On Mar 13, 2008, at 6:48 AM, Jones Beene wrote:
Ron
I had a look at the paper. There is not enough detail to make it
worth the trouble.
That's for sure!
Like you , I find the amazing thing is that it works at all in the
MHz range- even if it is only (today) a very inefficient
electrolyzer. This seems to be a case of intense non-ionizing
radiation being made ionizing by the surface effects of a
polarizing waveguide.
I think the mechanism is a result of the ionization kinetics of fast
moving sodium and chlorine, which is pushed about by the
comparatively slow RF field. This ion motion might have a resonant
characteristic, and might better be produced by quadrupole
stimulation. See:
http://mtaonline.net/~hheffner/Ostressing.pdf
for some thoughts related to stimulating circular ion motion,
specifically nuclear motion. Ions other than sodium should thus have
their own ideal frequencies for dissociating H2O. I suspect the fact
the atomic weights of (23) of Na and Cl (35.45) are close but not
equal may also be important.
I suspect H2 and HOOH is produced. This is also what happens to
ordinary water in a microwave I think, but to a much smaller degree.
The flame itself appears to be consuming atmospheric oxygen. If the
evolving gas were anywhere near stoichiometric it would explode with
a "pop" rather than produce a visible flame that waves around. The
flame front is maintained by a significant difference in oxidants
within and without. It would be most interesting to see what flame,
if any, results if the test tube is enclosed in a helium atmosphere.
I think I read somewhere the process does not work, or work as well,
with KCl, but that might be due to a required frequency change. It
would of course be of much interest to test various other
electrolytes and correlate stimulation frequency to gas production
for them.
I would expect the strong drop off in flame support, when the NaCl is
less than 1%, may be due to the fact recombination overwhelms the
peroxide forming process, probably due to an insufficient H3O+
concentration to support H2 formation. Without a sufficient
ionization flux the H3O+ and OH- in the ionization tracks just
recombines.
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
