http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/10/tech/main3246430.shtml

Possible Energy Source: Burning Seawater
Cancer Researcher Discovers Hydrogen From Salt Water Can Be "Burned" By Radio Frequencies


ERIE, Pa., Sept. 10, 2007
prototype cancer treatment machineResearcher John Kanzius, seen here experimenting with radio waves to kill cancer cells in a 2005 photo, discovered that salt water could be "burned" by exposing it to a radio wave generator. The finding has some excited about salt water's potential as an abundant fuel source. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Quote

"Seeing it burn gives me the chills."
Rustum Roy
chemist


(AP) An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.

John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies it would burn.

The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.

Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.

The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.

The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said.

"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."

Roy will meet this week with officials from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try to obtain research funding.

The scientists want to find out whether the energy output from the burning hydrogen - which reached a heat of more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit - would be enough to power a car or other heavy machinery.

"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Roy said. "The potential is huge."

Very interesting Joe, thanks!

I hate to be skeptical, but it sounds like a violation of the first law of thermodynamics--- when water burns it becomes water. The energy it takes to disassociate water is the same as when it is recombined to create it.

However, his idea for treating cancer seems to have some real potential. I hope it works out!

The current efficienct measured is 76% but the inventor stumbled upon other manipulations so that you can use other external energy inputs (could be heating from the solar or other chemical concoction) such that the apparent output over input now exceeds unity (but thermodynamically it is still below 1, only that the other inputs are energy that doesn't cost, so are not counted). Because he achieved beyond 100% (not thermodynamically though), he is putting an embargo of his recent and future findings so that he can sell his patents much better.

But the 76% efficiency can be pushed higher. And the most exciting here is that this is still another method of extracting hydrogen from water without the use of very expensive catalysts and electrolysis. What this means is that we can have wireless transfer of energy. We can beam the energy into concentrated directional RF waves where it will split saltwater from afar for the machinery to use or for generators to produce electricity. we can for example beam down energy captured by satellites in space to convert it into RF waves and then o split water to receiving stations below to produce hydrogen fuel even during night time, and the efficiency is quite high.

If it is a more efficient or cheaper way to generate H2 for other uses like fuel cells or H2 powered cars, that is good. The press release just sounded more like the "something for nothing" kind of claim that we hear from people that don't understand thermodynamics or are outright frauds.

However, if efficiency is the primary discovery, the article should have made that point. It is poor reporting in that case.

Here’s a video of the experiment.
http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/90850192-2AB9-4747-B12E-2BCDEF0926BC/

Those videos show me that it is Kanzius that is promoting the idea that this is a new source of energy--that is false! The source of energy in this case is the RF generator--powered by electricity, powered by fossil fuels most likely.

If it is a more efficient way to generate H2--that's good-- but all this hype about a new source of energy is designed to get money---probably from me as a taxpayer.

I hate dishonesty like this.

Actually, I burned saltwater in an RF field for about 20 years. My saltwater flame even got to over 10,000 degrees. I not only disassociated the hydrogen and oxygen, but many of the electrons that surround the atoms. Of course the RF generator I used had an input of about 1 megawatt. I never measured the output wattage, but it was a very bright light. You could only look at it through welders glass.

Has the military come up with a design for RF generator that can explode bombs prematurely?

For example, there may be hidden bombs in the road or even stored in some bunkers. Direct the wave towards the suspicious area and those bombs will explode. Different types of chemicals would require different frequencies. If the bomb has exploded, it should not explode again, so the troops can safely pass. If you direct the RF waves unto the suspected areas, it should explode the bombs, and you got rid of ammunition and conventional bombs.

I am wondering why I haven't come across research like this one, the concept is simple, it worked with many stuff, you can simply heat up a molecule at the right frequency to trigger the cascading chemical reaction.

Of course nuclear and other types of bombs that would require different reactions are another type of problems. But the US troops dropping like flies from these old technology bombs are a reality, and this should be one application of RF technology that could be looked into.

The problem would be the energy supply. The RF generator I used to burn seawater was bigger than a refrigerator and had a power cord as big as my wrist-- and it only burned a couple milliliters of seawater a minute. Unless you know exactly where the bomb is and can direct the energy only at it, there would be a lot of wasted energy.

Surely triggering a chemical reaction would only require a tiny fraction of energy compared to melting the bomb.

It is like how a small tuning fork could collapse a bridge at the right tune and modulation resonance. Waves operate in a similar way and we start to trigger those chemical bonds. Just one of them could be triggered, it should cascade and achieve explosion. So not much energy needed. The trick is finding the right frequency and other wave parameters.

H2 is produced in gross quantities today in every Refinery in the country. There are a couple ways, steam reforming of natural gas is a common way, H2O + CH4 = H2 + CO2. Another is reforming of cyclohexane to benzene at high temperature over a platinum catalyst. The byproduct of this reaction is H2. The cheapest way is to recover the H2 from ethylene plant fuel gas. H2 is byproduct of ethane + heat = ethylene + H2. The fuel gas is about 60% H2 and is purified to 99+% using refrigeration(Cold box we call it) with gigantic compressors. Most of the hydrogen in Refineries is used to upgrade heavy, sour fuels to clean fuels like gasoline and diesel to 15ppm sulfur.

You miss my point. My point is the scientific method. If one guy can do it, any other scientist can repeat the experiment and get identical results. If not, the discovery ain't so.

A very close family friend is a super senior engineer (cannot be promoted any higher) working at the California Energy Commission and is heading the research and development of renewable energy and he is major decision maker on which projects to fund. We regularly discuss many things about energy and come across various proposals that violate basic laws of physics. We also discuss many methods than you mentioned about production of H2 from various sources, including steam reforming from medical wastes whose heat would otherwise be wasted away but instead used to generate H2 from various waste materials. One promising way for example is by directly splitting water using solar concentrator and catalysts achieving efficiency of 46% and higher when it comes to solar as the input. Solar panels of today are only around 20% efficiency, and to produce hydrogen from PV electricity would further reduce it down to just 15% overall.

But we agreed that production H2 from saltwater using RF waves is new and the chemistry and physics of it is explainable, the efficiency of energy used by RF generator is greater than the energy content of H2, as is true with all kinds of energy conversion in this physical world. But as i mentioned, there are various applications of this discovery, and it is not to extract energy from saltwater as the "press" have labeled this discovery and the inventor has implied.