Salt Water Power Revisited

OK my mind finally cleared and the reality of watching electricity produced from radio wave radiation has passed. Now the real deal about this phenomenon.

It is interesting to see gas burning above a test tube full of salt water irradiated with radio waves. Is this a new source of fuel? Is this going to solve our energy dependence and change our country from one of energy dependence to one of energy independence? I don't think so; in fact I know so. I do think something interesting is happening here and it is a novel way to produce hydrogen gas. The fact remains that the energy equation must be balanced and this method is still way out of whack energy wise. We are pumping more energy into the system to get energy out. So the big question is: are we making more energy in the form of hydrogen gas than we are spending. In this case the answer is no. I don't know all the intimate details of the process but one thing I know for sure is that breaking a hydrogen atom off a water molecule takes as much energy as it takes to combine with the oxygen molecule. We are pumping about 200 watts into the test tube and getting hydrogen atoms out. Well this sounds magically great upon first inspection if we could defy the laws of chemistry and physics and get more energy out than we put into the system. Lets say we put 10 BTUs into the system and we get 100 BTUs out then we have a net gain off 90 BTUs and that is a great yield. But lets say for argument sake we pump 200 watts into the system and get 150 watts out. Now we are experiencing an energy deficit which means we are continually pumping more energy into the system than we get out. The only way we can afford to do this is if we have an infinite surplus of energy with no where to go like waste heat from another process or surplus electricity with no market to sell to. I can tell you with certainty that this is costing more energy to get a BTU of hydrogen out than we are putting into the system. So why do I keep talking about hydrogen gas and not hydrogen and oxygen like we see in electrolysis. Electrolysis by radio waves would mean we are splitting the water molecule in the following way:

H2O --> H2 + O

This is reversible but I am showing it only one way because I can't figure out how to draw the arrow both directions.

Well the reason I think it is only hydrogen gas produced is the way it burns. It only burns outside the test tube and it does not ignite explosively the way a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen would if it were a mixture. It would also pop the paper towel out of the tube when this happened. I have done this experiment letting both gases combine in the test tube. It makes a heck of a pop and then blows the flame out.

So what do I think is happening here? I think it is incomplete cleavage of the Hydrogen bond resulting in only one hydrogen atom coming off instead of two. So a lesser amount of energy is required to break one atom off which appears to be what we are seeing here. I think the total equation is:

H2O --> H+ + OH

The OH most likely combines with the Na in the water and so is raising the pH and causing it to become more alkaline and is also limiting the reaction. It was also mentioned in the video that it ran for a few minutes and then stops on its own. Theoretically a test tube full of water should be able to produce hydrogen and oxygen gas until all of the water is gone. If nothing is consumed in the reaction i.e. the radio waves acting as a catalyst and energy source then it should run until the water is gone as long as the radio transmitter is on. Because of inefficiencies in the radio transmitter, heat is produced and not all the radio waves go into the test tube so energy is being lost before it can do the job of splitting the water molecule. So we are losing more energy than we can possibly get out.

Well hey if it acts like a catalyst can we be getting a lot more energy out than we are putting in? The answer is no unfortunately. A catalyst only lowers the activation energy curve meaning the reaction happens easier but still requires the same amount of energy to do the real work. So from wikipedia the dissociation energy is:

"--- an O-H bond of a water molecule (H-O-H) has 493.4 kJ mol^-1 of bond dissociation energy, and 424.4 kJ mol^-1 is needed to cleave the remaining O-H bond. The bond energy of the O-H bonds in water is 458.9 kJ mol^-1, which is the average of the values."

1 BTU ~ 1.0545 kJ

So quite a bit of energy is put into the water molecule to get some hydrogen out. It is cheaper in the long run to put the electricity straight into a battery and then straight back out into a motor achieving about 60% efficiency than the alternative of converting electricity to hydrogen gas with all its loses and then convert the hydrogen back into electricity with a fuel cell or other method to drive say the wheels of a car. This achieves a dismal 10 to 20% efficiency and a tremendous energy loss or deficiency.

I think we need to stay the course and work on bio-fuels as the way to become energy self sufficient as a nation. And bio-fuels need to be scrutinized as well to be sure there is a net energy gain as is the case with oil distillation process for production of gasoline. Even this process is not free, with some of the fuel 10-20% being burned to produce gasoline. But we are still way on the positive side of the energy equation. So in the final analysis: this is just a cool way to produce expensive hydrogen gas.

Salt Water Power

What if we could produce hydrogen and oxygen cheaply from salt water. Yes that is right; from ordinary salt water. I didn't believe it until I saw it either. So before you think I'm too far off center look at this YouTube.com posting. I guarantee this will impress you! Salt water burning.