Alchemy in the Desert, Diesel Exhaust into H2O

Carl Bialik writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 'Using technologies developed for the space program, the U.S. Army is conducting an experiment that could convert the exhaust pipes of military vehicles into water fountains.' The idea is meant to help alleviate the logistical challenges presented by two essential army liquids: water and diesel fuel. A soldier in the desert needs about 20 gallons of water a day, for all purposes; 'Water gets to the front in vulnerable, slow-moving truck convoys that require armed escorts, or it is pumped from local rivers, lakes or ponds and purified by heavy-duty filters.' And maybe, in the future, it will also be extracted from diesel exhaust. The president of a company that developed the test technology tells the WSJ: 'This is one of those things where, when you first hear about it, you think the scientists have gone out of their minds. But once you taste the water, you realize the potential.'"

Comments

But once you taste the water!

[Muhammar]

"But once you taste the water, you realize the potential."

Perhaps a coffee flavoring agent for Folger's "value roast" blend, sold for office use only?

Re: But once you taste the water!

[eclectro]

Perhaps a coffee flavoring agent for Folger's "value roast" blend, sold for office use only?

Not only that it's mil-spec. But one minor problem - when you go to the bathroom it smells like diesel exhaust.

Subject to interpretation

[jd]

But once you taste the water, you realize the potential

This could mean any of the following:

• Their process uses electrical currents, so what you get when in contact with the water really IS the potential
  
• They've discovered a way to turn the pollutants into hallucinogenic substances, allowing them to earn a fortune
  
• Same as the above, only they can pipe it into their opponent's water supply
  
• Same as the above, only the troops are now berserkers and think they're indestructible
  
• They've discovered a way to turn the fumes into something that will make photographs invisible to journalists
  
• The water is, in fact, the elixier of life, so forever guaranteeing no US casualties
  
• They have discovered a way to fractionally condense diesel fumes which they will patent and use to collect the revenue gained by suing every school in the western hemisphere for having physics or chemistry textbooks
  

Chlorine?

[deglr6328]

It is quite surprising to hear them say they use chlorine for disinfection as the last step of the process. It does not look like they are using a reverse osmosis device to filter the water, only mechanical and carbon filters and judging from the look of the water color after filtering but before treatment by chlorine, it is not clean at all. Its brown! This would worry me A LOT if I had to drink it. The addition of chlorine to such a mixture is going to immediately create lots and lots of different types of halogenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, ie. extremely nasty and carcinogenic compounds. Why don't they just use a simple inline UV filter instead of chlorine, or better yet, use a high efficency RO membrane for filtration!

Another preparation for war story

[Futurepower(R)]

First a Slashdot story about U.S. preparations for war: Army Eyes Anti-Sniper Robot, then, after two other stories, this story, also about preparations for war.

The mood in the U.S. is violent, and pro-violence, in general, it appears.

Skeptical!

[mister_llah]

I'd try it, but I'm afraid it'd give me gas! *rimshot*

Alchemy?

[helioquake]

Alchemy? It seems like the process takes a simple chemical combustion, not atom-altering alchemy.

It's bad when the old chemistry trick is viewed like some kind of magic...
[nontheless, this is a cool stuff, though. Beats drinking my own urine via filtering.]