Temps are around 10000 deg C, more then the surface of the Sun
A plasma flame like this here is generated by ~1000W at 27 MHz chased thru a 3 winding coil.
Posted on 03/29/2011 9:13:07 AM PDT by thackney
Since the time humans first began to control fire around 400,000 years ago we have had just a few simple tools to douse the flames.
Now some Harvard University chemists believe they have found a way to bring fire suppression into the digital age by controlling flames with electricity.
During a series of experiments to study the chemical nature of fire, scientists were surprised to learn that by applying an electrical field to a burning flame it easily went out. All they needed to do is wave a wand-like, electrified metal wire near the flame.
‘What did I do wrong?’
“As a scientist you find it fascinating, but you have to control your emotions and ask how nature is trying to deceive you,” Ludovico Cademartiri recalled about the experiment. “I was thinking, ‘What is wrong with this experiment? What did I do wrong’”
As it turns out, he and other chemists in the lab of Harvard chemist George Whitesides had done nothing wrong.
Nearly all previous study of flames and electric fields involved those generated by direct current, or DC, instead of alternating current.
“What we discovered is that by applying an oscillation field, AC voltage, the effects are completely different,” Cademartiri said. He reported the findings Sunday at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society.
In their experiments the researchers used a 600-watt power source — about the same as a modest home-theater stereo — to create an electric field near flames as large as 18 inches tall.
They found the field created an organized “flow” of charged particles inside the flame, and that the flame was literally pushed away from the burner and put out.
It’s too early to say how well the effect will scale to larger flames. Cademartiri said he and his colleagues have begun collaborating with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., which has facilities devoted to the study of fire.
“I’m very optimistic that something very relevant is going to come out of this new capability,” he said.
More efficient energy?
The most obvious effect is fire suppression. But there are other applications as well. The world still derives about 90 percent of its energy from burning coal, natural gas and other products.
The potential to better control the internal flow of combustion could lead to more efficient energy production, among other benefits.
“Our hypothesis was that if we could find any new way to control flames in a novel way, we have a real chance to make a real big impact,” Cademartiri said. “This is our hope.”
What month?
Ohhh you got me there lol!
Only the morons at Harvard would use massive amounts of power to put out a small fire.
Could be working on Thorium based nuclear power, understanding gravity or electromagnetism, or pretty much anything else.
Only Harvard would come up with ‘Let’s throw money at the fire and see if it goes out’
When do you think burning that place down will sound like the reasonable thing to do? I guess they can buy copper ont the spot market and put big coils around all the buildings. Get a couple of big alligator clips and wait for the reasonable people to storm the place.
At the right moment, they clip into an e-gen panel and put the fire out.
Harvard and Apple - to institutions creating solutions in search of a problem.
They should get together with the idiots across the river from them and discuss what they are going to do to fix the mess they made out of their foundation money.
Only the morons at Harvard would use massive amounts of power to put out a small fire.
Could be working on Thorium based nuclear power, understanding gravity or electromagnetism, or pretty much anything else.
Only Harvard would come up with ‘Let’s throw money at the fire and see if it goes out’
When do you think burning that place down will sound like the reasonable thing to do? I guess they can buy copper ont the spot market and put big coils around all the buildings. Get a couple of big alligator clips and wait for the reasonable people to storm the place.
At the right moment, they clip into an e-gen panel and put the fire out.
Harvard and Apple - two institutions creating solutions in search of a problem.
They should get together with the idiots across the river from them and discuss what they are going to do to fix the mess they made out of their foundation money.
About the time the first aliens visited earth?
And if you make a big impact you can make a big paycheck while you are impacting.
You consider 600 Watts, 6 lightbulbs, a massive amount if power?
Very cool. Thanks for the post.
Flame loudspeaker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_speaker
An alternate way of making a flaming bush speak.
Scale it a bit. He used 6 lightbulbs to suppress flames 18 inches high. Surface area of the burn? Not sure.
Flame suppression sometimes equals fire extinguishing, but not always.
Scale it to the raised platform of a computer data center. Make sure the suppression you are talking about doesn’t fry the computers you are protecting. Make sure that as you suppress the flames, you have back up systems that actually remove heat, fuel, and oxygen from the situation.
If not computers, then shipboard bilge fire suppression - same problem only now add additional potential grounding issues. Some items on a ship are sensitive to becoming magnetized, or de-magnetized, and as such its something you have to test for. Add to it that the fire you may be suppressing could be in the generator space itself (which you’d protect with CO2 or Halon - though Halon is on the wane big time).
Any electric or magnetic field you create near or in a system creates all kinds of side effects for which you must account.
So what. I have snuffed a candle flame at 25 yards with my flintlock rifle. LOL
Not really sure. .. Must be beyond my grasp after 30 years?
It would seem that there’s a pretty simple ‘proof of concept’ observation that can be made -
Do High Voltage Power Transmission Lines have any effect on grass fires or forest fires in their vicinity??
Has anybody ever reported any oddness like that up til now??
Enquiring minds want to know....
I know for a fact it was 400,001 years ago.
What month?
*******************
Silly question. That was long before months existed.
My point is that there are lots of ways of suppressing flame. I can make a bomb big enough to blow a fire out too. They do that with oil wells.
Harvard is just rediscovering stuff others have and calling it news. I can’t remember the last major piece of research done by MIT or Harvard in a while.
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