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Self-Heating Can
nickprecision writes "Ontro has been working for a while, and they are about ready to get to the public market. Quite a nifty little self-heating can... imagine the uses. Read up so you know about it when your friends pull one out on the ski hill."
I worked on one of their early sites. The can does seem like a nice thing to have on camping trips and other places where you can't light up a big fire to heat stuff up. The military I believe was interested in.
"anytime, anywhere"
and they trademarked it. am i the only one who thinks that this is stupid?
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Self-heating cans were in use by the military during WWII!
WOW, fast moderation, not just fast posting =) I failed, but I will get a real first post one day =)
Karma, what karma?
Mod this down, bitches =(
-Andorion
at least, ive got a nescafe self heating beverage. useful, but theres a core in the middle so you dont get a full container of coffeeeeeeeeee
.................................................
Just a sidenote - in Europe (well - London) Nestle already sell similar cans of self heating coffee. Works quite well - shame about the taste of whats in the can though. I can't remember the reactants - but the oxidser is diluted hyrogen preoxide.
Do you guys not have this yet in the USA? The Nescafe coffee company have release self heating cans over here.
Quite heavy, and have some kind of chemical chamber in the middle of the can. You turn it upside down, press a button in the middle, and shake untill the button pops back out. Wait for 3 minutes, and open the can - hey presto, hot coffee. And whilst it doesnt taste *amazing*, its still quite drinkable if you want a hot drink.
Pretty expensive too though..
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
A form of self heating can has been on sale in the UK for a while. Its from Nescafe, Nestle's instant coffee brand. It looks like a normal drinks can, but about 1/3 of the 330ml is taken up by the heating device. I've not tried it myself, but am told that its at least passable. It comes as white coffee only, with or without sugar. Quite why there's no black I don't know.
It looked like a nice idea, but I didn't try it - mainly because of the price: £1.30 IIRC, which is about $2. It seems a bit much IMHO for a normal cup of takeaway coffee, even if it does have a neat self-heating function! Good for camping trips, perhaps, but not in the roadside service station where they were selling it: you can buy normal fresh coffee for the same price and get a seat and newspaper to go with it...
Just do a search on google for 'self heating can' - I came up with this link with a bit of quick history and chemistry on self-heating coffee sold by Nestle:
/ /w ww.soton.ac.uk/~chemweb/news/stories/coffee.htm
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~chemweb/index.htm?http:
http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/review/349432.html
I don't mean to pick but this hardly seems like news. Cans like these have been on the shelves in London for at least 2 months that I've seen (Nescafe coffee in a can I think). So what happened to the /. bleeding edge?
I know MRE's (The goop fed to our soldiers) have pouches of some sort that heat said goop.
If this means I can enjoy my odd tastes in food with lengthy shelf lifes without raiding army surplus stores.. "Woot."
You have been able to buy self heating nescafe coffee at my local service station for a month or so now. The volume of actual coffee in each is quite low but I keep one in the glove compartment for cold morning trafic jams.
The military has been using self-heating ration packs for years - first ones I saw were US Army issue, but the UK armed forces use them too. And Nestle has been piloting self-heating cans of coffee in the UK (and probably elsewhere) for at least several months now, so there's already an emerging consumer market.
How is this better than the Nescafe "Hot when you want" cans that have been for sale for some months? They're coffee in a can that heats itself before you drink it; they cost about a quid, a quid fifty. I don't know if they were limited-period trials or promotions, but they were certainly for sale towards the end of last year.
I think this is a great idea. While you're riding the chairlift you can enjoy hot Spaghetti O's. What will they think of next;-)
I hope this thing is extremely reusable, I didn't see much in the way of replacment elements. Oh well...I think some sort of electronic system would be better for these reasons:
1) You buy 1 unit and no replacment filter or whatever.
2) You can keep things continuous warm if near electricty.
3) Adjustable heat levels.
This thing lacks that kinda stuff. I guess if you are willing to cash more cash for something like that it's cool. It would be handy for camping, but isn't a camp fire+pot+water the same thing?
Here in the UK, Nescafe cans already self-heat. Can't say I've ever bought one, I'm not a coffee guy. Here's a description of the method (taken from this review):
"1. Turn can upside down and depress button.
2. Shake from side to side until all the red liquid has disappeared (takes quite a few shakes, this)
3. Stand upright (the can, not you) and wait for three minutes (during which time you hear a couple of pops and a hushed fizz)
4. Open can with ring pull and drink your hot coffee!"
The can mentioned in the story looks easier to use, but these things are on the market.
Old, old news. Shame on you Slashdot ;-)
UKians shouldn't be too smug; this product has been available in Japan (where foul sweet milky coffee is more popular) for donkeys' years
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Its hardly new technology is it? Maybe Ontro have just produced a slightly more efficient heating method but UK armed services personnel used a self-heating can that was introduced in 1939 (and used around D-Day). It relied on the burning of cordite to provide the thermal energy to heat a tin of (Heinz?) soup. I think all the recent self-heating mechanisms have relied on the reaction between calcium oxide (also called quick lime) and a water-based solution.
Finally outdoor-jock technology is catching up with my desk-potato needs.
No more long hikes to the coffee pot for me.
I am a Karma Library.
I can see this getting slashdotted fairly quickly if they had more information on the site, since they seem to want to do everything as images. And the site has one paragraph of text and no links when viewed in Lynx. Not very geek-friendly.
Follow me
All those college students won't have to spend money on the microwave. They can just get this for their Ramen consumption. ... ::drool:: Raaaaaaamen.
Or just think, they get the technology cheap enough, and they can put it on cans and stuff and have self-cooking ramen and soups to begin with.
I can't wait.
This is different from the Nestle stuff. They think they can make it cheaper and better. Here's a link to the article. Oh. Wait. Never mind.
Pushin' 'n dealin', shovin' 'n stealin'
How about some prior art from "Taxi Driver":
Cab Dispatcher: Can you drive to the Bronx? Manhattan?
DeNiro: Anytime. Anywhere.
Cab Dispatcher: Do you work on Jewish holidays?
DeNiro: Anytime. Anywhere.
Cab dispatcher: How's your driving record? Clean?
DeNiro: Clean. Just like my conscience.
-metric -- you talkin to me?
I hate going for a crap on a cold winters morning and freezing my arse off.
A self heating can would be really nice - great big thanks to all those boffins!!
The one made by Heinz and ICI for the military in WWII.
The one made for the military today.
What are other news today?--
Uh, it's a chemical reaction that produces the heat... It's not like you can just plug it in to keep it warm.. unless you put a electrical heating element in and that would just hike the price tremendously.
As for the waste, I hope they're compatible with aluminum recycling to make it a little less littersome.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
can what ???
no, its a "CAN DO" attitude
Sheesh.. doesn't anyone read those management memo's anymore!
apart from the long "who made it first discussion" there is the "who actually uses this stuff?".
I personally live in a country where it is almost impossible to get further than a kilometer away from the next place with fresh coffee (and getting one on a nice terrace with some extra cake and stuff sounds cheaper than this canned brew)
Clearly neither you, nor the dumb-assed moderaters who modded you up, nor the other dumb-asses who posted the exact same thing as you, nor the dumb-asses who modded them up, bothered to follow the link.
... a beverage container that would heat its contents without the benefit of external energy sources (microwave, heating element, etc.). They soon found similar products in other parts of the world, but all had two very significant problems."
If you had, you would have seen:
"While on a trip overseas in the early 1990s, Ontro's founders, Jim Scudder and Jim Berntsen, came upon an interesting product
Followed by information about what makes their product different.
This is what is known as promoting your product. What do you think they would say? Our product is exactly the same as the others? It's more expensive?
There is nothing revolutionary about this product. It works in pretty much the same way as the products available in Europe and other places.
Don't be so critical of other posters and moderators. People might think you're a dumbass yourself.
Since thses cups are already out everywhere else, why don't they warm the toilet seat for those cold winter days. Or just ignore me :P
If I wasn't so lazy, I'd have a sig.
Mine's right below a size 33" waist. It's also fully recyclable, organically powered, and pinto supercharged! I'd like to see them beat that! Unfortunately, market demand for my self heating can is at an all time low and I am considering making my can GPL. . .
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
And if we weren't already lazy enough, we now have disposable drink heaters to save us having to walk to the nearest microwave.
:)
Should we turn even more virgin resources into landfill for the sake of such trifleing convenience?
I think consumers will answer that, and it'll be a resounding YES!
About the electric thing, I'm just suggesting some sort of battery pack instead of a chem reaction. If done right small amounts of electricity can generate a lot of heat. If you had a small rechargable pack that could be wrapped around a glass or pan, that would be more useful IMHO.
I remember these cans have been available here in Germany but they have been taken from the market because they didn't sell that good. Not because of the product itself but its bad marketing so the consumers didn't know about the cans. Doh!
Disposable cans are bad enough, but with a heating element there's much more waste to be disposed of. And I suspect these would be much harder to recycle - it would have to be dismantled into its component parts.
Made Ready to Eat meals have been in the Army for a long time, and they're self-heating. How is this new technology? At best, it's an MRE in can form - but you can already buy MREs from surplus stores if you positively have to have them!
I'm the stranger...posting to
In part of their description, they state that their product will...
- "...heat its contents approximately 75 degrees Fahrenheit above the starting temperature of the product."
Let's see... the forcast for Killington, VT (USA) today is for highs of 34F (1C) and lows of 5F (-15C). (There's a popular ski area there for those of you who aren't familiar.)Wind chill doesn't apply, so figure ambient (plus a gimme factor for residual temp + insulation) plus 75F, and you're looking at 109F (43C) during the day, and 80F (27C) at night while you're trapped in a tree and the ski patrol's searching for your freezing ass. Not exactly what I'd call 'toasty warm.'
So, if you're skiing and packing your coffee | soup | chili in a backpack... don't expect the warmest meal. As for less extreme situations... I can nuke my hot chocolate a lot faster in the microwave at work, and I'm not so damn lazy I can't get up from my desk to do it.
I think this'll sell for a short period just due to the "Hey, cool!" factor, and then die due to expense.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Maybe I"m getting old, but I remember something called Sterno - Heat in a Can. The Sterno website is pretty sparse. Perhaps some other aging geek remembers it.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
If you are interested this product, then you're most probably willing to wander in some places where you would neither have time to cook...
So, you're probably trekking.
The problem is with the container itself as you can't obviously just drop it in a bush and it may be an oversupply in terms of volume, once used.
Especially if, as they say, you use it for Baby-food : you will need its place to store the pampers... If you at least have some respect for the environment.
I saw such self-heating doses of food here in Switzerland and they actually took care of this detail by storing these (and their self-heating chemicals) in plastic/metal bag which advantage is to occupy very little space, once empty...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
In case anyone is taken in by this troll - Microsoft's site actually returns a "fatal error" in the validator - there are "no errors" because the validator doesn't even work on the site!
"Ha ha! Look, everyone! Jimmy plugged in the cranberry sauce and it exploded!"
Not something I'd like near my coffee, thanks!
When mixed with water it turns into Slaked Lime and heat. So the waste problem goes from recycling cans to recycling cans full of Slaked Lime! Oh well, perhaps the sewage and effluent treatment industry would buy it off the recyclers?
I was disappointed by how little these cans actually held. The (Nescafe) cans are slightly fatter than regular cans, but about half the volume is taken up by the heating mechanism. I'd also describe the final temperature as warm rather than actually hot. Hopefully that's something that can be improved upon.
:-)
Still, I do still keep one handy in the car for times when I want something warm to drink. They're still new enough to gain geekiness points too
Those reactants would be CaO and water, forming Ca(OH)2. You push a buton on the bottom of the can, which punctures the membrane between the CaO and the water. Then you shake the can and ge waht yopu payed for: reheated cold coffee, tasting like... reheated cold coffee
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
As someone who did read the web site, I can say that the product they have produced, is virtually identical to the nescafe coffee cans other posters have mentioned.
According to the Ontro web site, they got the idea from similar products released in the early 1990s. Those ealry products had flaws, such a bulkiness, which Ontro wished to overcome.
Admitedly those early products (at least those released in the UK - there was a spate of self heating and self-cooling products released on a trial basis in the early 90s) did suffer from the flaws the Ontro founders identified. However, the product currently available from Nescafe, is a complete redesign of those early ideas, and has overcome the flaws in a very similar way to the Ontro product.
Ontro state that their product is 16oz in size, holding 10oz of beverage, and that it heats up within 5 minutes after pressing a button on the base, and stays warm for around 20 minutes.
The nescafe self-heating coffees are more or less the same size, stay warm for the same length of time, and heat up in around 3 minutes.
Nescafe and Ontro have produced solutions to the same problem, and ended up with very similar products.
I think that you should consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, some of the people who posted about the Nescafe products in the UK, actually did read the Ontro web site, and were commenting on the fact that the current UK product is virtually identical to the Ontro product and has been available for some time now, but is a different product to those available in the early nineties.
Personally I wish Ontro every success, as I would love to see the technology become more widespread (and cheaper), and I doubt that Nestle will take their product much further.
The one flaw that still remains (IMO), is the weight of the cans. They always feel as though there is some drink left, despite being empty.
www.vurt.co.uk
Mountain Houseor or one of the other freeze dried foods producers here in the USA have had a version of a container that self heats for years. They're not cans; a foil coated paper pan with a chemical heater. (sodium and water?) Takes a couple minutes and the food is quite edible (after walking 3 days in the rain, at least).
p ://www.safetycentral.com/noname29.htmlo ranywhere.com/gear/details/hp_meals.html
These can be found at your local REI co-op or a quick net search:
http://windupradio.com/hot_pack.htm
htt
productsf
And if this were to become a mainstream consumer item (although I can't imagine a world where it would), can you recycle the can inexpensively?
Also, I have a much better idea for self-heating water:
A strong water based acid (H+ ions made with electricity) and a strong water based base (OH- ions made with electricity) are stored in separate non-reactive plastic bladders. In the center, you have the powdered flavoring or concentrate of the beverage/food/whatever. Button is pressed, acid water and base water mix, (H+ joins with OH-) releasing tons of heat (I beleive this is one of the most exothermic reactions known, by weight of reactants) and water. A twirl of the wrist to mix, and pop the top and injoy.
I still have some R&D but the patent is pending.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
From the web site: "Heat is generated inside the Ontro container through a remarkably simple process ... namely, the reaction of crushed limestone (also known as calcium oxide) and water. The user activates the container by merely pushing a button on the bottom. This breaks an internal seal and releases water into the heating cone where it mixes with the crushed limestone. Once these materials combine, the heating process begins (users will first feel the heat approximately two minutes after activating the container)." - 10 million dollars worth of investment and they come up with something equivalent to a high school senior chemistry project? There's got to be something more to this?!
unlucky, dick-wad.
This is not new at all! I've seen (and actually eaten from them) at a Kite festival in Dieppe (France) at least 10 years ago or so. For all the participants, they had these kind of meals. You had to pull a string, and 2 minutes later, the meal was hot!
Since the reaction of water and CaO is what creates heat here, how can it work when the puck of water is solid ice?
Doesn't seem like a reliable way to enjoy a hot beverage on the slopes.
So, wake me up when there's a self cooling can of Jolt Cola available....
I sure hope it doesn't rain any time soon, all those buildings with limestone facades are going to get pretty hot!
The real problem is entropy.
here in the states years ago and commercially available to boot. It was the self heating dinner (not a drink) just like the MRE. i saw them at a truck stop, they were "dinty moore" if my memory serves me correctly. i'm not too sure these would catch on to well in the states, people seem to be pretty perticular about their coffee.
They say something about "Product Activation" on their web site. I won't buy a single can if this means they can track all my eating behaviours and drag me into jail for w4z3z3d f00d5.
My local Safeways sell nescafe for a few quid in a can that heats itself up. I prefer a burner, and a tin personally (only when camping), but for those cold walks back to the flat, can't beet it.
Hook up a Crock-Pot to the AC plug in your car (you mean you don't have one?).
I'm sure this will be great for coffee, tea, soups, and such. But what about beer? I think the better way to carry beer has been a longer quest.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
People walking around in supermarkets pressing the button, laughing maniacally, then walking off to find another can.
Yep right. Two dumb ass usians made a trip to the uncharted Iurop and discovered that the local tribes use self heting cans. So, their idea let's change the name and patent it in the beloved civilized world aka US. :)
You can get nifty steel vacuum flasks in various sizes; anything from a small mugfull to a caffeine overdose. You can have almost any beverage you wish, hot or cold, and it's completely re-useable. All it lacks is the ability to sling it in your top box, (motorbikes, don't you know), and forget about it for two years.
Would it be possible to do this in reverse, like making a self-chilling container? :)
You could use ammonium nitrate, which is used in ice packs (for chilling bruises etc.).
Just imagine having an ice-cold can of [insert favourite cold beverage] on the beach... Yum.
I wonder if you'd be able to keep the price low enough to make it viable.
"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy"
The concept of a self-heating container is not new. Armed services personnel used a self-heating can introduced in 1939 that relied on the burning of cordite to provide the thermal energy.
That would be nice for those cold morning constitutionals...
"Write once, run anywhere"
You, sir, are either:
/.'rs
1) A troll
2) A good example of the eventual demise of the evolutionary tree we call homo sapiens.
3) Someone who genuinely believes that magic happens when you put something in the trash that turns stable and/or toxic compounds into handy environmentally friendly ones as it hits then landfill site.
Mod me up, mod me down, it doesn't matter, its our kids that will find out who was right, not other
:)
I'm sorry, this is nothing new. They have had something like this in Japan for many many years, mainly for hot sake (usually in vending machines).
Where they can't even spell
I was under the impression from one of my chemistry textbooks that the US army had been using this process for years...
This has been out for ages in England. I have a self-heating can on my desk right now.
/. to announce Sliced Bread and the combustion engine...
Hardly worthy of front page news on a supposedly cutting-edge site...
I'm waiting for
Nick...
HA !!!
1. If you drink cola light you are a yuppy wimp
2. Cola rots your stomach
3. any 'light' drink means you are a loser
Therefore anything that turns someone into a stomach rotting, yuppy, wimp, loser has GOT be evil - especially if they say SHIT FUCK CUNT WANKER LOSER GAYBO SLUT DICKHEAD and links to Microsoft
Actually , I just like dribbling shit!
Ok,its a funky novelty, but the last time I had a lovely heated can of Nescafe coffee, I felt that most of the volume of the can was taken up with chemical mumbo jumbo, so I don't feel that I was getting much value for money.
Although, to their credit, you can get cans of hot coffee in a variety of flavours- milk, milk & sugar etc.
The novelty soon wore off.
Now, Nescafe Ice... thats fine!
~Fizzgig
I remember seeing one of these about 15 years ago that heated sake. It was right here in the states. Not exactly bleeding edge news.
saw these things in japan 2 years ago, HOT COFFEE AND SAKE IN A CAN.
Ha!
I don't know if I'd want that. There'd be people wanting to use it all the time, and people using it when I'm not around (and then leaving a mess)...
I like our Amana anyway... It can reduce popcorn to a smoking pile of carbon faster than you can say "It's only a microwave! How powerful can it be?"
Besides, I don't have a 220v plug at my desk. (And thank God for that! I'd probably glow in the dark if I spent too much time near that thing!)
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
As noted by Dave500, these cans are already under sale in the UK (for about a year, I think), but the whole thing is a complete rip off!
The can comes in 330ml size, but about half of the can consists of chemicals used to provide the exothermic reaction, so essentially, you're only getting about 165ml of coffee for the same price as a large takeaway coffee from a coffee shop.
If you want hot coffee half way up a mountain, then get up five minutes earlier and make some coffee for a Thermos flask -- it's a lot easier, and a helluva lot cheaper.
Progress marches on! Better living through science!
Oh, wait, The web site finally came up...
Never mind...
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
And a battery attached to a food container = possible toxic contaminants. I don't think the FDA is going to approve something like that any time soon. I imagine the chemicals they are using for the self heating cans are non-toxic.
Dodger_
Hi,
I've read about this before and I'm not sure if this is a good idea at all. Maybe you get a can of lukewarm coffe, but did they think about what one should do with the empty can?
I bet there are a dozen toxic ingredients in their secret recipe, so this is not the basic easy-to-recycle cola can.
C. M. Burns
Someone please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but toilet seat technologies have given us cans that are warmed already.
/. -- have you no shame?
Although the technology, as deployed, is still rather uncommon, I believe self-heated cans have been around for nearly as long as I have. I was sitting on the can just the other day wishing I had one of those. Sometimes nothing will prepare you for that shock of the morning.
In any case, I think it's a silly thing to bring up on
As an aside, the alcoholic 67-year old survivor of The Andromeda Strain had a penchant for strained Sterno - causing the acidosis that spared him from the (fictional) pestilence.
Crighton's character explained the process of deriving potable hooch from the magenta glob, and referred to the product as 'squeeze.'
Aww!
Snickersnee3: Build your own 3-watt Luxeon Star headlamp from scratch
Besides, I don 't even use the microwave at work - the 25 cent Mountain Dew is all anyone could ever ask for!
sic transit gloria mundi
I sure hope they don't try to patent this. There's plenty of prior art--When I'm in the can, I heat it up myself all the time.
[Who needs to read the articles?!]
Aren't I just as well off simply dropping a hot pack in a glass of water?
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
You mean, calcium hydroxide? You could clean stopped drains with that. I'm surprised it's allowed near food.
I read the web site and saw they were just pushing a container which :-
1. Came from seeing a device around 10 years ago either in Europe or Asia
2. Replicates existing technologies that have been around for a fair while. The Nestlee product a number of people have mentioned is only a few months old, but the Japanese have been able to get self-heating coffee using this style (as opposed to what the Ontro designers saw back in the early nineties) of technology in a decent working form for a good few years now.
Terms like reinventing the wheel come to mind, as does the apparent preoccupation of US citizens to try and patent existing devices (and sadly succeed).
They're unpopular with soldiers because the rations have less flavor when cold.
Best Slashdot Co
That reminds me a lot of the cool "Food Cooling System" that Time magazine named one of the best inventions of 2001. Put them both together and you almost have a kitchen! :)
As I recall, the Nescafe can hold 210ml of coffee, so the size comparison would be,
Ontro can, volume 16 fl.oz./454ml, fluid 10 fl. oz./284ml (62.5%)
Nescafe can, volume 11.6 fl.oz./330ml, fluid 7.4 fl.oz./210ml (63.6%)
Personally I would prefer the larger can size, and a black coffee option, not that I usually drink coffee that way, but because I think it is re-heating the creamer which gives the Nescafe product its "burnt" flavour. I find buying the product at a station is a good thing, because on the occasions I bought them, I ended up tossing them in my backpack and drinking them days later while waiting on a windswept station platform on a winters evening when everything is shut. Which is when the cans feature of staying warm for 20 minutes after also comes in useful.
I think Asimov mentioned in one of his nonfiction books that self-heating soup cans were developed in World War II. The high-altitude bomber crews were getting rather cold during their cruises over Europe. Unfortunately, it was found to be too difficult to balance the amount of heat produced, how warm the soup got, and differing atmospheric pressure between the soup cannery and the airplane altitudes.
The most common problem was boiling soup dispersion. The bomber crews decided cold sandwiches were better than soup grenades.
I haven't perfected this yet, but I know it works.
On a windless night, suspend a blob of sterno in a tinfoil pan under a thin plastic bag from a dry-cleaners. (exact methodology is left as an exercise for the reader) I've found that a hair-dryer for initial inflation is a good idea.
You end up with a lightly glowing hot-air baloon -- and a few UFO sightings the next day!
Finally, no more sitting on cold porcelan when nature calls. Now all they need is a built in massager and they'll be all set.
slashdot!=valid HTML
less monkey-men
That's "fewer" monkey-men you sop.
I have to admit..
That this is pretty cool..
I just wish that they'd..
Put more info per page..
Into their slideshow..
Ugh.
"This is what is known as promoting your product. What do you think they would say? Our product is exactly the same as the others? It's more expensive?
/. then? This is where I come to find out about new and exciting technologies. Not 10 year old technologies that somebody wants to promote.
There is nothing revolutionary about this product. It works in pretty much the same way as the products available in Europe and other places"
So why is it on the front page of
ukgod.
I was buying these cans at the convenience store when I was a teen, to use them in my weekend treks. Soups, beans... great warm meals without making fire or carrying the cumbersome butane burner. What is all this hype? It's like the root-beer invention, invented in Europe and then forgotten and re-rescued by Americans? Is it like America, discovered by Erik the Red and then forgotten and re-discovered by Columbus? Nihil novum sub sole...
Strength, balance, courage and reason. If you know what's this about, contact me!
Damn. When I read the headline, I was hoping it was about a self-heating toilet seat. You know, the can.
-nd
check out this website, www.heatermeals.com . Says they are used in the military. All you do is pour salt water on the heating element, and affix your food tray to the top, and in 10 minutes you have a hot meal. Shelf life is about 2 years, and coincidentally, most are about 300 calories.
The company Uniloy, who did the plastic molds etc for Ontro have this press release about the creation of the can. The PDF was released Dec of 2000. I'm still trying to find a full equation for how much heat is created by the Calcium Oxide (Lime) and Water reaction for given volumes. I'm just intrigued that they get a fast enough reaction from the lime and water... maybe they added some carbon dioxide to further drive the reaction? This would produce mortar (CaCO3) and water.
RudeDude
Perl/Linux/PHP hacker
It was done up in the late 70's. It is simple exo-thermic reaction based on 2 salts.
The funny part is just heat it up to drive it back the other way.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They've had self heating cans of Nescafe coffee here in the UK for about half a year now.
If not for moral concerns I might actualy buy one. Seems they have decided to abuse the US Patent system to gain market advantage instead of building a superior product:
"Patent Protection
Ontro has 71 approved Utility Patent claims for the product in the United States, and other patents are pending. In addition, the Company has filed for patent protection in 47 foreign countries, with over 30 approved to date...
Ontro's patent protection should aid its long-term success. Ontro believes competing companies will be challenged to manufacture competing designs at lower manufacturing costs."
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
This technology has been in use in Japan for many years (>10 years) it's used to warm anything from noodles in a can to coffee. They've been availible from vending machines for as long as I can remember.
The other night I went to sit on the pot and my butt about froze to the seat.
--
"I'm don't know exactly what an AS/400 is, but I'm pretty certain I wouldn't want one up my ass" --Lou
If anyone cares, the heater works with solid Sodium Hydroxide(NaOH), it could be just plain H20 in the liquid as the two are quite exothermic when mixed, or another promoter could be used. Don't know what H2O2 would do, it could be involved, but would have thought that could have been a bit gassy :)
As for sodium / water.. would be fun.. Coffee Grenades anyone?
but not as cool as the widget, from Guinness. The self-foaming can!
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
When I first saw the word 'can' in the description, I thought of the tin variety. But when I got to the part about the ski hill, I started to wonder if this story was about a 'protective cup' like the ones hockey players wear.
I've been on a ski hill -- I'm all for a crotch warming device.
Chuck
Failure is not an option. It comes automatically enabled in every Microsoft product.
that they had the nerve to get posted to slashdot when everything on the page, including the text, is made of images. i say if they want their website to be all images, they should try to make products that won't be useful or interesting. that way they can avoid further server slow-downs caused by the slashdot effect.
you probably shouldn't have read this.
The Self-Healing Can.
Man, I'd much rather have one of those on the ski slopes...
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
All I have to do is eat lot of beans. Presto! Self heating can!
...but it never fails to amaze me how industry continues to come up with new ways to increase packaging and reduce product. Now I comepletely understand the utility of this product, although selling it in direct proximal competition with regular coffee stores seems stupid.
However, I have to wonder about the increased waste involved when about half of the net weight is packaging and heating chemicals. I assume the reaction involved would be environmentally benign, but it still seems to add to the waste.
It's kind of like an ad I saw the other day for "Gogurt" or one of those silly products, that from the look of it, seems to be about 4 ounces of product in a long thin container (maximizing surface area). You can walk through a grocery store and notice that many boxes of dry foods are often half empty ("This product is cold by weight, but marketed by perceived volume"), or the fact that cleaning products have been grotesquely over-diluted (a trend which, fortunately seems to be reversing).
Anyhow, as a niche product for those situations when a hot drink would otherwise be difficult or impossible to obtain, it does seem like a good idea. But the idea of something like this becoming common seems to be a bad idea.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
And Iam typing this on that
Then, I chastize him for being an obvious early-post karma whore, which he was, and instantly am knocked down to -1 as "flamebait". (Learn the difference between flamebait and flame, moderators).
Then somebody reprints almost my entire post for the sole purpose of flaming back at me, and gets modded up as insightful (what insight did he offer, exactly?)
My intial point stands, every last one of you who posted "this already exists in England" are not "insightful" nor "informative". You are redundant, because you are just repeating information that was already present for anybody who followed the link.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Ontro is using the same water/limestone chemistry used with by Toyo Jozo, and a similar inner cone can physical arrangement. But Ontro has a self-contained trigger mechanism. Toyo Jozo required that the user remove a plastic end cap from the bottom of the can, pull out a pin, put the end cap back on, and turn the can over.
The heating system uses up about half the can volume, so there's a big weight and bulk penalty. That's the main reason this hasn't caught on before. It works well for sake, because the usual serving size is small. For coffee and tea, it will require either selling people on small servings or using large cans.
It's been around for quite some time. My parents used to sell some antiques from an old store we owned, and many of these antiques were old cans, food jars, pop bottles, and fruit crates. I specifically remember seeing fire-in-a-can. Instructions were "pop the lid and wait."
I didn't pop the lid at the time, but the can was stamped something like 1930 or 1940. At least 50 years ago anyway.
... or thinkers of any sort. All over their site they say the can contains "crushed limestone", aka "calcium oxide", which is found all over the Earth. Now if it were so common, it would be coming into contact with water all the time, heating up, and changing into something else. So it would all be long gone, and not common at all.
Calcium oxide is made from limestone. Here's some info. Limestone is calcium carbonate.
I'm also curious about their claim that the CaO is combined with water. I'll bet there is something else in the water to make for an effective reaction.
On one page, they say that calcium oxide is an approved food supplement. Given how nasty quicklime can be, I wonder if anyone here knows how to verify this?
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- A.E.
> Ontro has been working for a while, and they are about ready to get to the public market. Quite a nifty little self-heating can
I misinterpreted the intro.
I'm thinking to myself, Big deal.
Who needs a heated toilet seat?
...when they have self-heating frozen pizza.
Just junk food for thought...
... Incredible Self-Heating Fuel Source
We join our hero, stranded alone in the sand dunes of Lokkumblok. With his starship out of gas, Spiff had no choice but to crashland.
He searches furiously through his Standard Out of Gas Crashland Survival Kit - But what's this!!
A Can of Self-Heating Undrinkable Fuel Source Only Folger's Crystals! Spiff is saved!
Now if only he can get the pop-top to open, let's see...
Twist here...
Push through foil here...mmmhmm.
Rip off alienproof secondary safety foil...
Ah there we go. Wait ten minutes for fusion. Tap feet.
(shaking can) "Why won't you reach fusion you stupid can!?!?!?!"
(can explodes drenching Spiff)
Another day in the sandbox...
A self-heating can would be just the perfect thing for cold mornings. I just HATE sitting down on a chilly can, and I'm worried about using an electrical heater so closer to all that water.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
Anybody notice how the company name "ontro" is really the word "control" without the first and last letters?
I think these two guys are going for world control and domination. Start small with a self-heating can, move on to the U.S. Government, next the world!!
Life is a journey. . . enjoy it!
You can get cans of Sake in Japan that are self-heating - have been there for a few years as I recall... where is the 'Newness' in this? and how does this relate to us as a community? Piping hot food in the server room that's ready in five minutes?
Anyone who has seen Cowboy Bebop 'Knockin on heavens door' already knows about self heating cans and cup ramen... pull a string... eats up the water instantly. still not that enjoyable tho...
In Japan, literally for years and years, they have been using self-heating cans to heat machine-dended sake in the winter. Way to redesign the wheel guys!
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
I had an early post today, regarding the Yahoo charging for its email: My second post ever on /. was the letter Yahoo sent me, just one minuteafter the first post. Someone later posted another copy and I got knocked down as redundant and the other got modded up to informative.
I'll allow that the subsequent post was better formatted, (cut & paste as plain text) rather than my accepting the default HTML formatting, but hey, it was my second post. I think that some moderators look at things in thread order and don't get that the ones farther down the list might be more relevant.
Hey, does this mean it would be good karma-bait to copy text from way down the thread into something on the first post?
Cheers,
I've already got a self-heating can. After some salt and vinegar chips and a hoagie, that is.
Anything you can do, I can do meta.
That is not a troll, you dumb mods.
Don't know if anyone caught the order that they presented heating the drink on the movie, but .... pouring the coffee into the cup and then turning it over to push the button would seem like a bad idea to me..... But that is just my limited vision of the world... maybe they intend for you to slurp it from your crotch afterwards.... part of the fun maybe?
I couldn't fail to disagree with you any less.
quite frankly, no friend of mine is allowed to pull out and make use of a self-heating toilet right in front of me when i'm out skiing and trying to have a good time.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Hang around a while, and you will discover it happens sometimes among trolls. Please don't be one of those people, though.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
My father did his National Service (UK) in Korea in 1958 and was attached to an American unit. He told me about how the US troops had a self heating drinks can back then.
I just hope they didn't build their self-heating cans like they did their website - in frames.