Posted on 07/02/2008 10:11:37 AM PDT by Red Badger
Just over a year ago several media outlets reported that John Kanzius, an amateur inventor from Erie, Pa., had discovered a seemingly impossible phenomenon: a way to burn salt water by exposing it to radio waves. Videos of the experiment became YouTube sensations, though they garnered as many critical comments as favorable ones. Now that the initial fervor has waned, we checked in with Kanzius, a collaborator and some critics to see how the technique has progressed, or if it's just another example of Web-propelled junk science.
Kanzius' concept is simple: expose salt water to 13.56 MHz radio waves and light a match. Hydrogen separates from the water mixture and burns for as long as it's exposed to the frequency. The inventor actually made this discovery by accident: He was looking for a cure for cancer. Kanzius demonstrated it to local TV news stations as well as to Rustum Roy, a Penn State University geochemistry professor emeritus.
Roy collaborated with Kanzius on a paper confirming that radio frequency waves do indeed dissociate salt water into hydrogen and oxygen, and that the resulting mixture can be burned. News of the discovery was published in Materials Research Innovations (download PDF), a journal founded by Roy himself.
Burning hydrogen and oxygen to create energy is nothing new: It's been done in machines and automobiles for years. But the difference with Kanzius' would-be breakthrough is that the effect can be achieved with a much lower energy catalyst: radio waves are present in everything from microwaves to televisions. Roy cautions, however, that efficiency is still a major hurdle: "Nobody is claiming that you get more energy out than you put in," he says.
International interest in the technique has been huge, according to Kanzius and Roy. They say that researchers in countries such as France have begun using radio frequency in experiments that call for separating hydrogen from water. However, domestic investors have not been forthcoming, and the scientific community has been dubious. Richard Saykally, a chemistry professor at the University of California at Berkeley, called the recent paper's claims "pseudo-science" in an interview with Chemical and Engineering News.
Gary Friedman, a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering departments at Drexel University in Philadelphia, says Kanzius' discovery is far from groundbreaking. "People have reported for some time that electromagnetic radiation can enhance or affect water hydrolysis," he says. Still, he's not completely uninterested in their claims. "It seems promising, if it's true, that the electrolysis of water can be carried out without electrodes." Because electrodes wear out or change their behavior over time, Kanzius' method may require less maintenance than traditional electrolysis, which uses an electric current to separate hydrogen from water.
Kanzius and Roy hope that the increasing focus on the environment will enable them to get funding to continue their research. They even envision a future in which a vehicle can run off its radio's frequency waves.
But don't start filling your gas tank with salt water just yet.
See, right there is where it all goes wrong. The way it's supposed to work is that increasing focus on PROFITS will enable them to get funding to continue their research.
People love to make profits. If no one is funding this, then it's probably going to become a federally subsidized wealth redistribution scheme.
First we burn up all our corn, then we burn up all our water...
how the hell will we make whiskey?!?!?
Am I missing something here? If you have the electrical power in the car to produce the radio waves, why not just skip the water part and connect it to an electric motor to drive the wheels?
Acknowledging the First Law of Thermodynamics is a good place to start with this kind of thing.
Now between figuring out how much energy in vs. out, and showing this is a suitable form of hydrolysis, then maybe we'll finally nab two problems: simple hydrogen production (for fuel cell use), and desalination (for drinking water).
Wow Saline Air!
That would really help you non oceanside allergy prone people, ya think.
you can also pop corn with cellphones :p
Oh, that’s just soooooo old fashioned!...............
Finally, a sane and refreshing thought in the energy debate.
You're assumption is bad.
Yep.Watts are watts. It’s going to use the same amount of power to crack the water, which will be less than you can get from the hydrogen produced.
Al Gore claims to have found a way to control the weather.
Obama claims to have found a way to control Algore.............
There may be instances when it is preferable to carry around hydrogen as an energy source as opposed to carrying around batteries or batteries + water.
Please Red stop with this nonsense!
Which kind of engine do you want in your vehicle if your are living in International Falls in the middle of winter? One that runs on batteries or one that runs on a tankful of hydrogen?
Another high-tech snake oil salesman whose success depends on the communist-wrecked public education system turning out gullible dupes.
You’ve got to shuck a lot of oysters to find a pearl.............
The energy released in a hydrogen/oxygen reaction is greater?
Actually internal combustion is more efficient than chemical/battery power, that’s the only reason.
But it seems to me that using the energy from batteries to power the radio system would be rather... expensive. Having used many HF radios, I say that most radios aren’t that efficient. You input a large amount of power into the finals and toward the antenna but the coupling isn’t 100% efficient, so you lose energy. Oh well. (No such thing as perpetual motion!)
When did you quit beating up your neighbor?
Algore claims to have b*tch-slapped Jenny Craig!
For what? Not having enough food on the tray?.............
So all I have to do is fill up the bed of my truck with water, aim my car stereo at it, run a hose from my camper shell to my aircleaner, and I can drive forever? Plus, I’ll never get cancer? Dang, why didn’t I think of that?
Just make the whiskey. Everything else is wasting time. We can drink the whiskey AND feed it to the our car engine. With a little engineering we can design separate lines to get the whiskey from the tank to the engine and the driver. That gives a whole new meaning to DWI.
Why are you asking him to stop posting this stuff?
What if it inspires someone to actually find a REAL way to accomplish a better system?
Let me point out a couple of things though, so everyone is well aware....
The frequency listed was around 13 Megahertz... Water as we all know is H2O, that is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.
Hydrogen’s FREQUENCY is: 1420.40575 MHz
(That’s 1.42 gigahertz, way, way higher and 13 Mhz)
Offhand I don’t know what oxygen’s frequency is, but it is likely much lower than hydrogen based on it’s atomic weight. However, I will say I seriously doubt it’s in the “MHz range” and using RF energy to cause dissolution of a compound, in particular, water is highly possible, but I’m seriously, seriously DOUBTING that the particular frequency he was using is correct.
If anything it will likely be in a much higher vibrational range (in the microwave range) and probably will take a LOT of energy to cause the dissolution of the atoms.
On the other hand.... it’s much easier to take a battery, stick a little salt in some water and shove a couple of wires down into the water.
Guess what? You get easy and cheaper dissolution of the elements, breaking water down into two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen - and this process is known as “electrolysis”. Cheap, and easy, and anyone can do it.
In small quantities.
Unless your speakers can reproduce 13.56MHz you won’t get far.............
LOL! So in that case, using the elctrical energy to just drive a motor might work out better... ? Hello?!
Algore, inventor of the Internet AND Global warming. What a genius!
I'd be interested to know what the "frequency" of the H2O molecule is, and any harmonics or sub-harmonics thereof.............
“You’ve got to shuck a lot of oysters to find a pearl.............”
Just like I had to move a lot of dirt to find a gold nugget. I’m still hoping...
Great. Now Karl Rove is going to build a giant radio transmitter and burn all our oceans.
“Algore, inventor of the Internet AND Global warming. What a genius”
His head must hurt like hell from all that creativity. On the other hand it’s more likely his fat a$$ straining under the weight of the BS.
I don’t know off hand.
I know that frequency, because we call it the “Waterhole Frequency”. It’s one of the places SETI looks to see if someone is ‘broadcasting’ intelligence from space.
It’s a logical place to look, at least for deliberate intelligent broadcasts aimed at connecting other intelligent species out there (assuming there are any, and I will always assume there are first before I will assume there are not).
Fuel’s important. I don’t need whiskey to get to work every morning. Now, the Kennedys, on the other hand....
Try the frequency of your microwave. They are tuned to water, it is the water molecules in food getting excited that does the heating.
Salt water as fuel? Erie man hopes so
Sunday, September 09, 2007
By David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07252/815920-85.stm
For obvious reasons, scientists long have thought that salt water couldn’t be burned.
So when an Erie man announced he’d ignited salt water with the radio-frequency generator he’d invented, some thought it a was a hoax.
John Kanzius, a Washington County native, tried to desalinate seawater with a generator he developed to treat cancer, and it caused a flash in the test tube.
Within days, he had the salt water in the test tube burning like a candle, as long as it was exposed to radio frequencies.
His discovery has spawned scientific interest in using the world’s most abundant substance as clean fuel, among other uses.
Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, held a demonstration last week at the university’s Materials Research Laboratory in State College, to confirm what he’d witnessed weeks before in an Erie lab.
“It’s true, it works,” Dr. Roy said. “Everyone told me, ‘Rustum, don’t be fooled. He put electrodes in there.’ “
But there are no electrodes and no gimmicks, he said.
Dr. Roy said the salt water isn’t burning per se, despite appearances. The radio frequency actually weakens bonds holding together the constituents of salt water — sodium chloride, hydrogen and oxygen — and releases the hydrogen, which, once ignited, burns continuously when exposed to the RF energy field. Mr. Kanzius said an independent source measured the flame’s temperature, which exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, reflecting an enormous energy output.
As such, Dr. Roy, a founding member of the Materials Research Laboratory and expert in water structure, said Mr. Kanzius’ discovery represents “the most remarkable in water science in 100 years.”
But researching its potential will take time and money, he said. One immediate question is energy efficiency: The energy the RF generator uses vs. the energy output from burning hydrogen.
Dr. Roy said he’s scheduled to meet tomorrow with U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Defense officials in Washington to discuss the discovery and seek research funding.
Mr. Kanzius said he powered a Stirling, or hot air, engine with salt water. But whether the system can power a car or be used as an efficient fuel will depend on research results.
“We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads,” Dr. Roy said. “The potential is huge.
“In the life sciences, the role of water is infinite, and this guy is doing something new in using the most important and most abundant material on the face of the earth.”
Mr. Kanzius’ discovery was an accident.
He developed the RF generator as a novel cancer treatment. His research in targeting cancer cells with metallic nanoparticles then destroying them with radio-frequency is proceeding at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and at the University of Texas’ MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Manuscripts updating the cancer research are in preparation for publication in coming months, Mr. Kanzius said.
While Mr. Kanzius was demonstrating how his generator heated nanoparticles, someone noted condensation inside the test tube and suggested he try using his equipment to desalinate water.
So, Mr. Kanzius said, he put sea water in a test tube, then trained his machine on it, producing an unexpected spark. In time he and laboratory owners struck a match and ignited the water, which continued burning as long as it remained in the radio-frequency field.
During several trials, heat from burning hydrogen grew hot enough to melt the test tube, he said. Dr. Roy’s tests on the machine last week provided further evidence that the process is releasing and burning hydrogen from the water. Tests on different water solutions and concentrations produced various temperatures and flame colors.
“This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere,” Dr. Roy said of salt water. “Seeing it burn gives me chills.”
My microwave? Hmmmmm...lemmee check.........Popcorn.......Beverage......Baked Potato.....AHH, there it is!....Seawater!...............
Use “Kanzius” in the FR Keyword search box. There’s a whole bunch of articles............
Anyway, it was all tongue in cheek. These free energy ideas crop up every time we face another “energy crisis” (most of which are contrived). We can't take them too seriously.
“how the hell will we make whiskey?!?!?”
My Grandaddy taught me never to make whiskey with salt water.
Standard speakers are pretty much limited to audio frequencies, 20-20kHz. To reproduce 13-14 MHz, a transducer would be fairly small, maybe a half inch or so at most, if that big. We make HF (1-30 MHz) transformers and they are about a half inch......
Your speakers won’t reproduce a 13 Million cycles per second signal. That’s a radio wave.
They might be good for 10 hertz through about 20,000 hertz.
Not 13 million hertz. :)
Okay, my chemistry is a bit old, but IIRC you add energy to separate the hydrogen and oxygen in water, then they recombine to form water, releasing energy in the process. Given that there's no free lunch, what am I missing?
A lot of us work in that industry :)
Check out my battles with the Conspiracy Kooks and some of the fighting in my old days over UFOs.
Not to say I don’t think there isn’t a possibility that there might indeed be someone visiting us from elsewhere or elsewhen.... or for that matter, there isn’t other intelligent life out there.
At the same time, I’m not willing to rule out Big Foot’s existence.
But in all things, I want hard, physical evidence as well.
It’s called being skeptical and keeping an open mind.
I have issues with people who are “debunkers” and “believers” - neither of them have a clear brain when it comes to the subjects they fight over.
So, in our case, putting something down right off the bat is perhaps not really “open mindedness”. I’ve heard “Keep and open mind, but not so open your brain falls out”.
In my case, I prefer to actually INVESTIGATE claims and see what veracity they have, than to instantly and maybe offhandedly dismiss claims. Too many people are too set in their way here and refuse to even entertain thoughts that make them uncomfortable.
:)
You’re not missing anything.
No free lunch, no free energy either.
If you separate the atoms you have to use energy to do it. A DC battery will use energy to do this (electrolysis) and IF this RF thing works (and actually, I have the means and methods to actually reproduce the experiment!) then you’re still adding energy to the equation to produce the separation.
What I was getting at was this: “Internal combustion engines are very efficient” - that’s ALL. I wasn’t saying they were MORE or LESS efficient than other thing. But we’re also converting energy several ways.
First, radio requires power to work. It produces (and in the process LOSES) energy in the form of radio frequencies (from a DC current). Then you take the RF, apply it to water/salt solution, which in turn causes the bond between H2 and O to weaken and somehow break. This TOO causes a great loss of energy (in the form of RF radiation moving through the solution).
When it’s all said and done, you’ve got some hydrogen and oxygen. You can light them on fire (supposedly).
I would dispute this, because hydrogen and oxygen recombination almost ALWAYS takes place in an instant, explosive reaction when you add fire.
Not a “burning”. (I have NOT seen the video yet, so after I look at it, I might say something different).
It is MORE EFFICIENT to simply apply the battery connections to the solution and break up the H2O with MUCH LESS energy losses.
There, that explain it?
Actually..........
At 13 Mhz the proper resonant radiator for a 1/2 wavelength dipole would be... 36 feet. (Double that to give the full wavelength of a 13 Mhz radio wave. And THIS is the reason I seriously DOUBT that 13 mhz has any effect whatsoever on a molecule of water!)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.