Slashdot Mirror
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."
Fire from water? Thats easy! I use to do it all the time with a block of sodium. Cats didn't like it to much though...
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
The price tag is $49,999. They only expect to sell about five this year.
Yeah, fire from water, and ... 220V.
That's like making wine out of water, and oh, yeah, some grapes and stuff.
Using electricity to convert water to hydrogen to create flame is a round-about way of making things more complicated than they have to be. There are better ways to make heat and light with electricity, after all. And there are better ways to make electricity with water. And if you need fire, burning a tree is simpler still. :)
I bet that's energy efficient.
Dude, you don't even need to RTFA... just look at the summary... they add oxygen to adjust the color... different amounts causes the color to change...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
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
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
Real efficient use of electricity also. Most people will ogle at the fact that it doesn't produce harmful emmissions but neglect the fact the the emmissions are just further upstream.
[ ]
Why? Because of the immense amount of greenhouses released into the atmosphere by everyone's fireplaces?
"Code Orange Smog Alert: Please limit driving and fireplace-using..."
I will not living room-pool.
I think the poster misunderstood the benefit of this... this is nothing more than a fancy electric room heater!
This is NOT an alternative energy source, it's a wasteful energy consumer...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
It takes MORE energy to get the hydrogen-oxygen bonds to release than you get back when you recombine them through burning.
GEEZ. You might as well take a solar powered light and shine it on itself.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
"This product ... might hopefully show that hydrogen is a more attractive fuel".
A *fuel* eh? Just like my lead-acid car battery is a fuel.
Wake up folks; water is the most stable chemical form of hydrogen and oxygen. Breaking water to form hydrogen is an inefficient (wasteful) process.
The only potentially viable way to generate hydrogen is to "burn" biomass or mined gasses/oils. Biomass has to be grown, thus putting a strain on farmland and possibly promoting world hunger (we'll burn their food for energy). There are cleaner, more efficient ways of extracting energy from petroleum than converting it to hydrogen.
Hydrogen is merely a "cool" idea for porkbelly projects. As a non-naturally ocurring fuel, it is a non-starter.
No, what this shows is that hydrogen is simply a derivative of fossil fuels, and is in fact an extremely expensive, inefficient and almost useless way to store and transport energy.
Let's see, we start with huge lumps of coal, convert them to steam, convert the steam to electricity, and then use the electricity to make hydrogen which (in a fuel cell) we can convert back to electricity. Energy is lost at every step along the way. In particular, compressing the hydrogen from atmospheric pressure to storage tank pressure loses about HALF the total energy, so even if the fuel cell is 100% efficient, you've still lost HALF the energy you started with.
But commercial hydrogen is not produced by electrolysis. It's produced from natural gas and steam. So let's see, we start with natural gas, a product which has the following properties:
- Cheap
- Easy to store and transport with widely available equipment
- Can run through cheap, widely available engines
- Fairly clean burning (compared to diesel)
- High energy density in compressed tanks
and we convert that to hydrogen which has the following properties:- Very very expensive
- Very difficult to store. The only real-world proven way to store it at a high density is to liquify it. That will never be a practical option outside of aerospace industry
- Can be burned in regular engines, with regular engine efficiency, or can be burned in extremely expensive fuel cells. There is no realistic possibility of fuel cells becoming cost competitive in the foreseeable future.
- Low energy-density for real-world storage (compressed tanks, etc). Fuel cell cars have a range of less than 200 miles usually.
- Oh, and it's clean burning! Finally after all the bad things about H2 we come to one good thing!
- It makes the whole global warming and oil dependency problems worse becomes it takes so much energy is wasted in the process of converting fossil fuels into hydrogen.
The one thing that could help is that you can make hydrogen from clean nuclear energy and from clean solar energy, but given that hydrogen electrolysis is not cost-competitive with even cheap fossil fuel electricity, why should it be cost competitive with much more expensive solar electricity?I regret that our government is involved in subsidizing this whole boondoggle, but I have no worries that it will continue in the long-term. Some small improvements in lithium batteries, and some reasonable production economy in lithium batteries will make electric cars competitive with plain old ICE cars, and the hydrogen fuel research pork programs will shrivel up and die.
----------------
mobile search
If you burn something in air, if you get the air hot enough then you combine some of the nitrogen in the air with oxygen.
Hydrogen burns pretty hot.
I wonder what steps these folks have taken to prevent or minimize emission of nitrogen oxides.
I also wonder how they're getting color in the flame, since the usual cheerful yellow comes from incandescent soot particles.
Maybe when they designed it they were under the influence of firewater.
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.
Hydrogen flames are very definitely visible. Depending on the ratio of fuel to oxidant (ie oxygen) the colour of the flame can range from a very faint blue to an intense orange.
I do a chemistry demonstration where I explode a balloon with either pure hydrogen or a stoichometric ratio of hydrogen and oxygen. The first explosion is just a puff of orange flame, the second is a bright flash of light and a tremendous explosion which has been known to shatter fluoro tubes at 10 metres.
Charles
Drink? I'm thinking handheld flamethrower. You know those little Super Soakers that you pump about 25 times and they shoot 30 or 40 feet? Yeah.
Well well, we can tell who's a right winger.
There are a billion and two ways to get atomic hydrogen, and this is just one of them. Sure, it's ineffecient, but so is burning carbon fuels.
Besides, electricity can be derived from anything these days. Put a few solar panels on your roof, and you've got a self contained hydrogen producer. Step it up another notch with rain water collection and filtration and it's competely autonomous.
But oh, I guess you'll argue that photovatalics are terrible and that silicon hurts the environment and that oil's the best fuel we got.
Next up, Biofuel. It's cheap! It's effecient! And if you were truly worried about the world farmlands, you'd be *advocating* this. The more biofuel that goes into production, the more the need for farmlands, and farmlands will grow in size. Thus, overall food output will increase and we will be able to transport that same food further, for cheaper than oil.
I know, I know, it's rough I don't wanna give up my old beater jeep either, but the fact is that oil is unsustainable and the sun IS sustainable. Well, unless you want to get pedantic on me and say the sun will go away in 5 billion years.
Hydrogen's a great idea as long as it's implemented correctly, which is where the research is currently going on. Oil was a terrible idea; just look at the middle east today!
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Generally, it is quite difficult to pass current through distilled (and especially deionized) water. In fact, pure water is such a good insulator that it is used in the high voltage switches (for example at electric generating plants) to suppress arcing while contacts are being opened or closed.
Performing electrolysis with wind, solar and hydro power can produce hydrogen fuel that is 100% pollution-free and 100% renewable.
Wind lacks energy density
Solar PVs are negative energy efficient (yes, you need to factor in the mined platinum & palladium to the equation)
Solar thermal lacks energy density
Hydro power lacks scalability
Nuclear is limited by Uranium reserves
Sure it makes hydrogen but it uses something on the order of 4kw. Lets all remember you don't get something for nothing people.
With some mumbo jumbo about future fuels to sell it to people. In reality it's an electric heater. Almost all uses of electricity are electric heaters, and unless they affect things outside the room, they're mostly 100% efficient electric heaters. It's easy to be 100% efficient at turning useful energy into heat, after all. (furnaces are not 100% efficient because they must vent waste gas outside, along with some heat.)
This just happens to turn electricity into heat in an amusing way, at a high price. There are, of course lots of other interesting ways to turn electricity into heat. My computers are doing plenty of that right now.
If they really were pitching this as a way to heat the house, it would be as bad an idea as any other electric heater. They are way poorer in total "well to home" efficiency than gas furnaces, but often used because they are cheap to install (expensive to run), very easy to meter (for landlords), and on the positive side, can be easily individually controlled on a room by room basis, which sometimes can make them more efficient than heaters that either heat the whole building or nothing at all.
But I doubt this is meant as such a heater. It's meant as an art piece, to wow your fellow millionaire friends.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
My invention uses 220V to make hydrogen which is burned to heat water which drives a turbine that generates electricity.
Clean energy!
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
What a load of bullshit about marketing alternative fuels. This sounds like a great geek toy, a fabulous special effect, even an interesting way to have open flames inside without toxic fumes needing exhaust. Isn't that enough?
Because as an "alternative energy" demo, it's a travesty. Thermodynamics means that all the energy released in the fire had to be put into the O2 and H2 cracked from the water, by the high-voltage electricity. Which electricity had to be generated far away, losing at least half its power in the transmission. Then the cracking inefficiency, and the power consumed in moving around the gasses, all make this a terribly inefficient waste of power. Which is generated, no doubt, by burning petro fuels. Which are not only running out (the relatively clean and cheap stuff, anyway), but which are pumping lots of pollution into the air at the plants - even when you we don't see them.
This toy is clearly a much bigger waster of power than even the worst home heating systems that rely on electric baseboards. Because it does what they do, then a bunch more stuff, before the heat is released. What we have here is a sick little example of "greenwashing": covering up an environmental destruction with PR about how it's good for the environment. If we convert all our heating, all our toys, to these greenwashed little wasters, our environment will consist of entirely simulated nature - for those of us who survive the detachment from the food chain, clement weather, and our current civilization.
--
make install -not war
The rest of the oxygen is released in the room?
Not only that - what do they do with all that hydrogen then? I know I'm from biology and not chemistry, but if I remember correctly (and I am scratching my head here) water contains twice as much hydrogen as it contains oxygen, so if you're going to have excess oxygen you will have twice as much excess hydrogen.
Or could it be that somehow this magic fireplace miraculously manages to combine all the hydrogen with the oxygen in the room, but the oxygen from the water is released to the atmosphere and get this, in EXACTLY the same amount as was combined with the hydrogen! Whoa! How did they do THAT? And everyone knows that oxygen from water is purer and good for you, right....?
Ugh, I hate marketers and sales pitches that try to bend the laws of our reality. Rest assured that this thing does NOT increase the amount of oxygen in your home. If anything it decreases it by a trivial amount as the flame and other hot surfaces burn up minute pieces of dust and other impurities in the air.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Some old houses have 60 Amp service -- if they use gas stoves.
Stoves and clothes dryers are commonly wired to 40 amp circuits (each), so these units are going to eat 50% more power than my stove with all burners and the oven on.
It'd probably be cheaper to buy 20 P4s as space heaters, plus 2 more to run a really nice display.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Energy source- never gonna happen.
The ultimate energy source in our solar system is the sun. Everything comes from that. We're just living on "borrowed" energy right now, burning up millions of years' worth solar energy stored in the form of chemicals. When it runs out we will have to tap our energy source directly - the biggest problem we face is how to "store" that energy. The collection of that energy is a problem of cost and surface area. How many solar panels? How many windmills? How many dams and devices to extract energy from wave motion? We _could_ build loads of those.
Effecient storage of that energy is the big problem.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I'm sure you meant the Flaming Moe.
Hmm... have a fire in your fireplace WITHOUT burning fossil fuels...
How could we do that?
Oh YEAH! WOOD!
/usr/games/fortune
I get your rant about the proposed hydrogen economy, but all this product appears to do is separate hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis and then let them recombine to produce flame. The part about adding oxygen "for color and brightness" is moronic, and the device is obviously not a demonstration of hydrogen as an alternative fuel, or anything else. It's just a cute little expensive novelty item.
But that's not true. According to a May 2004 article in SciAm (sorry, only available for purchase, check it out at your local library instead) says the total green house gases produced by coal plants used to generate the electricity needed to generate the hydrogen produces more green house gases than used by current gasoline engines.
They even include the supply chain side of transporting and storing hydrogen vs gasoline. They found that a fuel cell driven by gasoline actually produces less emissions than a fuel cell driven by coal.
The problem is the loss of effiency. To convert water to hydrogen via electrolysis from coal, the loss from coal to tank is 78%. After the hydrogen is used in a fuel cell, it loses an additional 43%, for a total loss of 92%.
Compared to gasoline.. pumping a gallon of oil, transporting to a refinery, turning it to gas, and transporting the gas to a filling station takes away 21% of the energy potential of the oil. For a conventional IC engine, 85% of the energy in the gas tank is lost. That brings it to a total of only 88%.
Yeah, I was wondering when people would realize that the challenge of the hydrogen infrastructure is bullshit.
I mean...you can get hydrogen from water. I've never seen a gas station that lacks water OR electricity...so how hard is it REALLY to supply hydrogen at every gas staion in america?
It's about 20,000 to one, four orders of magnitude. Commercial reactors only have about 3% enriched fuel rods. We need to get into the right kind Thorium breeder reactors for the short haul, no material produced that is useful for weapons, and much less waste. For the long haul I think solar is the only smart way to go.
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
The plans are here: http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/feb2/carplans. zip I'm not 100% sure of all the engineering or the electronics behind it, but the general theories of it all seem as if it was something that could eventually prove useful.
Don't you think that it might be possible to use a catalyst in the electrolysis reaction and actually have it require less energy to split the H2O than you would get by reforming it?
(This is my first /. post)
Pure water is not a conductor.
Some of it is. Water, all on its own, does the following:
H20 (-----------) H+ + OH-
This is the reason why pure water has a pH of 7. This means that 10^7 hydrogen ions exist in one litre of the purest water. It can't be helped, it's a natural property of water.
The dissociated part, since it has a charge, is a really god conductor of electricity. This is the part that turns to gas when you electrolyse. And as this happens, the principle of equilibrium assures that new ions are formed.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It's been a while since I did chemistry (and I didn't RTFA), but I'd have thought that "igniting the hydrogen" would require oxygen to make it burn. There won't be any spare oxygen to release into the room, or rather, the flame would use room oxygen and that'll be replaced by the released oxygen. Adding oxygen to "adjust the color" is complete crap.
Okay, so rather than burning a renewable source of energy like wood in my fireplace, I'm going pay $50K to obtain the ability to burn hydrogen. Hydrogne is good and pure and not oil so that's good right? Oh yeah except for the fact that in order to make my fireplace work I need 220 current which is coming FROM DEAD DINOSAURS.
*SIGH*
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Where else does the waste, lower efficiency go? It has to come from somewhere and go somewhere.
Heat. Only it's heat where it isn't that useful to you... like as latent heat in the humidity you're generating and higher wavelengths (visible/near visible light).
Yes, making heat can be 100% efficient, but it isn't always that way depending on how you want to use the heat. In this case, an electric IR heater would probably do a better job heating the space and a flourecent/LED lamp would do a MUCH better job creating light if those are your goals.
=Smidge=
You, sir "Doc" Ruby, are spreading lies.
m ission for details. Electrical power generation is very efficient, and overall pollutes far less than most small-scale energy production operations.
Electrical transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_trans
Secondly, "nothing is created, nothing is lost". When you're trying to heat up a room with electricity, waste heat is a good thing. This hydrogen fire device has multiple conversion stages, all of them inefficient - in that they release waste heat. In the end, all of the energy that goes into the system is converted into heat.
In fact, most of the heat of the device probably comes from the electrolysis rather than from the burning. But in the end, it's meant to be a room heater, and is doing a fine job as that. It is as efficient a furnace as a normal heater, or as a beowulf cluster. That's right, a beowulf cluster is a very good way to heat your room, and it's just as efficient as a purpose-made heater.
Do you know about heat pumps ? Those devices are basically air conditioners acting in reverse, taking heat from the outdoors, during the winter, and pumping it inside. At first glance, it doesn't make much sense: pumps and compressors are very inefficient devices, aren't they ? Plus, there's not much heat outside... But then you realise that the waste heat of the whole heat pump is a good thing - it's kept inside the house and used to heat it up. So all the heat pump has to do is extract a little bit of energy from the outside and spit out lots of waste heat, hence making it a tad more efficient than a device which merely spits waste heat.
Any electrical devices that doesn't move outside air around is an efficient heater. Your toaster, your computer and your electrical chainsaw are just as efficient as your room heater, when it comes to producing heat.
Anyway, your post is a travesty of science and logic. You were inspired by a hampster and your reasoning smells of elderberries.
your missing the point, the advantage to hydrogen is taht you can make it from any source of eletrical power, be it coal, hydro, solar, nuke, fusion, oil, whatever.
That's all swell, but the majority of power is generated by burning fossil fuels, NOT by hydro, solar, or nukes (at least in North America.)
So, when you push electrons to make your H2 you're most likely burning a fossil fuel and adding greenhouse gasses in a less effecient process than the direct burning of fossil fules at the point of use.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups. -- 0 1 My two bits
Since when are current coal power generation losses (~60%) combined with electrolysis losses (~20%) equal to 78%? 1970? That's just current coal power plant averages and large extant electrolysis systems; new numbers are about 50% and 10%, respectively.
Since when are the efficiencies of hydrogen fuel cells only 57%? 1980? New cells (which are what would be used, of course) are ~70% efficient (and should be able to get up to 85% if you utilize waste heat).
Since when do gasoline IC engines lose 85% of the energy (15%) efficiency? 1950? Modern gasoline engines are 25-30% efficient (and diesel are 30-40%)
In short, please explain your numbers.
I wish people would stop comparing JÃnsi to God. He's good, but he's no JÃnsi.
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.
Actually I did read the summary. When hydrogen burns it combines with oxygen. Two hydrogen atoms for each oxygen atom. There's an excess of oxygen due to the oxygen dissolved in the air, probably enough for the hydrogen to burn on its own. Adding more oxygen won't do anything at all, chemically.
In other words, either the hydrogen will all oxidize, or some of it will, but I don't see how that would change the color, unless the heat is high enough to cause visible black body radiation.
Either way, you're still an idiot. I did read the summary, but it didn't make sense to me, because I had a high school education (unlike yourself, apparently).
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"The oxygen is then added for color and brightness, while the rest is released into the room."
Oxygen added for color?? You must burn oxygen and hydrogen in the same ratio as they are in a water molecule: H2O
Wich "rest" is relased in the room?
...and nifty toy for rich people...
let's do the math-
220V x 60amps = 13.2kW = ~45,000 btu's. According to their website, this device produces about 31,000 btus/hr, so that makes this ~69% efficient.
BUT... that kind of heating capacity usually comes from a gas furnace or a heat pump, which usually require insulated ductwork, or a fireplace, which loses a lot of its heat out the chimney.
This thing can (at least theoretically) go in the middle of a room, provide the ambience and heating ability of a fireplace, and doesn't lose any of its heat out a chimney. Probably a solution looking for a problem, but you gotta admit it's kinda cool...
It would be even cooler if the water were incorporated into design- like having a sheet of water flowing over the base or something...
Unless its run on distilled water this will leave a thick, gunky residue of chlorine salts, calcium, limescale and anything else that's in solution in the local water supply
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Does anyone else find this funny?
Let's see - water splits into 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom...hydrogen in the presense of oxygen can be ignited to produce water vapor, which contains...umm...2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, leaving...ummm...nothing?
What excess oxygen are they talking about? Sure, the hydrogen could combine with the oxygen in the room that's already there, and therefore there would be excess from the original separation, but we are talking a net zero gain...it's no like we're adding oxygen to our home, which really has no benefit...
rm
Sci-Fi Storm
I found a bbc article about this. It seems that Iceland plans to do away with fossil fuel altogether in a few decades.
A latent existence
It's a way of storing energy. You have to produce the hydrogen somehow and you need another form of energy to do it.
This fire is a joke.
Power stations are inefficient. Most of them are around 40%, there are a few types like combined cycle gas turbines that make it up to around 60% efficient. That means electric heating is no more than 60% efficient. That sounds OK till you realise that the power station is throwing away gigawatts of "waste" heat.
If this "waste" heat was pumped round houses, buildings and used to heat them instead of the electricity then the electricity could be used for something else instead. Closer to 90% efficiency rather than 40% or 60%. It's called District Heating and has been round for decades.
Deleted
As a person that designs power plants, I'm wondering what design you're working with where a coal plant reaches 50% efficiency. The best efficiency I've seen for most plants is getting close to 40% and that's with a nuclear plant (APWR) The best designed coal plant I've seen had nearly 37% efficiency but a capacity fact of around 60% (meaning they don't have it turned on all the time). Whenever you create your electricity by boiling water with a few regenerative or reheat cycles, your efficiency probably won't ever top the current efficiencies. You can get my numbers from any undergraduate engineering thermodynamics textbook.