/university/corporate scientist.

Kanzuis has a problem. He’s not a university/government/corporate scientist. He’s a tinkerer with a background in radio. How does he get his stuff into the public domain.

Yeah, the temperature of the filament in one of those 75 watt bulbs gets considerably higher than 3,000F, I believe.

Kanzuis has a problem. He’s not a university/government/corporate scientist. He’s a tinkerer with a background in radio. How does he get his stuff into the public domain.

Sounds like Edison. Generally, go to the media before you have your patent or at least a head start isn't a winner of an idea, unless you are looking for grant money.

It’s a press release for crying out loud! Where’s either the patent or the peer reviewed paper? Sounds like someone is trolling for investment dollars that will be used for many things except investment.

It depends how much material you are heating and it’s specific heat.

Heating one atom of hydrogy to 3000 degrees would take very little energy.

Heating an anvil to 3000 degrees takes alot more energy.

Simply stating the temperature of the flame does not give any useful information about the energy output.

If they were to get more energy out than in, either they would measure a decreased temperature in the water after applying the machine, end up with a substance with a different specific heat or much less likely released energy in a way not previously described by physics.

BTW, it is easy to measure energy output by measuring temperature change, mass of material and specific heat of the material but you need all three variables.

Are we sure sodium isn’t being stripped from its cloride ion causing the sodium to burn in solution?
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In saltwater the Na & Cl are already broken apart.

The Na by itself is a metal. In this case its likely acting as heat sink as any metal would in a microwave. Likely the RF first destabilizes the the H20 and then the superheated Na breaks it up.

According to lab reports I’ve heard...there is a small decrease in Na from solution but it is not enough to account for the flame—or even the color of the flame.

Use sunlight (free) to produce 200 Watts to liberate undetermined BTUs. The point being an enormous supply of saltwater availability>

How does he get his stuff into the public domain.

Easy. Start a thread publishing the details on FreeRepublic.com - it's free and he'd get lots of publicity.

it is not enough to account for the flame

The flame is the separated O2 and H2 burning to recombine.

One square meter of solar panel will make about a dimes worth of electricity per day.

There is just not enough concentrated power in sunlight to pay for the panels.

BTW, The electricity is more valuable than the hydrogen.

If you are interested in solar energy, you can let mother nature concentrate it for you as captured in biomass, wind or hydro power.

Goofy “burning saltwater!” and “perpetual motion” variant absurdities aside, this could make a decent way of desalination. Break down the water to O2 & H2, capture the gasses, burn them to recombine into pure water. Recapture the waste heat energy & feed back into energy source to minimize total energy in. Provides the advantage of electrolisis-based desalination without the electrodes.

While I have urged folks to be patient to judge this new device, they are of course absolutely right to point out that it must produce more energy than it takes to run the device, if it is to be the great breakthrough that it’s promoters say it is. I have serious doubts that will be the case.

Despite the likelihood this is going to prove not to be a device that will ever attain 100% plus energy output, I do find the idea of splitting the water and burning off the hydrogen by radio waves to be interesting.

Those of you in the field, has water been broken down by radio waves before, allowing the hydrogen to be burned off?

It’s a press release for crying out loud! Where’s either the patent or the peer reviewed paper? Sounds like someone is trolling for investment dollars that will be used for many things except investment.
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they’re looking for the federal labs to put a couple scientists onto playing with this.

Use sunlight (free) to produce 200 Watts to liberate undetermined BTUs. The point being an enormous supply of saltwater availability>
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this would be ok as an energy storage device—for those hours of the day in which there was no sunlight.

If you are interested in solar energy, you can let mother nature concentrate it for you as captured in biomass, wind or hydro power.
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in terms of cost—photovoltaics is going into fast forward. ie price/power is falling as fast —or faster than computer chips. Its no coincidence that they’re both made in the same kinds of industrial plants—and the process for making them is similiar and they both are made from silicon. (there are new ways of making photovoltaics that don’t come from silicon.)

Despite the likelihood this is going to prove not to be a device that will ever attain 100% plus energy output. . .

_____________________________________

I don’t think anyone is ever going to find an “over unity” solution to our energy problems. That having been said there are higher energy levels to be found than those we can produce by chemical means. If you look at the energy in an ounce of uranium or plutonium from fission it would appear to be way over unity.

We don’t want to jump to conclusions one way or another. This mans claim is that he can break down water. When we distill crude oil into gasoline we don’t have “over unity” energy produced we simply condition the fuel. I know nothing about this process but is is possible that by “conditioning” the fuel (water) with radio waves we can get it ready to burn and get more energy out of the water than the energy it takes to condition it? The energy was already put into the water when the hydrogen and oxygen combined to make it in the first place. Exposing water to RF does not put usable energy into it it simply liberates the fuel, at least that is what I understand from what little information we have seen.

What I would like to see is 15 or twenty test-tubes placed in front of the radio transmitter and see how much flame he can get from the same source.

They are still inefficient and extraordinarilly expensive compared to the grid.

Mass produced cells are barely over 10% efficient and still cost tens of thousands of dollars when purchased in the kilowatt range needed by a single house. Plus the cost of storage and electronics.

In addition to the original outlay, they require regular maintanance and suffer degradation over time.

I am quite aware of quantum dot and some of the metalic versions of the solar cell but they are either very expensive or too inefficient at this time for commercial use.

God made solar perfect for plants but it’s like mining the ocean water for gold, it’s there alright but too diffuse for commercial applications.

More information ping.......

This is somewhat off the seawater subject, but put a 1/2 pint of diluent lithium grease in each tank of gas or diesel and wach your mpg go up, plus a cleaner engine.

The problem is that water is “ash”

“Heating one atom of hydrogy to 3000 degrees would take very little energy.

Heating Iran to 3000 degrees takes alot more energy.”

Fixed it for ya!

independent source measured the flame’s temperature, which exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, reflecting an enormous energy output.

The useful question is whether this bit of scientific nonsense is due to the journalist, or the promoter.

If the source power was solar would it matter if the energy derived was less than the power put in?

That's the wrong question. The correct question is,

"If this method ran on solar radiation, would it be the most cost-effective way of getting useful energy from it?"

And of course, the follow-on question:

"Is the most efficient way of getting chemical or electrical energy from solar radiation more cost effective than other ways of getting this energy? (And if not presently, when?)"