Salt Water Fuel?

For obvious reasons, scientists long have thought that salt water couldn’t be burned.

So when an Erie man announced he’d ignited salt water with the radio-frequency generator he’d invented, some thought it a was a hoax.

John Kanzius, a Washington County native, tried to desalinate seawater with a generator he developed to treat cancer, and it caused a flash in the test tube.

Within days, he had the salt water in the test tube burning like a candle, as long as it was exposed to radio frequencies.

His discovery has spawned scientific interest in using the world’s most abundant substance as clean fuel, among other uses.

Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, held a demonstration last week at the university’s Materials Research Laboratory in State College, to confirm what he’d witnessed weeks before in an Erie lab.

“It’s true, it works,” Dr. Roy said. “Everyone told me, ‘Rustum, don’t be fooled. He put electrodes in there.’ “

But there are no electrodes and no gimmicks, he said.

Dr. Roy said the salt water isn’t burning per se, despite appearances. The radio frequency actually weakens bonds holding together the constituents of salt water—sodium chloride, hydrogen and oxygen—and releases the hydrogen, which, once ignited, burns continuously when exposed to the RF energy field. Mr. Kanzius said an independent source measured the flame’s temperature, which exceeds 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, reflecting an enormous energy output.

Well, that would be yet another example of people finding solutions to common problems. Sea Water is certainly not running out. 

I think you posted about this guy a little while back. I was wondering how this story was developing.
Thanks.

Posted by Edshugeo The GodMoor  on  09/10  at  04:12 PM

Interesting and believable.
But the heart of the issue is net energy gain, something that has sunk our attempts at fusion power (for now, anyway).  And of course there’s the question of how it would scale (the reason most “green” power sources are not very useful).
Something to keep an eye on, anyway.

Posted by  on  09/11  at  01:40 PM

Well, the man is either a Charlatan or an ignorant fool.  Otherwise he’d know that he was simply duplicating a college lab experiment whereby one pumps a kilowatt of power into a vial of salt water to produce enough oxygen and hydrogen to run a Serling engine with an output of a watt at best.
I’m really getting tired of these fools/charlatans, because they divert attention away from honest efforts within the purview of science.  Yukk!
CharlieDennis

Posted by  on  09/14  at  04:41 PM
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