Slashdot Log In
Making Fire From Water
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 05, 2005 09:33 PM
from the cue-mad-scientist-laughter-now dept.
from the cue-mad-scientist-laughter-now dept.
LexNaturalis writes "Gizmodo has a story out about a new product that makes fire from water. Gizmodo explains how it works: 'Ordinary tap water (preferably distilled) is supplied to the fireplace through a pipe or tank, a 220 volt electrical service then separates the hydrogen and oxygen atoms through electrolysis, the Aqueon ignites the hydrogen, and ta-dah, fire! The oxygen is then added for color and brightness, while the rest is released into the room. It doesn't require venting because it doesn't produce any harmful emittents like carbon monoxide -- just water vapor.' The manufacturer's website has more information on the science behind this new product. While splitting water to get hydrogen and oxygen is not new, this product will likely make the technology more accessible to the masses and might hopefully show that hydrogen is a more attractive fuel than petroleum-based fuels."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Fire from water? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fire from water? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Before you get too excitied (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Before you get too excitied (Score:3, Funny)
$49,999 and wasteful! Excellent! :) (Score:5, Insightful)
*SIGH*
Parent
ROFL (Score:5, Funny)
That's like making wine out of water, and oh, yeah, some grapes and stuff.
Re:ROFG (Score:4, Funny)
Some old houses have 60 Amp service -- if they use gas stoves.
Stoves and clothes dryers are commonly wired to 40 amp circuits (each), so these units are going to eat 50% more power than my stove with all burners and the oven on.
It'd probably be cheaper to buy 20 P4s as space heaters, plus 2 more to run a really nice display.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Parent
What about the pollutant residue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Conversion wastes energy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Conversion wastes energy (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:But waste energy is heat (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know many places that need 13 kW of heating that don't already have it.
Parent
Wow (Score:3, Funny)
Check the 220V circuit rating (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Check the 220V circuit rating (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmmm... Misunderstood? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is NOT an alternative energy source, it's a wasteful energy consumer...
This is not a fuel source! (Score:5, Funny)
GEEZ. You might as well take a solar powered light and shine it on itself.
Re:This is not a fuel source! (Score:5, Funny)
Haha! It's my idea now! So long sucker!
Parent
Yeah right (Score:3, Interesting)
A *fuel* eh? Just like my lead-acid car battery is a fuel.
Wake up folks; water is the most stable chemical form of hydrogen and oxygen. Breaking water to form hydrogen is an inefficient (wasteful) process.
The only potentially viable way to generate hydrogen is to "burn" biomass or mined gasses/oils. Biomass has to be grown, thus putting a strain on farmland and possibly promoting world hunger (we'll burn their food for energy). There are cleaner, more efficient ways of extracting energy from petroleum than converting it to hydrogen.
Hydrogen is merely a "cool" idea for porkbelly projects. As a non-naturally ocurring fuel, it is a non-starter.
Right...yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a billion and two ways to get atomic hydrogen, and this is just one of them. Sure, it's ineffecient, but so is burning carbon fuels.
Besides, electricity can be derived from anything these days. Put a few solar panels on your roof, and you've got a self contained hydrogen producer. Step it up another notch with rain water collection and filtration and it's competely autonomous.
But oh, I guess you'll argue that photovatalics are terrible and that silicon hurts the environment and that oil's the best fuel we got.
Next up, Biofuel. It's cheap! It's effecient! And if you were truly worried about the world farmlands, you'd be *advocating* this. The more biofuel that goes into production, the more the need for farmlands, and farmlands will grow in size. Thus, overall food output will increase and we will be able to transport that same food further, for cheaper than oil.
I know, I know, it's rough I don't wanna give up my old beater jeep either, but the fact is that oil is unsustainable and the sun IS sustainable. Well, unless you want to get pedantic on me and say the sun will go away in 5 billion years.
Hydrogen's a great idea as long as it's implemented correctly, which is where the research is currently going on. Oil was a terrible idea; just look at the middle east today!
Parent
Re:Right...yeah (Score:3, Interesting)
Uncalled for ad-hominem.
> Besides, electricity can be derived from anything these days.
I agree, but why waste electricity creating hydrogen? As the most versatile form of energy known to man, why not use it directly?
>
Massive corporate farms with the requisite processing equipment would grow in size. The guys in small or dry countries wouldn't have a chance. Also, org
Re:Yeah right (Score:3, Insightful)
I dunno, plants do a pretty good job of it.
Let me clarify a little bit here.. (Score:4, Interesting)
No, what this shows is that hydrogen is simply a derivative of fossil fuels, and is in fact an extremely expensive, inefficient and almost useless way to store and transport energy.
Let's see, we start with huge lumps of coal, convert them to steam, convert the steam to electricity, and then use the electricity to make hydrogen which (in a fuel cell) we can convert back to electricity. Energy is lost at every step along the way. In particular, compressing the hydrogen from atmospheric pressure to storage tank pressure loses about HALF the total energy, so even if the fuel cell is 100% efficient, you've still lost HALF the energy you started with.
But commercial hydrogen is not produced by electrolysis. It's produced from natural gas and steam. So let's see, we start with natural gas, a product which has the following properties:
- Cheap
- Easy to store and transport with widely available equipment
- Can run through cheap, widely available engines
- Fairly clean burning (compared to diesel)
- High energy density in compressed tanks
and we convert that to hydrogen which has the following properties:- Very very expensive
- Very difficult to store. The only real-world proven way to store it at a high density is to liquify it. That will never be a practical option outside of aerospace industry
- Can be burned in regular engines, with regular engine efficiency, or can be burned in extremely expensive fuel cells. There is no realistic possibility of fuel cells becoming cost competitive in the foreseeable future.
- Low energy-density for real-world storage (compressed tanks, etc). Fuel cell cars have a range of less than 200 miles usually.
- Oh, and it's clean burning! Finally after all the bad things about H2 we come to one good thing!
- It makes the whole global warming and oil dependency problems worse becomes it takes so much energy is wasted in the process of converting fossil fuels into hydrogen.
The one thing that could help is that you can make hydrogen from clean nuclear energy and from clean solar energy, but given that hydrogen electrolysis is not cost-competitive with even cheap fossil fuel electricity, why should it be cost competitive with much more expensive solar electricity?I regret that our government is involved in subsidizing this whole boondoggle, but I have no worries that it will continue in the long-term. Some small improvements in lithium batteries, and some reasonable production economy in lithium batteries will make electric cars competitive with plain old ICE cars, and the hydrogen fuel research pork programs will shrivel up and die.
----------------
mobile search [mwtj.com]
Re:Let me clarify a little more (Score:3, Insightful)
What about nitrogen oxides? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hydrogen burns pretty hot.
I wonder what steps these folks have taken to prevent or minimize emission of nitrogen oxides.
I also wonder how they're getting color in the flame, since the usual cheerful yellow comes from incandescent soot particles.
Maybe when they designed it they were under the influence of firewater.
Uses 4,000 Watts? (Score:3, Informative)
It's an art piece (Score:5, Interesting)
This just happens to turn electricity into heat in an amusing way, at a high price. There are, of course lots of other interesting ways to turn electricity into heat. My computers are doing plenty of that right now.
If they really were pitching this as a way to heat the house, it would be as bad an idea as any other electric heater. They are way poorer in total "well to home" efficiency than gas furnaces, but often used because they are cheap to install (expensive to run), very easy to meter (for landlords), and on the positive side, can be easily individually controlled on a room by room basis, which sometimes can make them more efficient than heaters that either heat the whole building or nothing at all.
But I doubt this is meant as such a heater. It's meant as an art piece, to wow your fellow millionaire friends.
Pffft! Amateurs! (Score:5, Funny)
Clean energy!
Infrastructure, infrastructure... (Score:3, Funny)
I mean...you can get hydrogen from water. I've never seen a gas station that lacks water OR electricity...so how hard is it REALLY to supply hydrogen at every gas staion in america?
it's a fancy, inefficient space heater... (Score:3, Insightful)
let's do the math-
220V x 60amps = 13.2kW = ~45,000 btu's. According to their website, this device produces about 31,000 btus/hr, so that makes this ~69% efficient.
BUT... that kind of heating capacity usually comes from a gas furnace or a heat pump, which usually require insulated ductwork, or a fireplace, which loses a lot of its heat out the chimney.
This thing can (at least theoretically) go in the middle of a room, provide the ambience and heating ability of a fireplace, and doesn't lose any of its heat out a chimney. Probably a solution looking for a problem, but you gotta admit it's kinda cool...
It would be even cooler if the water were incorporated into design- like having a sheet of water flowing over the base or something...
"Excess oxygen"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's see - water splits into 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom...hydrogen in the presense of oxygen can be ignited to produce water vapor, which contains...umm...2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, leaving...ummm...nothing?
What excess oxygen are they talking about? Sure, the hydrogen could combine with the oxygen in the room that's already there, and therefore there would be excess from the original separation, but we are talking a net zero gain...it's no like we're adding oxygen to our home, which really has no benefit...
Hydrogen is not a fuel (Score:3, Insightful)
This fire is a joke.
Power stations are inefficient. Most of them are around 40%, there are a few types like combined cycle gas turbines that make it up to around 60% efficient. That means electric heating is no more than 60% efficient. That sounds OK till you realise that the power station is throwing away gigawatts of "waste" heat.
If this "waste" heat was pumped round houses, buildings and used to heat them instead of the electricity then the electricity could be used for something else instead. Closer to 90% efficiency rather than 40% or 60%. It's called District Heating and has been round for decades.
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:3, Funny)
Why? Because of the immense amount of greenhouses released into the atmosphere by everyone's fireplaces?
"Code Orange Smog Alert: Please limit driving and fireplace-using..."
I will not living room-pool.
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:3, Insightful)
How could we do that?
Oh YEAH! WOOD!
Re:Hydrogen from water (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Hydrogen from water (Score:4, Interesting)
They even include the supply chain side of transporting and storing hydrogen vs gasoline. They found that a fuel cell driven by gasoline actually produces less emissions than a fuel cell driven by coal.
The problem is the loss of effiency. To convert water to hydrogen via electrolysis from coal, the loss from coal to tank is 78%. After the hydrogen is used in a fuel cell, it loses an additional 43%, for a total loss of 92%.
Compared to gasoline.. pumping a gallon of oil, transporting to a refinery, turning it to gas, and transporting the gas to a filling station takes away 21% of the energy potential of the oil. For a conventional IC engine, 85% of the energy in the gas tank is lost. That brings it to a total of only 88%.
Parent
Re:Hydrogen from water (Score:3, Informative)
Since when are the efficiencies of hydrogen fuel cells only 57%? 1980? New cells (which are what would be used, of course) are ~70% efficient (and should be able to get up to 85% if you utilize waste heat).
Since when do gasoline IC engines lose 85% of the
Re:Hydrogen from water (Score:3, Insightful)
That's all swell, but the majority of power is generated by burning fossil fuels, NOT by hydro, solar, or nukes (at least in North America.)
So, when you push electrons to make your H2 you're most likely burning a fossil fuel and adding greenhouse gasses in a less effecient process than the direct burning of fossil fules at the point of use.
More information (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Firewater... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Firewater... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:releases oxygen? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only that - what do they do with all that hydrogen then? I know I'm from biology and not chemistry, but if I remember correctly (and I am scratching my head here) water contains twice as much hydrogen as it contains oxygen, so if you're going to have excess oxygen you will have twice as much excess hydrogen.
Or could it be that somehow this magic fireplace miraculously manages to combine all the hydrogen with the o
Re:That'll burn a lot of oil... (Score:3, Insightful)
The ultimate energy source in our solar system is the sun. Everything comes from that. We're just living on "borrowed" energy right now, burning up millions of years' worth solar energy stored in the form of chemicals. When it runs out we will have to tap our energy source directly - the biggest problem we face is how to "store" that energy. The collection of that energy is a problem of cost and surface area. How many solar panels? How many windmills?
Re:I thought hydrogen flames were invisible? (Score:3, Informative)
Whether or not a molecule emits energy in the form of light has nothing to do with the number of atoms. It has to do with the energy levels of the electrons in the outer shell.
As the electrons fall back from their excited state they emit a photon of light at a particular wavelenght, related to the energy drop. If you have a small drop then the wavelength will be large, ie red or infra-red light. If you have a large drop then the wavelength will be smaller, ie green, blue, violet.
Don't forget that when hyd
Re:I thought hydrogen flames were invisible? (Score:3, Insightful)
What? (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words, either the hydrogen will all oxidize, or some of it will, but I don't see how that would change the color, unless the heat is high enough to cause visible black body radiation.
Either way, you
Re:TFA wrong! (Score:3, Informative)
Some of it is. Water, all on its own, does the following:
H20 (-----------) H+ + OH-
This is the reason why pure water has a pH of 7. This means that 10^7 hydrogen ions exist in one litre of the purest water. It can't be helped, it's a natural property of water.
The dissociated part, since it has a charge, is a really god conductor of electricity. This is the part that turns to gas when you electrolyse. And as th
Re:Net Energy Cost? (Score:3, Informative)
Heat. Only it's heat where it isn't that useful to you... like as latent heat in the humidity you're generating and higher wavelengths (visible/near visible light).
Yes, making heat can be 100% efficient, but it isn't always that way depending on how you want to use the heat. In this case, an electric IR heater would probably do a better job heating the space and a flourecent/LED lamp would do a MUCH better job cre
Parent is pure disinformation. (Score:5, Insightful)
Electrical transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_trans
Secondly, "nothing is created, nothing is lost". When you're trying to heat up a room with electricity, waste heat is a good thing. This hydrogen fire device has multiple conversion stages, all of them inefficient - in that they release waste heat. In the end, all of the energy that goes into the system is converted into heat.
In fact, most of the heat of the device probably comes from the electrolysis rather than from the burning. But in the end, it's meant to be a room heater, and is doing a fine job as that. It is as efficient a furnace as a normal heater, or as a beowulf cluster. That's right, a beowulf cluster is a very good way to heat your room, and it's just as efficient as a purpose-made heater.
Do you know about heat pumps ? Those devices are basically air conditioners acting in reverse, taking heat from the outdoors, during the winter, and pumping it inside. At first glance, it doesn't make much sense: pumps and compressors are very inefficient devices, aren't they ? Plus, there's not much heat outside... But then you realise that the waste heat of the whole heat pump is a good thing - it's kept inside the house and used to heat it up. So all the heat pump has to do is extract a little bit of energy from the outside and spit out lots of waste heat, hence making it a tad more efficient than a device which merely spits waste heat.
Any electrical devices that doesn't move outside air around is an efficient heater. Your toaster, your computer and your electrical chainsaw are just as efficient as your room heater, when it comes to producing heat.
Anyway, your post is a travesty of science and logic. You were inspired by a hampster and your reasoning smells of elderberries.
Parent
Re:Parent is pure disinformation. (Score:3, Interesting)
About the only passably informative thing in this post is the US power transmission losses.
Secondly, "nothing is created, nothing is lost". When you're trying to heat up a room with electricity, waste heat is a good thing. This hydrogen fire device has multiple conversion stages, all of them inefficient - in that they release waste heat. In the end, all of the energy that goes into the system is converted into heat.
What they have is a giant, ineffecient H2O splitter.