saltwater as fuel?

[ColJack]

I was watching the end of something last night that was on about salt.
they were in a lab and using testubes of salt water, and bombarding them with radiowaves of a particular frequency, which broke the bonds of the salt water and produced hydrogen and oxyegen, which spontaneously combusted as they cleared the radio field.. ( the waste product was pure water vapour and salt.. )

in effect then found a way to burn sea water....

at the moment it takes more energy to do it that the hydrogen produces, but if they could make solar plants somewhere it's always sunny, and pump in sea water, then they can produce hydrogen and oxygen and store it for overnight use in hydrogen fuel cells, and they would also be producing fresh water for the locals and salt for them to sell...

 

[Nige F]

I was watching the end of something last night that was on about salt.

in effect then found a way to burn sea water....

...

BP has already done that

 

[Mickymoody]

I 'think' what you propose is the generation of 'heavy' water, which is used in the production of bombs, in WW2, and is deadly to humans if drank.

 

[Space cat]

at the moment it takes more energy to do it that the hydrogen produces

And it always will, but ---

but if they could make solar plants somewhere it's always sunny

It's perfectly possible to use solar energy to split water. The 'solar plants' are already out there. They're called plants. They don't actually produce hydrogen. They produce oxygen and other stuff, mostly cellulose, but you can still use that other stuff as fuel. Just don't burn the bits of the plant that we can eat.

I 'think' what you propose is the generation of 'heavy' water, which is used in the production of bombs, in WW2, and is deadly to humans if drank.

I hope not. I just drank some in my coffee! The stuff commonly called heavy water is deuterium oxide and you can find some in any sample of ordinary H2O. The isotope of hydrogen you don't want to drink is tritium. It's radioactive with a half-life of 12.5 years, whereupon it decays into harmless He3. It doesn't occur in nature and has to be made, at great expense, by bombarding lithium with neutrons and it is used in bombs.

 

[ColJack]

deuterium is not immediately deadly, but if you drink nothing but heavy water, you will die when 50% of your bodies water content is replaced by heavy water..

it prevents cell division so you stop replacing damaged cells, such as intestinal lining and red blood cells..

 

[heatingman]

memo to self
"must stop wife drinking heavy water"

Thanks I now know why she's so heavy, I thought it was all the chips and chocolate she stuffs out on!

 

[Mickymoody]

at the moment it takes more energy to do it that the hydrogen produces

And it always will, but ---

but if they could make solar plants somewhere it's always sunny

It's perfectly possible to use solar energy to split water. The 'solar plants' are already out there. They're called plants. They don't actually produce hydrogen. They produce oxygen and other stuff, mostly cellulose, but you can still use that other stuff as fuel. Just don't burn the bits of the plant that we can eat.

I 'think' what you propose is the generation of 'heavy' water, which is used in the production of bombs, in WW2, and is deadly to humans if drank.

I hope not. I just drank some in my coffee! The stuff commonly called heavy water is deuterium oxide and you can find some in any sample of ordinary H2O. The isotope of hydrogen you don't want to drink is tritium. It's radioactive with a half-life of 12.5 years, whereupon it decays into harmless He3. It doesn't occur in nature and has to be made, at great expense, by bombarding lithium with neutrons and it is used in bombs.

So you aren't saying you bought any special water, but this occurs naturally? And that 'radioactive half life 12.5 he3, straight over my head - explains why the film of the raid on a heavy water plant in I think Norway/Denmark??? Where a ferry was blown up, with heavy water on board, was never recovered, as it would dilute naturally?

I would think that most water has radioactive content to some level, as granite contains a certain amount, this in mountains in Scotland, for example, the water runs off the granite, and must pick up radioactivity.

I don't know..just that I went into a cave system tourist attraction a while back, and there are warnings of radioactivity. You seem to to know your stuff, educate me.

 

[ColJack]

heavy water isn't radioactive.

it's used as a neutron regulator in some types of nuclear reactor tough, so that's why we bombed the production facilities during the war, to stop the gerries from making a reactor..

 

[joinerjohn]

heavy water isn't radioactive.

it's used as a neutron regulator in some types of nuclear reactor tough, so that's why we bombed the production facilities during the war, to stop the gerries from making a reactor..

Very true ColJack. Heavy water isn't radioactive. It freezes at around 3 deg centigrade and boils around 102 deg. If you watered plants with it, the plants would stop growing though. it's not particularly toxic either for us humans as it would have to replace around 50%-75% of body water to have any consequences.
I watched a program last year where some scientists actually recovered some vessels of heavy water from the fjord in Norway where they were sunk by members of the resistance. They then tested the water and found it to be somewhere around 90% heavy water.
At the end of the war in Europe the Americans did find one reactor almost working in Germany and reckon they were within months of creating a reactor which could have produced plutonium. All the German scientists were missing was a way to control the reaction.

 

[Mickymoody]

WOW! I'm amazed. Have you guys got any reference data for what you post, it's not that I don't believe you, but would like to know more, I never knew that heavy water was recovered from the shipwreck in Norway, apart from re material from Wiki.

 

[Space cat]

but if you drink nothing but heavy water, you will die when 50% of your bodies water content is replaced by heavy water..

You learn something new every day. I always knew that hydrogen ions played an important role in biochemistry. There must be something about the doubled up mass of a deuterium ion that makes it behave differently.

I don't know..just that I went into a cave system tourist attraction a while back, and there are warnings of radioactivity. You seem to to know your stuff, educate me.

The natural radioactivity you find in caves has nothing to do with heavy water. Most of the natural radioactivity in our planet is derived from three long-lived nuclides: U-235, U-238 and Th-232. They were made in the final collapse of a dying star and they've been here since the solar system first formed.

They have been decaying slowly ever since and will end up as either bismuth or lead. This process involves multiple decays through other radioactive nuclides, one of which is radon gas. It oozes out of granite and collects in caves - but not for long because it also decays. It's better if it doesn't do this inside your lungs!