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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.'"
"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?
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
This could mean any of the following:
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Scientific American had an article about 15 years ago on this.
t ml
Wired has a good article on this:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,65035,00.h
Stupid Humans.....
I hear that reading the article is generally a good thing to do before posting.
Thanks for playing.
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.
I'd try it, but I'm afraid it'd give me gas! *rimshot*
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
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.]
From the article:
"From there, the decidedly unappetizing-looking water moves to a series of six "treatment beds," which consist of proprietary carbon filters developed by LexCarb. The first four filters strain out black gunk so that the water becomes amber. The final two filters remove remaining impurities, resulting in water that is as clean, or cleaner, than the tap water of many U.S. cities."
Supposedly, the water is "cleaner than tap water in many U.S. cities" before they add the chlorine solution. The brown color you are talking about seems to exist only mid-way through the series of filters.
As for why they don't use a UV filter. The article later explains that the chlorine is meant to stop bacteria from developing in the water well after the purification process is over. I can understand how UV/RO membrane would kill/catch any bacteria present but I don't think it would stop re-contamination later (honestly, I'm not exactly familiar with how RO membranes work but I'm assuming its a filter that doesn't stick around in the water afterwards).
-GameMaster
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
They've invented vaporators!
If you re-read the article you'd notice that the amber-coloured water was after four filtering steps, not the entire six.
After the amber stage is reached, it goes through two more filters and then chlorine is added to keep the water from getting funky while waiting to be dispensed.
So chlorine isn't used as a filtering agent, more of a preservative.
I used to work for a RO company; essentially the membrane splits salty water into extra salty water ("brine") and clean product water. A simplistic explanation is that the polar water molecules split the salt lattice into ions, which get surrounded by more H20 molecules. This means you get big H20/ion clumps that can't squeeze through the membrane, and a bunch more smaller plain old H20 molecules that do get pushed through the membrane. Typically before the membrane you have some prefilters to get out the bigger chunks like bacteria and stuff. Some modern RO systems can be run off solar panels, which would be ideal in a desert application. See also Wikipedia's articles on reverse osmosis and RO desalinization.
The company I worked for actually had a military contract to see if they could get water from air, using lithium bromide. They had a proof of concept thing done, but they were still working out the bugs when I left.
I think that this is one of the few advantages to having a military with huge amounts of cash; they can fund interesting new technologies that need to actually perform in harsh environments. Although maybe instead of killing people, they could do something more interesting and helpful, like explore the depths of the ocean, or the surface of the moon. Just a thought.
You intake uranium every day in your food anyhow, and it's actually a very common element (just not the isotopes used to build nukes). It's in everyone's drinking water. http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/uranium .htm has some info you'll want to read.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I don't think this will work quite like a catalytic converter, which reduces he emissions into something less nasty. Rather it just extracts chemical H2O from the emissions. I was hoping for news that someone can actually convert the diesel exhaust into something less nasty. That would be a good thing.
I would add, though, that throughout the Napoleonic wars, and wherever in the world they operated at that time (including the Caribbean and Mediterranean), the Royal Navy's water ration was "one gallon per man, per day, for all purposes". This was an Imperial gallon, about ten US pints, but it shows what can be done if you try
Yes, and you could always smell the British and French before you saw them. ;)
Actually, in the heat, the Army wants you to drink a gallon every four hours. And living in the high desert in California, I can honestly tell you that just breathing dehydrates you because the air is so dry. And it's not even as hot as the middle east!
I would think the rest of the water is for shaving, face washing, food preparation, coffee, and cleaning. Showers aren't done too often unless you are near a base. Instead you use moist towelletes to clean your pits, genitals, and ass. This keeps bacteria from growing in those places,which can slow a person down tremendously. That is if you elect to, some people get away with not cleaning themselves.