Fire from Saltwater

[Aggie]

Now, I'm quite sure that this produces less energy than is put in via radiowaves, but it's still a neat trick:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kKtKSEQBeI


So THAT's how they have campfires on Bikini Bottom... 

[Swatopluk]

Looks to me more like a variation of the Langmuir torch without a visible electric arc or an inductively coupled plasma on speed.
Looks like either an elaborate joke or a complete lack of understanding of thermodynamics.
The idea about cancer treatment on the other hand has potential but I think that's not actually new either, and there is (still) a problem with nanoparticles in living organisms iirc. Not much use curing one cancer while creating a new one on the spot.

[ivor]

I totally don't understand chemistry or physics but I saw him doing this on television.  The effect has to be some sort of plasma or something.  It looked like burning lightning.  How much power is going in though, that's a good question.

[Swatopluk]

I am more surprised that nothing happened to the guy's finger. Blood is not actually distilled water.

[ivor]

He says that the effect is "burning" 1500 degrees.  That's much hotter than hydrogen burns.  In one shot he was running a sterling engine with the heat.  I wonder what the wavelength and power of his radiation is?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

So IIUC that is something like hydrolysis, if indeed what bursts into (what seems like plasma) is hydrogen. The question would be the amount of energy required and if it is more efficient than traditional hydrolysis. Also I can't see clearly if there are fumes coming out from the flame when there is no paper, nor know if the flame can be sustained once started if the machine is off (I doubt it).

[Aggie]

Heh, simple minds think alike - was going to post along that line (efficiency compared to electrolytical decomposition of water).  If it's more efficient, then this is still a breakthrough - especially if one can separate out the H₂ before it is allowed to combust.


Side note: 
Hydro_lysis is usually 'to break with water', not breaking water (although 'cyto_lysis' goes against this pattern of usage).
Usually water is 'broken' with electricity - electro_lysis.  I suppose this case would be radio_lysis.

Now, I've wondered for a long time about anal_lysis - to break with ass, perhaps?

[Swatopluk]

In a plasma there would not be hydrogen molecules but atomic hydrogen. This reacts much more aggressively and produces much higher temperatures (enough to melt tungsten). Even the mere recombination of the molecules produces temperatures of 4000°C.

Personally I doubt that the efficiency is very high. Electrolysis works at moderate temperatures and does not produce much heat. Ripping the molecules apart by radiation will lose most of the energy as heat by recombination (even if there is no radiation loss, which is extremly unlikely). It's fuel cell vs. combustion engine just in reverse (if one could reverse a combustion engine).