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Making Fire From Water
LexNaturalis writes "Gizmodo has a story out about a new product that makes fire from water. Gizmodo explains how it works: 'Ordinary tap water (preferably distilled) is supplied to the fireplace through a pipe or tank, a 220 volt electrical service then separates the hydrogen and oxygen atoms through electrolysis, the Aqueon ignites the hydrogen, and ta-dah, fire! The oxygen is then added for color and brightness, while the rest is released into the room. It doesn't require venting because it doesn't produce any harmful emittents like carbon monoxide -- just water vapor.' The manufacturer's website has more information on the science behind this new product. While splitting water to get hydrogen and oxygen is not new, this product will likely make the technology more accessible to the masses and might hopefully show that hydrogen is a more attractive fuel than petroleum-based fuels."
The price tag is $49,999. They only expect to sell about five this year.
60 Amps? To run a fireplace? Yes I know it takes a lot of power to split water - but my hottub doesn't draw that much power at full blast. Much as I'd love a clean burning fire in my fireplace - drawing 8-9kW to do it is nuts
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Well, it's more of an exothermic reaction that ends in the final balance of sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas with a little bit of dissolved hydroxide. During the process, the sodium may become so hot that it may ignite the hydrogen gas released from the water therefore, causing fire.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
The idea is that we can use electricity to generate hydrogen, then store it. Electricity generated from a single coal power plant will produce far less pollution than gasoline from several million cars. Additionally, we're not running out of coal any time soon, and we wouldn't need to buy it from the middle east.
Whether or not a molecule emits energy in the form of light has nothing to do with the number of atoms. It has to do with the energy levels of the electrons in the outer shell.
As the electrons fall back from their excited state they emit a photon of light at a particular wavelenght, related to the energy drop. If you have a small drop then the wavelength will be large, ie red or infra-red light. If you have a large drop then the wavelength will be smaller, ie green, blue, violet.
Don't forget that when hydrogen reacts it produces water was well 2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O, so you'll have your triatomic molecule you want.
The reason that corn brooms are used to detect flames is that the flame from a slow hydrogen leak is not very intense, made up almost exclusively with blue and violet photons. These are hard to see.
Have a look at http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hyde.ht ml
to see the spectra of hydrogen. It's got some visible lines in it.
Here's a picture of a hydrogen flame, faint but visible. http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/CCA3/STIL LS/CLH/CLH/64JPG48/2.JPG
Charles
Tree burning is carbon neutral.
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220 V * 60 A = 13.2 kw
I don't know many places that need 13 kW of heating that don't already have it.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.