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?

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
  

This has come out before

[Wierd Willy]

Scientific American had an article about 15 years ago on this.

Wired has a good article on this:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,65035,00.ht ml

Re:What about the nasties in the exhaust?

[DasBub]

I hear that reading the article is generally a good thing to do before posting.

Thanks for playing.

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.]

Re:Chlorine?

[DasBub]

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.

Re:What about the nasties in the exhaust?

[kimvette]

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.

Re:What?!??!

[Handpaper]

You beat me to it.
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 :)