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Flaming 'Blue Whirl' Could Be Used In Fuel Spill Cleanup (sciencenews.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science News: An unfortunate mix of electricity and bourbon has led to a new discovery. After lightning hit a Jim Beam warehouse in 2003, a nearby lake was set ablaze when the distilled spirit spilled into the water and ignited. Spiraling tornadoes of fire leapt from the surface. In a laboratory experiment inspired by the conflagration, a team of researchers produced a new, efficiently burning fire tornado, which they named a blue whirl. To re-create the bourbon-fire conditions, the researchers, led by Elaine Oran of the University of Maryland in College Park, ignited liquid fuel floating on a bath of water. They surrounded the blaze with a cylindrical structure that funneled air into the flame to create a vortex with a height of about 60 centimeters. Eventually, the chaotic fire whirl calmed into a blue, cone-shaped flame just a few centimeters tall, the scientists report online August 4 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The soot-free blur whirls could be a way of burning off oil spills on water without adding much pollution to the air, the researchers say, if they can find a way to control them in the wild. You can view the clean-burning 'blue whirl' here.
The cause, and solution to, all of life's problems
neat!
But when I experiment with fire, I get called a pyromaniac and an arsonist and have to run from police. It is discrimination I tell ya.
BAH HUMBUG!!
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
What possibly could go wrong?
"They surrounded the blaze with a cylindrical structure that funneled air into the flame to create a vortex with a height of about 60 centimeters."
My earliest memoir of my dad barbecuing includes him using an empty olive-oil can to create precisely the conditions described though with different fuel and resulting in a red whirl.
Isn't burning alcohol always soot-free without any other tech-gadget?
I#m impressed when they do it with Diesel. Or crude oil, which was involved in most spilling accidents.
bickerdyke
After lightning hit a Jim Beam warehouse in 2003, a nearby lake was set ablaze when the distilled spirit spilled into the water and ignited. Spiraling tornadoes of fire leapt from the surface.
This reads like it might be the body text from one of those awful full-page magazine adverts the whisky makers like to run with sepia-toned photos from the good ol' days and a paragraph of text rambling about some accidental discovery made by the founder of the distillery. Gah.
This was a case a alconado followed by a firenado. Who knows how far does it go after gone through the slippery slope.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
- Oscar Wilde
since 10,000 BC!
An old timer told me of a time he saw a ship carrying bundles of lumber torpedoed during World War II. The spilled fuel caused firenados where the floating bundles of lumber wicked it up. When they went back the next morning to search for survivors there was very little oil left floating on the water. Maybe it happened, maybe it's just an old war story.
What could possibly go wrong?
Could giant blue whirls hovering high in the sky be the cause of people seeing "alien spaceships"?
Signed,
Miss Information, for The U.S.A. Air Force.
As cool as a clean burning column of fire is, a vortex engine looks like a more practical use of the phenomenon. The idea is to capture the energy of a rising warm air column as in a solar updraft tower, though without needing to construct a tower. It also offers the potential to replace cooling towers, and extract energy from the significant amount of "waste" heat available at thermal or nuclear plants. (That heat need not be wasted, and can also be used for cogeneration. The higher temperature heat produced by advanced reactors like LFTR or other MSRs can also drive industrial processes including desalination, production of carbon-neutral synthetic fuels and ammonia, etc.)
Also see the atmospheric vortex engine.
Wait a minute. Wasn't there an old huge video-displayed problem with oil spills (leaks, whatever) the poor birds with oiled feathers and fish unable to function? Set aside the fact that money was asked for in some of those commercial^H^H^Hpresentations, but it was a concern.
I'm not for or against anything in this statement, but aren't they leaving out a piece of "natural health" with this solution?
"Put up that huge ole cylinder, light it ablaze and watch how slowly (or quickly, depending on the location in the vortex) those creatures burn alive! That there water only gots carbon shits left on it now! SUCCESS!"
Scientists are going to have to repeat experiments with Stoli, Glenfiddich and Hennessy.
Have gnu, will travel.
Hmmm
Firenado and oil covered birds and fish.
Dinner and a show!
Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
So go look on YouTube and watch burning booze..
YouTube.. which is Google.. which is US Gov.
Hmmm
Firenado and oil covered birds and fish.
Dinner and a show!
Ok, thanks. Now I'm hungry. Where in the eff did I leave that kids pool and used oil??