Slashdot Mirror
Water + Salt + Energy = Clean!
codesmith.ca writes "CTV News is reporting about a device built at the Russian Institute for Medical Engineering that can convert standard water and salt into an antimicrobial solution. Apparently it's works on almost anything (virii, bacteria, cysts...) and it's safe for human consumption to boot. I can't find a site for the institute, but there are articles around. This one is fairly detailed, but hard to reach. Here's the Google cache. Here's one about a paper shows it's not exactly super-new technology." Any chemist care to comment on what sounds to be too good to be true?
val kilmer shows up and proves it to be a hoax.
four-oh-four
cool
does this mean that windows machines will be virus free from now on??
Stand on you own head for a change! --TMBG
This one is fairly detailed, but hard to reach.
ALL links in Slashdot are hard to reach. This one is just soon to be impossible to reach.
This can't be good for the kidneys.... are you sure this is for consumption, and not just for external use?
who has ever been told to gargle with salt water for a sore throat?
1. Claim to have invented salt water
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
I can convert beer into a water and salts solution! What do I get?
This wouldn't be a collodial silver generator, would it?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Then why aren't you supposed to be in the ocean during a thunderstorm? Seems highly similar...Except apparently with real lightning and salt water you die.
Using electricity, it splits table salt (NaCl) into Na+ and Cl- ions, and you get chlorinated, swimming pool water. And the Na+ is recycled by recombining with Cl- and all you ever add is salt. I saw one of these units on "This Old House," for a swimming pool. Bottom line: never add chlorine, just salt and electricity.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
From what the article says, it sounds like all they're doing is passing a high electrical current through a saline solution. I don't understand how this solution is supposed to retain its charge, let alone not decompose the salt solution into base molecules. (hydrogen, chlorine, oxygen)
Has anyone seen a more detailed description of how this thing actually works? It can't be as simple as the article describes, solutions just don't work that way.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Add some cough syrup to it and you get a Flaming Hom^H^H^H^HMoe!
"Derp de derp."
That greatly resembles something much older called the ViruStat system, which was basically just a water purifier at the time, which was used to kill 99.9999% of waterborne bacteria to make it safe for drinking and medical purposes and such. That used mainly iodine and electrical charges, and probably some patented method of carbon scrubbing whith purifies the water through some grand lengthy process.
That's not news. What is even cooler is that some less-mainstream chemists and health professionals modified these techniques using certain ions of silver, gold, and vanadium to make some disinfectant agents that are not only cheap and easy to make, but are probably far more effective than older conventional disinfectants. Although aqueous silver and similar products are becoming more popular these days and are being taken more seriously by more respected health professionals, there's still a big 'voodoo' like following, so you'd be likely to find a bunch of snake oil ads if you were to try to find this stuff on the Internet. My best bet if any one is interested is to look for WaterOz or Grise, I'm not even sure now, but ionic solutions of certain transition metals in water are proven to disinfect and are safe to drink, so they make good panaceas in many cases. As it is with any such new products and techniques, buyer beware.
Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is just a water filtration device, it's not as outlandish as you people are trying to make it sound. if the "hard to find" article is accurate it's not a panacea just a water detoxifier. That's nice, but it's not exactly revolutionary. I guess this one must be fast or cheap or something, I know the destillers we use take forever to fill up. Good knews for the third world, but don't stop worrying about cancer
Let's have a look at that CTV report:
The resulting solution is so energy rich, it dissolves all microbes it comes in contact with, in water, on objects and on human skin. It also happens to be odorless, colorless, and completely safe for human consumption.
It dissolves microbes, but is safe for human consumption? Is anyone else not convinced?
Researchers said the technique used to control bacteria, viruses, cysts and germs is 200 to 300 times more efficient than any other purification alternative.
200 to 300 times more efficient, how, exactly? And what does it do to help cysts?
(and, er, what's the difference between a virus and a germ?)
The process is cheap. It costs just fractions of a penny to purify a litre of water. Researchers have even been able to take spoiled milk and, by passing it through the Emerald, make it fresh once again. Sounds like science fiction, doesn't it?
Yep... it does. Sorry.
is it CowboyNeal safe?
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
The human body is made of millions of bacteria. Especially the digestive system.
I'd be interested in knowing how this solution can target only bacteria deemed 'harmful', and not wipe out my damn large intestine in the process.
~D:
Here's a report summary I found on the technology from the Foundation for Water Research. It's not all that and a bag of chips.
http://www.fwr.org/wrcsa/832100.htm
just putting salt into solution ionizes it. if you apply electricity you will hydrolyze the water and split it into hydrogen and oxygen gas. put the crackpipe down.
-- john
I put up a mirror of the hard to reach page. Yes, I see the google cache link, but don't you want to see the pretty pictures? :)
Mirror is here
No rocket science here, don't understand why something as simple as the electrolysis of brine makes in on Slashdot ...
...
... as expected, Cl- -> Cl2 ... but the trick
here is that the formed chlorine reacts with water
and even better with the NaOH that diffuses from
the cathode to form ... bleach (hypochlorite that is) ! ... "The anolyte has powerful bactericidal characteristics and is effective in the control of harmful organisms like bacteria, viruses, cysts, and germs."
:-)
Freshman chemistry tells you:
NaCl -> Na+ + Cl-
H2O -> H+ + HO- (actually H3O+ instead of H+ but that's details)
Then, you add some electricity and you get:
At cathode (- electrode), H+ -> H2 (bubbles out) which means a lot of Na+ and HO- are left floating around - thus, per Google cached article in the original post: "The catholyte is a powerful alkaline solution used for [...]" -- not surprising at all, as you can see
Then, at anode (+ electrode) you've got HO- and Cl-
Cl2 + NaOH -> NaCl + NaClO
Now what does the article say?
Damn that highschool chem
END-OF-CHEM-LESSON
This is an experiment I did in elementary school.
It's called electrolysis. You separate salt water into
Use enough voltage, and maybe you bump oxygen to ozone, a superoxidizer (see above).
None of this takes any kind of chemist to see.
Note also that these chemicals are extremely hazardous in their uncombined forms. Remember Apollo 1 and its pure oxygen atmosphere at full sea-level pressure? Skin catches fire almost explosively in that sort of atmosphere - it's truly horrible what pure oxygen can do. Combine hydrogen and oxygen in the right proportions and they will explode. Sodium is poison and explosive when combined with water. Chlorine is poision.
Some of the more recent explorations into silver as a disinfectant with good tolerance in the body might be more profitable to follow, but also have snake-oil potential because too few people recognize that as another century-old technology that has a mass-market application in swimming pools today.
Were I you guys, I'd kill the story.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Sugar can also be used to kill bacteria, the sugar creates an osmosis effect to explode the bacteria.
Actually they dehydrate and essentially implode.
The egyptions used honey on surface wounds, and mouldy bread on deeper wounds. THe honey worked on the same principle.
As best I can tell, the idea here is to kill bacteria by applying charge. It might not be very effective after the charge was released (for those that don't know, the salt creates a pathway for electrons to pass through the solution, but they are passed in the form of H+ and O- ions, and this gives off H2 and O2 as the electricity is applied.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
We have major problems in the medical world, because anti-biotics have been regularly prescribed for common colds since antibiotics have existed. As a result, strains of the flu, and other similar sicknesses are becoming highly resistant to antibiotics. I just hope that if we see the introduction of something like this, that it doesn't lead to the same thing. Perfectly clean drinking water is one thing, but perfectly clean water that kills bacteria? Thats another thing...
No karma whoring for me now
Water + Salt + Energy = Hydrogen + Chlorine + Sodium Hydroxide (lye)
I saw this on CNN yesterday. I didn't understand how it works from this explanation, but here is the transcript page for NEXT@CNN. (Click August 31)
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
This was already on the news this week. It's being touted as a non-toxic way to clean a building of anthrax and reoccupy the building within hours.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
It sounds like what they are doing is applying electricity to a solution containing a dissolved salt to create two "products". Around the anode, an "anolyte" is created that has antibacterial properties (though the article claims antiviral, anticyst(?), antigerm properties, as well). At the cathode, a "catholyte" is created that can be used "for treating industrial effluent like the ones from Electro-plating, photographic, and/or textile plants. Catholyte has powerful properties for flocculation, coagulation, bionutrient transfer, cleaning purposes, and neutralizing the toxicity of heavy metals."
...anactofgod...
Of course, all of this would be apparent to anyone who actually reads the supporting material. *GRYNN*
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
...how many talented former Soviet Union scientists are wasting away in no name research labs in Russia and former republics. With no funding, no equipment and no corporate or government backing I am sure that countless great ideas are being discarded as we speak. It's too bad that while many companies are expanding into third world countries and building facilities and recruiting people there, a country with a huge established base of high class engineers, scientists and researchers is being forgotten about. I'm sure that any company that knows its business well would be able to recruit hordes of very competent scientists with wordclass education and knowledge for very little money and be lauded as a local hero and savior by the people in Russia.
There are some who consider man a virus upon the planet earth.
Have you ever had a dream, that you were so sure was real?
Am I really watching The Matrix or is it just a dream of me watching The Matrix.
... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...
I'm not sure how everyone can be calling this a water purifier. I'm not saying I know what this thing is, or what it can and can't do, but a water purifier won't do any of what the article describes the machine doing. If I take de-ionized water and sprinkle it all over an anthrax laden envelope, it does nothing. Somehow, this salt water mixture is supposed to "scrub" all the baddies and microbes away, leaving the envelope safe for mucking. According to the article, this doesn't purify the water, it turns it into a purifying agent itself.
Water purifiers don't really do anything for large scale sterilization like this device claims to. And if it is just a water purifier, it'd do no more for 3rd world countries and military soldiers than iodine tablets.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
A virus is basically a self replicating (with a hosts help) package of RNA.
A germ (or bacteria) is a single celled organism.
Here's the problem as I see it. "spoiled" milk is not JUST caused by bacterial action. It's also a chemical conversion of lactose and lipids. Unless this stuff is some Uber-Converter that can reverse time, this story is full of crap. Now, it COULD have enough energy to 'dissolve' the biological matter present in it. Hell, if I put a huge current though an ionic solution, I can almost guarantee everything in it is going to be toast too.
That's not remarkable, that's bad swimming pool pump maintenace.
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
The less informed citizenry tend to reject beneficial technologies that don't sound nice. That's a big reason that there aren't many foods that have been "irradiated" (a harmless process that kills food-borne bacteria).
"Electro-Chemical Activation" sounds a bit harsh. Allow me to suggest "Fuzzy Wuv-Bear's Magic No-Germy Stuff".
I should have added (by way of further explanation) that the anode (the positive terminal) would attract the negative ions of a dissolved salt (the Cl- ions of NaCl), while the cathode (or the negative terminal) would attract the positve ions (the Na+).
...anactofgod...
If you pump the water around the anode out, you will have H20 with Cl- ions floating freely in it, in a highly reactive state, ready to bind to any available positive ion. Likewise, pumping the catholyte out would have H20 with Na+ free floating in a highly reactive state,ready to bind to any negative ion.
It seems like the biggest problem would be storing the end products, but it sounds like the anolyte and the catholyte could be produced fairly cheaply and easily as needed, in a small unit.
Seems to be pretty reasonable to me, but I haven't studied chem for 16 years.
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
You electroplate stuff onto the electrodes, and even if they are "Royal" metals(platinum, gold, etc..), metals will still plate out on the electrodes.(in India, they have highly saturated Arsenic in the wells drilled, so this might not be so bad after all) ;)
But I suspect not for a while. Besides, who wants all the calcium ya can drink
I would imagine you have to have a continual flow, or else the solutions will mix, maybe 1 gal/min?
But if it sterilizes water borne diseases, it would be a Godsend to thirdworld nations...
This mind intentionally left blank.
The KKK a bunch of sheetheads? You decide!
Ok, when you dump salt (NaCl) into water, it instantly dissolves into the respective ions, Na+ and Cl-. Cl- ions are not what are used for sterilizing swimming pools; Sodium hypochlorite is used for this, that splits into Na+ and a Hypochlorite- ion. Hypochlorite is very aggressive & will reduce (give an electron to) practically anything.
What makes me suspicious of the Emerald device is the following line:
"The catholyte is a powerful alkaline solution used for treating industrial effluent like the ones from Electro-plating, photographic, and/or textile plants. Catholyte has powerful properties for flocculation, coagulation, bionutrient transfer, cleaning purposes, and neutralizing the toxicity of heavy metals."
Ok, if the catholyte is a powerful alkaline solution, it then follows that the anolyte is a powerful acid solution. Can't make one without the other. And powerful acid solutions aren't exactly benign.
you get Frost Pist (note for those that aren't frequenty spelunkers into the zoo known as Threshold: -1, that's one of the misspellings the FPcretins use(d) to get around the first post bouncer)
And don't forget, the first 20 collers get a free Elbrus E2K CPU!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The water breaks down the sodium and chlorine ions itself, the eletricity just pulls them apart, giving you chlorine gas (I think).
I don't see how it would be safe for humans, but whatever.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The reaction isn't, as some have said:
NaCl + 2H20 + electricity -> Na + Cl + 2H2 + O2
Rather, you get a hypochlorous acid ion, an a sodium hydroxide ion. In effect, the reverse of mixing hypochlorous acid and lye.
However, you get it in VERY dilute quantities, nowhere near what you'd need to damage human skin. But if you are an itty bitty microbe, the oxidizing effect is deadly.
Really, this is just a "bleach on demand" sort of thing.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Keep in mind that no more energy is going to be released by this thing then put into it, so the byproducts won't be all that bad.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
When you have a cold you're immune system is weaker, and antibiotics can help prevent extra infections, and kill off any opportunistic ones that happen to show up.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
No doubt the electric field applied causes small bubbles to form within the solution, and then rapidly collapse. This collapse leads to extroardinarily high temperatures and pressures, which in turn cause nuclear fusion to take place. Stray gammas generated by this fusion result in the destruction of nearby pathogens.
Seriously, this technique sounds like a load of crap, for the most part. I can buy the electrochemical action bit, sort of. Pure molten NaCl (salt, hereafter) will electrolyze to form sodium and chlorine gas, sure enough. With a little creative engineering, it is possible to separate these to products and collect them for later use. Indeed, this is exactly what is done for commercial production of these two elements.
On contact with water, pure Na will form a solution of (aggressively basic) sodium hydroxide plus some hydrogen gas. (This, I assume, is the catholyte we hear about.) Chlorine in water forms an acidic solution which is, to be fair, definitely germicidal.
I see two problems. The first is technical. In a water solution, the electrolytic yields of sodium and chlorine are typically both very low, because oxygen and hydrogen gas are preferentially formed first. (There are sound thermodynamic reasons for this.) Maybe these experimenters have gotten around this somehow, perhaps using exotic catalysts or something.
The second problem is a bit more difficult. If the two component solutions (sodium + water and chlorine + water) are kept separate, individually they would be quite toxic. Brought together, there is a very quick reaction that brings us right back to salt and water--not a particularly powerful disinfectant, and what we started with before we had a mystical black box.
I can think of some other more creative possibilities, as well. Perhaps they're talking about generating some sort of activated state oxygen to do the dirty work (the salt just makes the water conductive)--in which case, they're definitely frauds. There just aren't any activated oxygen states that are stable long enough (in water) to get to the surface to be disinfected. Atomic oxygen might do it, but that's already been invented--and I'm pretty sure it won't last very long in solution either.
Finally, from the article, we have the quote:
f a letter is suspected of containing anthrax spores, it could be passed through a dry mist made from the Emerald solution and the letter would be sterilized.
The letter wouldn't even get wet. Anyone exposed to the spores could bathe in the solution and be germ free.
Erm. Dry mist. Sure. What's in this dry mist, exactly? Chlorine? Nope--it's way toxic. Sodium? Nope--it's a metal. Hydrogen? Um. Yeah. Oxygen--maybe, but atomic oxygen generators already exist (they're used for restoring artwork and whitening teeth). Singlet oxygen will kill things, but it only lasts a few nanoseconds in water.
So, to conclude this lengthy post--I call bullshit!
~Idarubicin
Oh the pain! The people complaining about the state of science education in the US are RIGHT!!
Electrolysis of salt solution produces a solution of sodium hypochlorite, similar to Clorox bleach. Nothing wrong with that, this is a GREAT disinfectant. But new technology? I DON'T THINK SO. We have been chlorinating water supplies since 1908 or so.
Some technological historians believe that the addition of chlorine to drinking water is the primary reason for increased life expectancies in the 20th century, and claim that this one innovation has done more to prevent disease than the rest of modern medicine combined.
Here are the reactions:
anode: 2Cl- = Cl2(aq) + 2e-
cathode: 2e- + 2Na+ + 2H20 = H2(g) + 2NaOH
2NaOH + Cl2 = 2NaOCl + 2H+
To stabilize the NaOCl it is best to add a bit extra NaOH. (See LeChatlier).
You can use the H2 to power your laptop. (See fuel cells.)
the chemistry behind this is basic and proven. There are numerous saftey issues inherent in the process and there is not enough doc on the site to see if this is a new and valid application of the process or a 'snake-oil' sales oppurtunity.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Unfortunately, what sells more papers? Good discoveries on topics or things which the layperson has no understanding off. Or "revolutionary" discoveries doing miracle things everyone can grasp the basics of?
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
Ok, for those of you who might make the mistake of listening to this guy, pay close attention: english is a living language. If enough people think that the correct plural spelling of virus would be potatoe, then potatoe it is! I think if I wrote viruses, more people would try to correct me than if I wrote viri (virii looks wrong to me), and if my goal is not to have a debate about spelling, I'm going to go for the one that looks right to more people. Same goes for octopi, ain't and eventually, yes, even hax0r will be a valid word in the american dialect of english (and in many other dialects and languages for that matter).
Actually that last one intrigues me a great deal. Words like hax0r, 1337, d00d and other techno-slang are catching on like wildfire. Currently they are only used in limited sub-cultures but certainly some of these words have such a strong and unique connotation that they will leak into common usage. This is a radical shift for english as it adds new characters into to language for the first time in a very long time (mostly characters have just been removed).
That's not a name, its a short story.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
That depends on the concentration really...I've had 0.1M sodium hydroxide on my hands before and it doesn't burn, though it exfoliates the skin quite nicely.
I don't think the concentration is likely to get to that range by decomposing salt water.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Salt water is essentially hydrochloric acid (stomach acid) and sodium hydroxide (lye); it's just that, when combined, they basically exactly cancel each other out.
If you electrify the salt water, they separate. If you turn off the power, they recombine. Anything that was near one side or the other will be pretty effectively fried. Of course, you're not going to entirely separate them, so there's a middle section where it's still just salt water. This device does some fluid mechanics and such to pass anything that is in the incoming water through both regions before the water (now recombined) comes out of the device. It's actually a bit of tricky engineering to make sure that absolutely nothing can get through without going through both regions, which is what this is all about.
The electrolysis experiment is trivial. The trick is being thorough when you've got water flowing through.
Scary thing is it took some dude with too much time on his hands and a microscope to find this out. Somebody was bored enough to bother finding out if a bacteria was IMPLODING or EXPLODING upon its death.
Wow. That must have been a slow night in the lab.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
From the article:
:)
For the military, the Emerald means soldiers in the field could easily sterilize drinking water.
Typical russians, they find invent a machine with healing purposes, that can cure lots of things, then manage to think of a way to use it against other countries
Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. -- Homer J. Simpson
kill this story, please. It's crap. Nothing of value there, scientifically.
yeah? so what.. you can take water+whatever+energy
and get distilled water. The thing is it takes a
lot of energy, and so does this (even if you try to
gain energy by burning the hydrogen and oxygen... even if you run
it through a fuel cell.. first law of thermodynamics) and
I'd drink distilled water a lot sooner than I'd drink post-electrolosys saltwater
The Googlecache (yes, I made it into one word; Googling is now a word and we can only expand our Googlese) showed me a reasonably good explanation of the process.
From reading the ~100 comments here so far, Slashdotters seem to be missing out on the economics of the issue. It is obviously trying to promote an on-tap process for germicidal, industrial and water-purifying needs. It is probably easier and cheaper to handle salt as an input material than the bulkier, manufactured bleach and Sodium Hydroxide fluids.
One fluid has Cl (becoming Cl2, etc.) in it, and that ought to be germicidal. The other has NaOH, and that has industrial use. Obviously, these two fluids can be recombined later to produce salty water and a whole bunch of dead microorganisms. You'd better use recondensation to filter all that crap out. With some concern for lost Cl2, there will probably also be excess Sodium, making recondensation even more necessary. Having said all that, why not just use recondensation in the first place to produce water for Human consumption? Scratch my claim of water purification.
There are 2 problems with all of this proposal:
1. It can hardly be protected as a trade secret or even a patent since the process is so obvious, and the details should be easy enough to work out in a research lab. A guy in a garage with disposable income can work this stuff out.
2. The concentration of the output fluids is iffy. You'd have to get ahold of one of their Flow-through Electrolytic Module (FEMs) and see what it can actually produce. As usual, it probably depends heavily on seals, the quality of the permeable membrane, the quality of the anode and cathode, and finally the amount of current.
[also misbehaves on Kuro5hin as Peahippo]
So, aside from oxidising bacteria, this thing can also undo the side effects caused by them? Gee, i always thought if you disinfected spoiled milk, you get cheese, or somehing close
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Hello people, sodium hypochlorite (bleach) is made by electrolizing a salt solution. Sodium hypochlorite is one of the most potent biocides known. But you wont attract venture capital with a new process to make it!
love is just extroverted narcissism
If Water + Salt + Energy = Clean, then Energy = Clean - Water - Salt.
Step 1: Find something clean.
Step 2: Remove the water from it.
Step 3: Remove the salt from it.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit from FREE ENERGY!
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
In related news, Ernie and Bert reported today that kids who scrub with soap and water can clean off 99% of dirt AND grime.
The Cookie Monster suggested that this wasn't exactly news, but Ernie and Bert were kinda desperate for content and figured, "Kids aren't very smart anyway, so what the hell?"
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
"Virii" isn't not a Latin plural of any known word. The most plausible latin nominative plural would be "viri", but some people don't buy that.
Unfortunately, some of the things Bruce has stated are not entirely accurate. The general facts are correct. but some bits need modification.
Hydrogen is reactive. It's only 'highly' reactive if you haven't played with really reactive stuff, like fluorine, chlorine and, er, oxygen. Potasium is fun too.. (I have only seen Cesium once. That's quite enough).
Skin only catches fire if you get it very hot. An uncontrolled fire in a pure oxygen atmosphere is more likely to vaporize the skin; then the fat underneath will start to burn. Pure oxygen at reasonable (3atm) pressure will not cause spontaneous combustion of people. But if a fire starts in that environment, then you won't be able to put it out. The fire in Apollo 1 was not spontaneous. It was started by an electrical fault. The three astronauts suffocated in flame. Not nice.
You can happily mix hydrogen and oxygen in a 2:1 ratio. You can pressurize the mixture to astonishing levels. If there's a lot less oxygen, you can breathe the mixture for days at a time (google for "deep hydrogen diving"). If you make a spark, then you'll understand just how reactive oxygen is. The lesson learnt will be very short, and terminally instructive.
But hydrogen and oxygen are not hypergolic. Ask a rocket scientist. Even the Space Shuttle needs a match to get it going.
Sodium is a disinfectant. In the same way that a raging forest fire is disinfectant. Kids! treating your grazed knees with sodium metal may sting! Also, your parent's lawyers will have to contend with a stupidity counter-claim.
Oxidizing agents and reducing agents are defined by their ability to grab or release electrons.
If you want to understand this stuff, find somebody who knows what "Gibb's free energy" is about. Then, get them to explain it to me...
Even if the linked article proves to be true, we will never see widespread adoption of this low-cost treatment. Why? Because it directly threatens the large profit margins enjoyed by pharmaceutical companies the world over. Take silver, for instance. A well-known anti-microbial, it is cheap to process (effective colloidal solutions require only a few ppm of Ag), and has a devastating effect on many harmful microbes. So why aren't we all brewing up our own silver colloid and treating so-called "mycin-resistant" microbes? Because to do so would dig deeply in the billions of dollars pocketed by the big pharmaceuticals every year. Since the pharmaceuticals pretty much hold the pursestrings for the AMA, you won't see the AMA throwing in their support either.
Proven medical treatments, such as silver, acupuncture, homeopathy, etc. (proven not by a few piddly years of research, but in most cases many decades or centuries of use) will never be embraced by the mainstream medical establishment as long as the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to dictate medical policy and control the way we are permitted to keep ourselves healthy.
A free (pretty much) solution which up to now
had to had be bought from pharmaceutical industry?
I expected an armed raid by law enforcement
agencies to shut down any practitioners.
Similar to that experienced by Oxygen therapy clinics.
Money talks.
There is no growth market in selling salt instead of disinfectants.
H2O + NaCl + e- -> Cl2 + H2 + NaOH
is one of the most important in chemistry and has been in industrial use for well over 110 years. To say this is "not exactly super-new technology" is a HUGE understatement, since this is the same basic technology that has been chlorinating drinking water in the U.S. since 1908.
The new (relatively speaking) technology here appears to be the miniaturization of the electrolytic cell and membrane. While this is interesting in and of itself, I cannot see how this will be the big lifesaver they are claiming. One would think that most hospitals can and do purchase disinfectants already and would not really need to generate these hazardous chemicals onsite, even in small quantities. I mean, think of the risks: Cl2 (poisonous gas), H2 (explosive gas), and NaOH (caustic soda). If a hospital does not have the resources to buy these relatively cheap chemicals, why would they have the resources (electricity to name one) to buy and operate these little machines?
Just my $.02
It's your basic High School Chemistery 2 e+H2O+(Na+) Cl- --> 2NaOH +1 Cl2 both these products kill bacteria and viruses. I'm supprise no one hasn't tried it before for cleaning but it's a very old process thats how all commercail lye is produced the clorine is a valuble byproduct in the lye making process.
Acording to the article is uses "regular tap water". As someone who has been to Russia, let me tell you, their tap water is mostly dark brown, and probably contaminated with radiation. Maybe that explains all these unusual properties.
If you want to see a real experiment, try this with Australian water.
1. Get Water
2. Add Salt
3. Put in energy
4. ?
5. Profit!
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
The basic principle is electrolyis of a brine solution. But this is about all which is correct in above analysis.
The post by anon coward above is basically correct. The primary solution products are sodium hydroxide and chlorine (hydrogen bubbling out), then, in an important mixing step, NaOH and Cl2 react to form sodium hypochlorite solution (not sodium chlorate, as another clueless commenter suggested). In secondary reactions, chloroxide (ClO2) and various oxygen-containing radicals (OH, etc.) are formed.
This process is related to the industrial synthesis of sodium hydroxide by electrolysis - only in that case the mixing is carefully avoided and the chlorina gas captured for use for vinyl chloride production, etc.
As far as chemistry as a science is concerned, there is nothing in these papers which was not already known a hundred years ago.
P.S. Slashdot people, please allow the tag for correct formula subscripts!
Nothing like a bleached nose to let you know you're alive...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
http://homepages.together.net/~rjstan/
--
Benjamin Coates
A relative of mine installed a reverse osmosis filter in his house. This filters out everything including chlorine: the water is so clean that it squeaks. The next time he refiilled his aquarium, the fish started dying. He had to add a little chlorine and flourine to their water to revive them. You have substantial amounts of chlorine incorporated into your own body.
It may also interest you to know that even oxygen can be poisonous. (-:
Perhaps you should have qualified yourself with `large concentrations of chlorine...' - even if only to reduce `period pain'.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Here's the page on colloidal silver at Quackwatch. Apparently the stuff can turn you permanently gray anywhere you're naturally light--skin, whites of the eyes, some of your insides (lungs? fat?) etc. And, the producers are big on hype, not so interested in rigorous testing or even keeping microorganisms out of their medicine bottles. See also this FDA site. As for a conspiracy preventing effective medicines from reaching the consumer, isn't it obvious that researchers, pharmaceutical company stockholders, scientists, and doctors are all ALSO consumers? They and their families are just as likely to get cancer or heart disease as you are. Think they'll suppress something that could cure their kid of leukemia so that the company can profit? Give me a break.
has already existed throughout Russian history, and it sure kills any living, carbon-based entity - it's called Vodka.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
This poor woman wants to tell you about colloidal silver. She took it as a child, back when it was a standard ingredient prescribed by a regular MD. So much for it being alternative. Mainstream or alternative, it made her look permanently alien and did not cure anything or prevent her getting cancer in adulthood.
Proven medical treatments, such as silver, acupuncture, homeopathy, etc. (proven not by a few piddly years of research, but in most cases many decades or centuries of use)
I can't speak for silver (I've not done enough reading on this particular 'treatment'), but I can say that both acupuncture and homeopathy are NOT proven treatments, nothing even close. I challenge you to produce one paper in a reputable medical journal that demonstrates the effectiveness of these treatments.
Just because something has been done for a long time, does not mean it works. All it has to do is make people think it works, and people are pretty easy to fool. People believed in the 4 bodily humours for centuries too, and the entirety of Western medical practice was based on this premise for a long time. Eventually though, evidence-based medicine took over and properly so.
For more info, visit The Skeptic's Dictionary.
SofaMan -- Occasionally Battling Evil With His Mighty Powers Of Indolence.
Using electricity, it splits table salt (NaCl) into Na+ and Cl- ions, and you get chlorinated, swimming pool water. And the Na+ is recycled by recombining with Cl- and all you ever add is salt
...
...
A while ago I read Neal Stephenson's Zodiac, which mentions chlorene. This post rang a bell, so I dug it up and pawed through it to find what it had to say. The book only tells you about the situation in bits and pieces, so this really took some searching:
Ionic chlorene's easy to get. It's in seawater. If you want to manufacture a whole catalog of industrial chemicals, you have to convert ionic chlorine into the covalent variety. You do that by subtracting an electron.
And it's just about that simple. You take a tank of seawater and you put a couple of bare wires into it. You hook up a source of electrical power up between the wires, and current - a stream of electrons - flows through the water. The molecules get rearranged. The ionic chlorine turns into the covalent kind, which is what you want. The sodium joins up with fractured water molecules to form sodium hydroxide. Or lye and alkali, depending on how educated you are.
If you're an engineer, and you're not very bright, it's easy to love polychlorinated biphenyls. They are cheap, stable, and easy to make and they take heat very well. That's why they end up in heat exchangers and electrical transformers. It's how they got into that machine in Japan and, when the pipes started to leak, it's how they got into a lot of rice oil.
Unfortunately, rice oil is for human consumption, and as soon as humans enter the equation, PCBs no longer look very good. The problem with humans is that they have a lot of fat in their bodies, and PCBs have this vicious affinity for fat. They dissolve themselves in human fat cells and they never leave. They are studded with loose chlorine atoms that know how to break up chromosomes. So when that heat exchanger started leaking, the city of Kusho, Japan started to look like the site of a Biblical plague. Newborn babies came out undersized and dark brown. People started to waste away. They developed a fairly disgusting skin rash called chloracne and felt very sick.
A benzene ring is a six-pack of carbon atoms. The six-pack is held together. It's stable. It's strong. It takes some effort to pull one of the atoms off. There are a couple different kinds. If you put two six-packs together, you have a twelve-pack. THe six-packs are phenyls, a twelve-pack is a biphenyl. If the six-packs are benzenes, it's a dibenzodioxin, because the connection between the six-packs is made by using a couple of oxygen atoms. But the toxic part of polychlorinated dibenzodioxin (PCDDs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) is the chlorine.
The biphenyl or dibenzodioxin structure dissolves easily in fat. Once it gets into your body fat, it never leaves.
The second bad thing is, the chlorine there is in covalent form; it's got the normal number of electrons, whereas the chlorine in (safe) table salt is in ionic form. It's got an extra electron. The difference is that covalent chlorine is more reactive; it has these big electron clouds that can f*** up your chromosomes. And it slips right through your cell membranes. Ionic chlorine ddoesn't - the cell membranes are made to stop it.
In Stephenson's book, this guy Sangamon Taylor runs around trying to take down corporations that electrocute seawater to create PCBs, use the PCBs as coolant, then dump them into Boston harbor. Stephenson makes it seem like the root of all evil is zapping salt water, because it produces organic chlorine. So I would be very, very careful about intentionally electrocuting salt water and then swimming in it.
It seems like there must be something more to this if, as you said, "This Old House" recommended the process. Maybe it works differently with plain salt water as opposed to sea water. Or something. Scares the crap out of me, though. Maybe someone smarter can tell me what I'm talking about?
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
For those who truly believe in homeopathic medicines, I strongly recommend a homeopathic dose of oxygen, for about five minutes. It'll permanently cure you of everything that could ail you for the rest of your (short) life.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Lysis. The cells of bacteria are filled with mostly water (as are our cells). When put into a solution which is highly saline the cells burst since the water inside the cells has a lower content of saline, so the cells expand and pop.
As for virii, I'm sure it doesn't work for viruses. Some virii are fragile, however.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
When you have a cold, you should NOT take antibiotics to help your immune system fight off oppurtunistic bacteria. Unnecessary antibiotics will just kill off your symbiotic bacteria (the ones which are HELPing your immune system by competing with other germs) and increase the numbers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in your system (endangering you and all the people around you).
I've heard this argument dozens of times from "experts" in the media, and it makes no sense. No bacteria becomes resistant to antiseptics. Ever. There is no such thing as a bacteria that is resistant to chlorine. Antibiotics interfere with the metabolism of bacteria, sometimes a specific system controlled by a single gene. Organisms lacking the gene are resistant and survive. Antiseptics and disinfectants are totally different. They use brute force techniques like oxidation or affecting membrane permeability. There is no such thing as resistance to antiseptics.
Ocean water is drinkable, and it can sustain you for the rest of your life!
Humor aside, desalinazation (i'm sure I spelled that wrong) does work - it's just expensive. Get a copy of your local sailing magazine, and look at water purification systems. These will go for years without maintenance, and require only a 12v power source.
Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
virii
viruses
In fact, most new drugs don't pass the "effective" test. Most are rejects. This is good; progress comes from surviving testing. Once something has been demonstrated to work at all, there's the possibility of figuring how to make it work better. Without testing, nothing gets beyond the "sort of works, maybe" stage.
The FDA tolerates homeopathic drugs for "self-limiting conditions", i.e. things on the threshold of hypochondria, but not for anything serious. It's worth noting that all the "alternative therapies" for AIDS proposed by various activists, none are still taken seriously.
There has been, famously, at least one major attempt by the drug industry to stop a new treatment that threatened profits. This was the discovery that ulcers are a bacterial disease that can be cured with antibiotics. Drug companies were making billions selling people Tagamet and such for years, when a two-week course of antibiotics usually knocks the disease out permanently. This was discovered in 1982, but it took a decade to convince people. The Center for Disease Control made a major effort to get the word out to doctors, too many of whom get their drug info from drug company sales reps. This worked, and finally, Tagamet has been relegated to an over-the-counter medication for indigestion. That's an unusual case, but it's real.
Run a couple of volts through salt water, the
Na+ ions go to the cathode, the Cl- ions go the
anode and discharged to Cl which disolves to
form Sodium Hypochlorite this is the main
component of household bleach.
2Na+ + 2H20 + 2e- -> 2NaOH + H2
2Cl- -> Cl2 + 2e-
Cl2 + H20 = HCl + HCl0
HClO + NaOH -> NaClO + H20
Similar reaction will happen with any other
disolved salts in the water.
Why do all the bullshit stories always come out of russia? Wasn't there some crazy story about a desktop supercomputer also that was developed in russia?
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Skeptics should read CSICOP's guide to critising before commenting. Being rude, and casually passing off claims as foolish does not make a good argument.
-Sean
This might sound foolish, but if:
:
Water + Salt + Energy = Clean
can we also say that
Clean - Water - Salt = Energy
Any math+chemist persons(I am not either) care to comment ?
The real reason people don't look at such medicines is not a conspiracy but lack of economic incentive: unpatentable medicines are of little economic interest to drug companies. That's why we get dozens of useless cold treatments and no drugs for many other diseases.
Point: salt water is a curative your mom used to give you. It's not new. Get with it.
This sig no verb.
Bacteria can mutate, and so can viruses. Some bacteria have already developed immunity to antibiotic. If we use this solution on a large scale, won't bateria and viruses develop immunity after a while?
That wouldn't really be necessary - I gather that it's just osmosis. Higher concentration of solute on the other side of the membrane = water flowing out.
Researchers at the University of Moscow released a surprising new study Friday afternoon indicating that simple tap water and sugar could be converted into a microbial growth solution. "Works for anything. Virii, bacteria, cysts." says the head of Russian Advanced Science.
It's "bear" with me, not "bare". I'd rather not take my clothes off with you...
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
It makes me more resistant..
Okay, as much as I like Stephenson's books, I guess it's always at least a little dangerous to gleam scientific knowledge from fiction books.
Actually, you are quoting things from Stephenson that are about two very different processes. The first one is the electrolysis of salt water, by which you can gain elementary (non-ionic) chlorine. That is certainly true.
The next part then discusses certain applications of this clorine gas, and one of them for sure is the generation of halogenated aromatic compounds, as for instance PCB. However, while this compound really is a mean bitch, toxic and gets stored in your fat tissues, per se it has not a lot to do with clorine, only that this is one of the basic chemicals needed to make it.
I hope that clarified that point.
IANAChemist, really, anyhow...
For what it's worth, the Latin-second-declension-singular-sounding word, virus , is in fact (probably) second declension neuter, and what's more has no [authentic Latin] plural... the correct word is viruses!
Amazing how those memes spread...
Soap.
You could have a bubble bath/pool.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Now, it's super important that the SRBs (solid boosters) are lit up at the same time. They're far away from the center, and and being solid, they can't be throttled. If just one of them were to light, that would be another shuttle lost, right there.
The SRBs are ignited by a smaller (though still pretty big) solid motor in the top of the SRB that sends a flame down the grains to ignite the whole burning surface at once. That smaller motor gets lit by what's essentially an e-match with BKNO on it.
"An object declared as type _Bool is large enough to store the values 0 and 1." -- 6.1.2.5, C99 standard.
Bastards, they never mentioned about the internal ignition systems when I took the Kennedy tour! ;)
;)
Interesting about the SRB lighting from the top down - I was trying to work out how it could light from the bottom and provide a constant flow rate. I guess NASA thought about it a lot more than I have
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
About half the length of any given work meeting.
Any disinfectant that kills all bacteria it encounters is probably not safe for human consumption, because of all of those wonderful digestive bacteria that live in the intestines and provide their host with indispensible aid in digesting food. I don't remember exactly what happens if they're killed, but suffice it to say, it's bad.
The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
Of course.. and everyone knows that an annoying NASA robot can start just one to force a launch.
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
At the time of this post, I have score:3 interesting for asking a question, and he has score:1 for answering it.
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
1. You turn gray from getting it into your system, not applying it to the outside, as in the case of newborns or Civil War spies. How much it takes to turn YOU gray will be different from others. See Ms. Jacobs's story. This picture is particularly telling--as is the fact that Ms. Jacobs developed breast cancer despite being visibly loaded with silver.
2. The self-promoting, profit-oriented pages trying to sell this dangerous heavy metal as a "supplement" far outnumber the objective pages describing its actual effects. Therefore, if I believed everything I read on the web, I would agree with you on this subject. Use some logic.
3. QW says medicines can be divided into two categories only: works and doesn't work. "Alternative", "mainstream," "profitable", "non-patentable" are all side issues.
4. The QW writer points out that there's a huge trade in such things as Vitamin C despite their not being patentable. So much for that issue.
5. QW's skepticism sometimes goes overboard. Although I wish they would be a bit more moderate, in general a model of reality will be more accurate if you practice skepticism rather than gullibility.
6. Show me fully-documented, double-blind, replicated studies that unambiguously support your claims, and I will accept your claims.
Please post the URL of the studies here so that we all can learn about them.
7. Do the sellers of colloidal silver have your welfare in mind any more than other pharmaceutical companies? Why should they? They're in business. The profit motive is a powerful corrupter on every level. Alternative medicine companies have no better a record, and often worse, than the mainstream producers.
It does look too good to be true. That's precisely why I look forward to more coverage of this, and other scientists duplicating the process to see where it leads. I believe contaminated drinking water is one of the top three human health problems on the planet.
The plural of virus is neither viri nor virii, nor even vira nor virora. It is quite simply viruses, irrespective of context. Here's why: http://www.perl.com/language/misc/virus.html
That paper makes a good case, and is correct, but don't forget that language is a dynamic thing, and changes over the years. Compare Old English and Middle English to Modern English. Compare American, British and Australian Englishes, as well.
Virii (which I prefer based on visual aesthetics, though it isn't consistent with fungi) or viri is in common use now, and I suspect the etymologists will pick that up fairly soon.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Salt water gave a good sinus-stimulating snort of chlorine on one electrode -- it probably gave NaOH on the other electrode.
I believe that using bicarb as an electrolyte gave you H2 and O2. I tried to get enough H2 into a balloon to make an explosion (the whole reason for bathtub chemistry was making something that burned or some kind of firework, subject to the restrictions of what we could use. Never worked -- H2 is probably too diffusive a gas to collect that way. The standard way to generate H2 quickly enough to have enough to burn was to dump zinc into sulferic acid, but sulferic acid was not among the things we were allowed to have.
I wanted to get pure Na by electrolysis -- closest I came was I was going to fuse NaCl on an outdoor charcoal fire, but never got very far with that.
Hydrogen Peroxide (H2 O2)
Use oxygen bleach instead of chlorine, cheaper than some complex electrolosis. Just put it on the owie.
Get's rid of bacteria in your mouth (tastes bad though), cleans out cuts and abrasions, disolves warts (multiple applications needed consistently over time.) and also cures hoof and mouth disease for cattle.
http://www.all-organic-food.com/beef3.htm
Oxygen cleaning and treatment (from what I have heard) has been used in Europe for some time now...
-v
The solution was pioneered for swimming pools during the 60's in Australia.
I learned about saline chlorine generators when researching pool chemistry to find a solution for our daughter's special needs. See Therapy Pools links.
An excellent overview of alternate water purification systems is 'Alternate Systems' by Neil Lowery.
Modern controls and polarity reversing/self cleaning have improved the chlorinators since the 60's. The convenience of computer automated electronic chemistry ORP/pH control is nice.
I now believe that every pool owner should seriously consider saline chlorine generator for their pool. Most people cannot taste any salt at 2800-3500PPM. For more consumer info, follow the product links below:
Autopilot Pool Pilot Systems
Clear Tech Automation AutoClear
Clormatic
Goldline Controls AquaRite
Monarch Pool Systems {various brands}
Poolpower
TMI Salt Pure {excellent information, solution oriented}
Zodiac Clearwater
There is likely more info here than anyone asked for... but our daughters needs motived some serious research.
It's amazing what one can learn by surfing. --Beachcomber
I have verified the results of this report. I added 1 US Gallon of H2O with 1 cup NaCl, and poured it into the case of my computer while running MS Outlook Express. Within 3 seconds, I stopped receiving the Klez virus. I've been told I now need a solution to put the magic smoke back into the various components of my motherboard and power supply that caught on fire, probably as a result of their contamination with computer viruses.
It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
I can't believe no one else saw through this thinly disguised plot to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids. We can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!