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Fuel of the future, may be Salt Water!?
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- Category: Treehugger / Go green
- Written by Harsh
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John Kanzius, an Erie cancer researcher, 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. John Kanzius discovered that by focusing certain radio-frequencies on a test tube of salt water, he could ignite the contents, which would them become hot enough to melt the test tube.The discovery has scientists and tree-huggers 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 radio waves, he said.
The discovery is “the most remarkable in water science in 100 years” .”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 (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DOD) 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. This could be a possible breakthrough, depending on how much energy it takes to separate the hydrogen from the water compared to how much hydrogen can be extracted.
Essentially if it takes less energy to produce Hydrogen from salt water than the energy produced by burning it, in a large enough scale to power engines then we might be looking at the future of abundant renewable Automotive fuels.