Slashdot Mirror
Pumping Fluid With No Moving Parts
RogerRoast writes "In a study published in Physical Review B (abstract; full version is paywalled), researchers demonstrate for the first time an approach that allows ferrofluids to be pumped by magnetic fields alone. The invention could lead to new applications for this mysterious material. Though numerous industrial, commercial, and biomedical applications for ferrofluids have since been created, the original goal — to pump liquids with no machinery — remained elusive, until now. The ferrohydrodynamic pump method works when electrodes wound around a pipe force magnetic nanoparticles within the ferrofluids to rotate at varying speeds. Those particles closest to the electrodes spin faster, and it is this spatial variation in rotation speed that propels the ferrofluid forward."
Magnetohydrodynamics has been around for quite a while and has long been one of the holy grails of submarine propulsion with prototypes existing now for years. During my last visit to a Los Angeles class submarine, this was a hot topic. Movement of ferrofluids is a natural extension of this concept with applications in everything from medical imaging to cooling of large and small objects. Its pretty exciting, though I am surprised that this is the *first* implementation of this.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
When I want to pump my fluids, I like to have my parts moving, nano or not!
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
RTFP! Read only the abstract and it seems that what the authors claim is _not_ that this is the first time movement of a ferrofluid is achieved using only magnets (btw, About 10 years ago i saw a demonstration of blood being circulated using magnetic field gradients) but most likely that they achieve it without the need of using _strong_ permanent magnets!
So if the ferrofluid is stable, this could be a closed loop, no moving parts, almost infinitely reliable cooling system?
.: Max Romantschuk
As if the hype about pouring the perfect pint of Guinness isn't already bad enough we now have to listen to them talk about cleaning the magnets as well as the pipes.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
If you can do it simply with air can you do it with liquids?
-
This would be great for blood pumping systems since even the slightest clot in those almost always lead to death.
This is one of the huge risks with artificial circulation systems, be it hearts, that huge bulky machine that acts as a lung too (CPBs), or those ventricular helpers.
Mind you, I believe centrifugal pumps have eliminated the pump problem and it is mostly a problem of clumps forming on the material walls, fibrin is hoping to fix this problem if I remember correct.
Plus, it depends how big it is and how much power it needs.
Size is always the important part.
Fluidyne engines exist for quite a while now, don't require mysterious materials and no one seems to care.
UFO drives work on Superconductor Ferrofluids ( so called Bose Einstein condensate) made from mercury - thallium alloy with magnetite.
The superconductor Ferrofluid is rotated at 60krpm in a donut . The rotating Superconductor seems to create the gravitons if they exist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJJ-4lnwrck
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7154/abs/nature06036.html
http://vimeo.com/28098847
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/34265/Fun_with_ferrofluid/
This is a popular problem in microfluidics. For lab-on-a-chip technology it is very difficult to make a pump with moving parts on the micrometre scale, so researchers have turned to more obscure phenomena. Electro-osmosis is commonly used. Essentially, in a channel with dielectric walls, a very thin ionic double layer naturally forms at the solid-liquid interface. If an electric field is applied in the direction of travel, this drags the thin ionic layer, which in turn mobilises the bulk liquid.
Researchers have been playing with magnetic nano-particles in microfluidic systems for years, usually in the context of a separation system. This spinning phenomena is interesting, and could well be used for more than just pumping. In narrow enough channels, if there is only a moderate concentration of these particles then I doubt they would be close enough together to act as described here.
It's a shame the paywall makes it hard for most of us to really RTFA. I'll report back if there's anything interesting...
Albert Einstein and a colleague of his were grief-stricken when they heard about an entire family that was killed when the Ammonia gas leaked out of their refrigerator.
Refrigerant fluid needs to be pumped, so there is a seal around the shaft from the electric motor to the pump mechanism. Seals blow all the time - if your car leaks oil, the chances are pretty good it's a leaky seal. A blown seal on a car will drip oil, maybe ruin your engine, but if you blow the seal that's holding in a bunch of compressed Ammonia gas and you can't get outside to fresh air quickly enough, you'll die horribly. I imagine it was just like being in a World War I gas attack.
At the time Freon had not yet been developed, so the only effective refrigerator coolant available was Ammonia, NH3. The Ammonium Hydroxide floor cleaner is NH3Oh, basically Ammonia gas dissolved in water, and smells pungently of the Ammonia gas evaporating from the solution, but not so much as to be toxic.
Einstein and his colleague decided to use the basic laws of thermodynamics to design a refrigerator that would have no moving parts at all. Thus it could be a sealed system, most likely out of copper or brass pipes soldered together. There would be some chance of leaking through the solder joints, but they can be adequately pressure-tested during manufacture, and are not so likely to wear out as mechanical seals.
I've seen it on The Series of Tubes before, let me find you a link... Einstein's green refrigerator making a comeback. Besides Ammonia it also uses Butane and Water. You apply heat to one part of the assembly, and another part gets cold. The article points out that the heat source could be the Sun; a cylindrical or parabolic mirror on the roof of your house could supply the heat, so it would use no electricity at all!
Einstein's collaborator was his former student Leo Szilard. Szilard also invented the fission bomb. Einstein is widely credited with writing the letter to President Roosevelt that convinced the President to initiate the Manhattan Project, but that letter was actually written by Szilard. Szilard just asked Einstein to sign it because Szilard, at the time, was young and largely unknown, while Einstein was one of the most famous people on the planet. Presidents know to open that kind of junk mail!
Turgor - fluid pressure in compartments - is one of the ways critters and plants move. Pumps + ferrofluid + cells + control systems = some really bitchin' squishbots.
"Magnetohydrodynamics [wikipedia.org] has been around for quite a while"
Wow, you mean, like, REALLY? An entire field of applied maths/physics has been around "for quite a while"? I must run and tell the solar physicists!!!!!!!!!
"Magnetohydrodynamics... has long been one of the holy grails of submarine propulsion with prototypes existing now for years."
This is non-sensical and you know it. Magnetohydrodynamics is a theory. It is not submarine propulsion, which is the business of making submarines move. If you can't tell the difference between these you may as well give up and fuck off.
"During my last visit to a Los Angeles class submarine [utah.edu], this was a hot topic"
Oh man, I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were so important! Let me lick your boots.
Pumping without moving parts is not news. Liquid metal cooled nuclear reactors, aluminium foundries use this technology, among other things.
Not rocket science, you can go buy yourself a magnetic metal "pump" today: http://www.cminovacast.com/prod/index.html (google 1st for liquid metal cooling pump).
Oh, you talk about magnetically pumping non-metals. Well that's nice.
So, it is a whole bunch of moving parts.
Magnetohydrodynamic pumps that can move a liquid without moving parts have existed for a long time and for example are used to pump liquid sodium in some nuclear reactors. Any conductive liquid can be pumped that way.
So it's wrong to say that the "goal to pump liquids with no machinery remained elusive, until now". What's new is the ability to pump a magnetic fluid using only a magnetic field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_turbine
Such pumps art part of wave soldering devices for 30 years now...
Liquid metals are used for cooling nuclear power plants and electromagnetic pumps have been around for a long time. You can pump any conductive liquid. I've built them myself for a prototype of a heat exchanger my company refused to patent. Not their core business and heat exchangers are "a commodity". Look how much DARPA puts into heat exchangers. Dumb.
For a test system machine some slots that you can pound thick, insulated wires into parallel to each other in a triangle, hexagon, etc shape in a block of non-conductive material (you can use aluminum, just be careful) so that after you pound in the wires into the slots you can machine a triangle shape fluid path with exits at each point of the triangle so that sides of the wire are bare to the fluid channels. Put clear tubes into the fluid exit channels and run those into colored water.
Wire the ends of the thick wires to a board. Changing polarity changes fluid directional flow. Getting the voltage right was a challenge and I don't remember what I used, but, I remember it was higher than I thought it should be.
By changing the polarity and voltage applied to one set of the wires you can change the direction of fluid flow.
Imagine a heat exchanger like this on a board. As different areas of the board heat up the fluid flow changes applying more cooling to the area that is hottest. Pretty kewl stuff, solid state.
Aren't the electrons moving?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I 1966 I personally saw a similar pump in action at my high school science fair. It was made from an old transformer and plastic tubing. I don't even think it won any awards. The fluid wasn't fancy, just salt water. I seem to recall the presentation mentioned the potential it coule used as a propulsion system for submarines.
Of course, I didn't read TFA but I'm curious what mysterious properties were "demonstrated for the first time" when as HS student (and his dad) built a working pump more than 40 years ago.
moving magnetic material with a magnet ... next up the no shit hour
Anyone who's worked in audio speaker design and used ferrofluid (a common addition to tweeters and small, wide-band drivers, but sometimes used in larger drivers) knows that it will migrate (flow) with the magnetic field applied by the voice coil... In fact, careful attention must be paid to the ratio of voice coil field to static field and the shape of the magnetic gap to keep the ferrofluid from not blowing out of the gap.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Ferrofluid touch interface
Touch interface that uses Ferrofluids to provides tactile feedback
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Ferrofluid_20touch_20interface
I guess halfbakery no longer constitutes as "prior art" since we've gone from first to invent to first to file. That place is probably being scoured right now...
brotip: Use magnetz for faster fluid. http://trollscience.com/
Is there a way to evaporate these ferrofluids? Then sunlight could evaporate some ferrofluid against gravity, leaving it to condense and drain back through these "pumping" channels. By letting the moving fluid drive electrons through the pump's power circuits, the way an electric motor becomes a generator when a moving medium turns its driveshaft (eg. a windmill), the fluid would generate electrical power. Solar power might be captured at very high efficiency, in machines requiring very little/infrequent maintenance. Their overall efficiency would thereby increase, and make them more installable in places hard to reach but close to sunlight.
The sunlight might have to be concentrated if the evaporation point is hard to reach. But as long as the concentrated light vaporizes it without burning or otherwise chemically changing the ferrofluid, this kind of system could work. Combining high efficiency with large energy scales would mean lots of efficient energy.
--
make install -not war
Presumably the 45 patents they held have expired....