I read that suddenly North America has super vast hydrocarbon gas reserves, more than all the BTUs of Saudi Arabia. Dow Chemical even placed a full page ad asking about new methane technologies. Recently here at the .5b There was a methane idea revival.

Ive read that when superimposing periodic waves that two waves superimposed create regular periodic cycling of form, periodic nodes n antinodes, also the useful thing that three superimposed periodic waves creates aperiodic or nonperiodic node n antinode effects.

The three waves together produce a nonpredictible variety of amplitude to amplitude plus transition effects. Perhaps at atomic and molecular orbitals, treated as waves, triperiodic effects contain areas of enhanced methane reactivity.

Basically triorbital aperiodicity is a new kind of purely electron geometry catalyst.

The idea here is then to overlap three methane orbitals simultaneously to cause a much wider variation of energy transitions as a way to get methane to react to form other compounds (nearer liquid fuels) at cooler temperatures with more affordable catalysts.

Some obvious forms are a vertical carbon planar overlap which looks rather like union jack from above, then there is edge overlap.

Here is a way to get the methane to overlap. (cue laughter) Big Magnets. diamagnetic effects are shown to levitate carbon, what we do is to use a venturi with a swirly thing (somewhat similar to fluted twizzler with => shaped channels). The surface at the interior of the venturi on the twizzler undergoes really hyperlaminar flow while the Big Magnet causes the molecules to prefer a particular directionality. Then to make the process cheaper the two chambers are warmed n cooled passively such that a breeze goes back n forth between the chambers, skipping active fans.

The idea here, if it works at all, is that the breeze motion that creates hyperlaminar flow of oriented molecules past a catalysts at engineerable duration (venturi velocity) passing planes of catalyst while the orbitals are aligned. This is absent much process energy, any methane molecules that do combine then diffuse throughout the system.

The laminar molecule-near molecule thing to cause reactivity when the triperiodicy is just right could also work at liquid methane.

Note that this would work well with liquid crystals, orienting to a field, flowing laminarly, overlapping orbitals, then undergoing chemistry. The thing is to measure hydrocarbons for the same effect.

Another (funny) approach to converting methane to other chemicals is to amusingly, pipe it up to the aurora where the sky electricity zaps the methane into another chemical. :) This works nearer earth as well. A Scientific American Project book describes how running a wire 20 feet above the ground produces a charge difference capable of creating a spark. (I think) The phenomena has a name, I noticed a few years ago that the description of the cause had changed from the Scientific American. I do not know if its "vertical atmospheric charge difference" or "wind rubs wire, pulls electrons off"

anyway, this same effect could be used as a way to run electricity through methane to change it to ethane, carbon, hydrogen. I think a competent engineer could compare this to the effectiveness of actual wind motion power, or a create hybrid wind motion power with methane reaction effect that was more energy efficient than wind motion power alone.

If we could get methane to turn to other liquid fuels with new techology that would be a bigger than all the Saudi BTUs that is a win.

Now when I think of the regular overlapping of S or D orbitals to cause the reconfiguration of two or three methanes to create a butane or ethane I think that some of the aperiodic transitions could have particular catalysis meaning or value. Creating a system where the P as well as S atomic orbitals, or their hybrid orbitals, combine aperiodically could cause the methane molecules to link up at different pressures temperatures or catalytic environments than usual.

Heres an approach to linearly stacking methanes with aperiod rotation to cause aperiodic orbital effects to do new methane chemistry
-- beanangel, Jun 08 2011

People talking about what methane orbitals "look" like http://www.chemical...ex.php?topic=4322.0
Alone, carbon has two spherical s-orbitals and three dumbell-shaped p-orbitals. Hydrogen alone has one spherical s-orbital. When carbon forms bonds, however, the s- and p-orbitals combine to form four half-dumbell-shaped orbitals (sp3-orbitals). Here's a picture of what methane (CH4) would look like: [beanangel, Jun 09 2011]

wikipedia on the shape of methane SP3 orbitals https://en.wikipedi...bital_hybridisation
[beanangel, Dec 02 2018]

bean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when did you come back to us?
-- Voice, Jun 08 2011


...And presumably this process could be enhanced by application of inverse reactive current from a retro-encabulator?
-- Hive_Mind, Jun 09 2011


I appreciate the annotation. I just do not have a response

I did think of another approach to researching ways to make other chemicals from methane.

Fizeau patterns are the diffractive concentric patterns you sometimes see when plastic layers together. the diffractive colors are because its almost flat yet there is a partial lightwave thickness difference. viewing fizeau concentric patterns on ordinary plastic means that very precise sized areas are being produced.

To do research just plate a wide variety of catalysts on plastic, make a fizeau pattern with methane as the gas between the layers. Then use a laser to raster (at varying energies) across the many thousands of different nearness regimes to see which if any of the combinations of catalysts as well as as nearness plus laser energy cause chemical reactions. This finds just the environment that converts methane to other products at a particular catalyst. Its a mass screening approach to finding more effective methane chemistry. You also use a laser to detect the presence of the chemistry products.
-- beanangel, Jun 09 2011


When I hear "orbit" in the context of atoms, I think of the orbits of electrons, corresponding to energy levels. Now, since methane is a compound, not an element, there's no such thing as an "atom of methane" as such, so I find the meaning of //overlap three methane orbitals simultaneously// a little unintuitive.

Are you thinking of aligning some methane molecules in such a way that some of the electron-orbits of some of their atoms overlap with those of other molecules? Or, is this something to do with the way that the atoms within one methane molecule interact with one another? Or, have I misunderstood it completely?
-- pertinax, Jun 09 2011


this is inauspicious word salad.
-- WcW, Jun 09 2011


link to nifty images of molecules whose atoms share orbitals Orbital sharing is actually how atoms link to form molecules
-- beanangel, Jun 09 2011


You may be right, [WcW], but will you help with the dressing?
-- pertinax, Jun 10 2011


It would be nice to turn methane into ethane. On the other hand it requires the addition of energy, and it requires a fate for the extra Hydrogen atoms. We can already solve these problems with chemistry but we cannot yet do so in a way that is efficient. Beanie appears to believe that he can hide behind the word "catylist" (magic). Unless he can describe the conditions where 6(CH4) -> 2(C2H6) + (6H2) + (2C) + (energy) he's never going to get anywhere. This isn't genius, its ingenious ignorance of reality.
-- WcW, Jun 10 2011


You can turn methane into heatmen quite easily. Whether that meaneth anything is hard to say.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 03 2018


// describe the conditions where 6(CH4) -> 2(C2H6) + (6H2) + (2C) + (energy) //

Well, if some of the (6H2) is Deuterium, you can fuse it into Helium and get (a) lots of energy, and (b) Helium, an expensive and highly saleable commodity.

Although terrestrial hydrogen is only 0.0156% Deuterium, by pre-enriching the methane into "heavy methane" that proportion could be considerably increased, the enrichment process (gaseous thermal diffusion) being powered by waste heat from the fusion reactor.

Or - bear with us, this is blue-skies speculation - you could surround the fusion reactor with a huge tank of water to screen the neutron flux and incidentally convert protium to deuterium, then feed the water into a deuterium enrichment cascade powered by waste heat, then electrolyse the heavy water and feed the resultant deuterium/protium mix back into the reactor as fuel, generating even more energy ...

No, forget that, it's rubbish. Only a really primitive, unimaginative civilization could ever be interested in such a crude and wasteful process.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 03 2018


// Although terrestrial hydrogen is only 0.0156% Deuterium, by pre-enriching the methane into "heavy methane" that proportion could be considerably increased, the enrichment process (gaseous thermal diffusion) being powered by waste heat from the fusion reactor. //

But won't most of the enrichment be wasted on hydrogen that stays in the hydrocarbons?
-- notexactly, Dec 07 2018


No. UF6 isotope separation produces a gas stream which is enriched in U-235 - or rather, it produces two stream, one of which is depleted (U-238) and one which is enriched.

If you put methane through a similar process, just like separating heavy water, then one of the process outputs will be CH3D; fractional proportions will be CH2D2 and CHD3, with CD4 being the least likely component.

So you then have lots of regular methane, and a small amount of deuterium-enriched heavy methane, which can then be reformed to extract the deuterium. Actually, the simplest way is to burn it, refine out the resultant heavy water, then electrolyse it for the deuterium, which seems overly complicated - just burn the source methane for energy and collect the resultant water.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 08 2018


// So you then have lots of regular methane, and a small amount of deuterium-enriched heavy methane, which can then be reformed to extract the deuterium. //

Obviously. I don't know why I was thinking yesterday that you had to mix the enriched methane back with the depleted stuff before getting the hydrogen out of it.
-- notexactly, Dec 09 2018


Maybe you're suffering from Fake Thoughts. It's happening more and more now.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 09 2018



random, halfbakery