h a l f b a k e r yNot so much a thought experiment as a single neuron misfire.
add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random
news, help, about, links, report a problem
browse anonymously,
or get an account
and write.
register,
|
|
|
Compressed Water
Mixing compressed hydrogen with oxygen in the air to make and transport water | |
Is it possible to compress hydrogen into a cylinder and then devise a mixing nozzle that when you release the hydrogen it mixes with Oxygen from the surrounding air and pours out as water?
If possible it could mean that 'water' (as compressed hydrogen) could be transported cheaply and easily and
then produce a much larger volume of water at the destination.
Or even a gadget that extracts these from the air and mixes them onsite? Could be used to fill dams and water tanks in arid areas, be attached to fire fighting helicopters and irrigate large areas from pop-up sprinklers fed by hydrogen tanks underground.
Some info...
http://www.chemforl...hydrogen_rocket.htm
to quote: "By itself hydrogen will not explode. Even a mixture of hydrogen with air or pure oxygen gives no reaction." [4whom, Nov 06 2008]
[link]
|
| |
//Is it possible to compress hydrogen into a cylinder and then devise a mixing nozzle that when you release the hydrogen it mixes with Oxygen from the surrounding air and pours out as water//
Yes, it is called "a flame". Or a very loud bang. |
|
| |
//Yes, it is called "a flame".// - which would, you might argue, reduce the efficiency of this idea for fire-fighting. |
|
| |
Mixing Hydrogen with air produces Hydrogen rich air. In order to produce water you need the Hydrogen to react with the Oxygen. This does happen, but you have to wait for the reaction chamber to return to earth. |
|
| |
Wow, this must be the world's worst fire-fighting idea ever. |
|
| |
- but perhaps the only one David Bowie wrote a song about ("Cat People (Putting out fire with gasoline)") - well, it's close enough... |
|
| |
Didn't some hairy Welshman sing, "Fight Fire with Fire"? |
|
| |
This is similar to those guys (Friedrich Paneth and Kurt Peters) who first attempted low temp. fusion in the 1920's. They were trying to make helium for zeppelins, but they didn't take into account how much heat they'd have to dissipate. |
|
| |
While H2 takes up alot more room than H2O, it weighs much less... possibilities for transportation where weight is an issue but volume isn't; added bonus of energy production. |
|
| |
//While H2 takes up alot more room than H2O, it weighs much less// |
|
| |
Perhaps you could burn zeppelins over the area where you need the water? |
|
| |
Welcome [holbrains] - you've just invented a variation of fire
and brimstone. I suggest a slight rewrite, and renaming it as:
"The Water Of Death", and moving it into the Mad Weapons
category if there is one. |
|
| |
I have no idea how to achieve this, but under extreme compression, hydrogen and oxygen both become solid metals. Could you possibly have two separate hunks of metal and get tiny bits of them to combine to make water? I am fully aware that you're talking the sort of pressures found at the centre of Jupiter, but a bit of Clarketech might do it, no? |
|
| |
//Could you possibly have two separate hunks of metal and get tiny bits of them to combine to make water?// Depending on the solids, of course! You can even have two solids reacting to make, not liquid, but gas! In fact you can have two solids that make pure energy, and they can still remain solids (if the reaction is suitably contained)! |
|
| |
Probably short for 'hologram'. As in, his brains are really not there, but it kinda looks like it, dosen't it? Later on, all the late night talk shows will fill the airwaves with lame parody renditions of his brains, much to the delight of Anesthetized America. Headline news stations will cover both stories in one. |
|
| |
But, I'm not bitter. Gobama! |
|
| |
Oh, and I think a good name for this would be 'FireWater'. |
|
| |
[holbrains], we will fund your research on this. Will US$ 5000 be sufficent to get you started ? |
|
| |
We have a test site reserved for you in New Mexico. Can you make it there by the ned of next week ? We need a little time to set up all the video cameras, and finish filling all the sandbags for the bunkers. |
|
| |
Please stand upright so that we get a clear view of the "jackass" logo on the T-shirt (enclosed). |
|
| |
//ned of next week// friend of Bob of the Future? |
|
| |
Hmmm...I had the same idea years and years ago in elementary school. Before I had actually seen (and heard) what happens when you mix the two gases together with an ignition source. |
|
| |
Even if this 'little' chemical hurdle could be overcome, you probably would not save any weight or volume (Water is pretty dense). |
|
| |
Specific Gravity of Water: 1
Specific Gravity of Liquid Hydrogen: 0.0710
Specific Gravity of Liquid Oxygen: 1.14 |
|
| |
Too lazy to do the stoichiometry :( |
|
| |
Perhaps you could carry the hydrogen, burn it for energy, and reclaim the water afterwards for a desert power station, saving yourself a bit of weight... |
|
| |
I think that ultimately, the problem is limiting the quantities that are combined at a time. If you could get tiny amounts of hydrogen and oxygen to separate from a reservoir at a time, then combine them in a well-insulated, very resilient metal chamber with a high melting point, there could maybe be a way of doing this, given a store. I know palladium can retain large volumes of hydrogen, but are they large enough? Then some kind of oxidising compound, i.e. something with loads of oxygens per molecule?
Basically, i'm just desperately trying to rescue this idea from the flames. |
|
| |
//Specific Gravity of Liquid Hydrogen: 0.0710// Molecular weight of water : hydrogen is close to 9:1, so this is equivalent to water at a specific gravity of 0.0710 * 9 = 0.64. So liquid hydrogen takes up more volume than the water it produces, but is 1/9th the weight. Compressed hydrogen would of course take up more space than liquid. |
|
| |
Producing water would be fairly easy; just burn a hydrogen / air flame at one end of a long air-cooled tube and water would condense and run out the other end. The mass of the cylinder + hydrogen might still be greater than the mass of the water produced. |
|
| |
The means of producing water has no bearing on it's specific gravity. |
|
| |
I'm not saying it does; it was just a (slightly clumsy) way of explaining why the hydrogen will take up more room than the water it produces, since water in fact has a specific gravity near 1, not 0.64 (which would give a 1:1 volume ratio). |
|
| |
"Too lazy to do the stoichiometry " eh, cowtamer?
That's soooooooo slack. |
|
| |
Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm ... Yes. |
|
| |
Nahhh... it's the measurement of stuff while suppressing one's emotions and reaction to surprising results. |
|
| |
Stoichiometry (usually spelled "stoichiometri" when translated to english) is actually ground up beetle preserved in salt. |
|
| |
Gulag prisoners of the forties and fifties would collect the beetles from around the entrances of the salt mines, grind them between flat stones when the guards weren't looking, and drop them in their pockets along with a handful of salt. This could be eaten at night time and would provide vital extra protein to supplement the meagre (and often non-existent) rations and help the prisoner survive the winter. |
|
| |
After the Khrushchev amnesties of the late fifties, the millions of freed prisoners returning to the cities introduced stoichiometri to Russian society as something of a delicacy, and also a mark of status as a survivor. |
|
| |
It is usually eaten one teaspoon at a time and washed down with a shot of vodka to disguise the foul taste. |
|
| |
I'm going with the beetles, salt, starving, Gulag, delicacy explanation. |
|
| |
"Good stoichiometri substitutes for an experience which we have not oursleves lived through." |
|
| |
Brown's gas is reputedly used to produce water, and some energy. |
|
| |
Calling all Browns
To come to the aid
Of the water party. |
|
| |
What about cynicometry and epicureanometry? |
|
| |
I fully expect to see this on the shelves of my local Emporio Boozarama in about two weeks. |
|
| |