Re: [VO]: Call for new Ozone process

[Jones Beene]

From: R C Macaulay  
> There are Vorts here that have an idea on the subject that may help our 
> industry. 


If ozone could be made cheaply enough - and 'on the fly' then there is also a 
gigantic market for such a device in automotive- and probably in "grid power" 
(large power plants) as well. 

This is brought about by the increased heat-yield from combustion, when using 
ozone-enriched air, which will result in reducing fuel by not only more 
complete combustion and faster flame speed, but also by eliminating some of the 
energy necessary to convert O2 to ROS. That is not Richard's interest, of 
course, unless such a combustion process results in a dual-use ozone generator.

IOW there is a substantial net savings from combustion from substituting O3 for 
some of the fuel which would be otherwise required. The price of ozone, as 
everyone know, is the glaring problem for using that concept now.

The obvious questions to ask at the start, for any suggestion, are:

1) What is 'cheaply enough'? ... what is the target price and what does the 
end-product look like (specs)? what amount of nitrogen compounds can be 
tolerated?

2) Will that target price permit one to use O2, instead of air, as the starting 
raw material? 

Of course the answer there is probably "no" wrt to medical O2 ... but the more 
interesting question is this: is there an economical process for enriching air 
in O2, using magnetic separation for instance - which would be far cheaper but 
of far less purity than medical O2, but adequate for the purpose of making 
ozone cheaply, which product has some but not too much NOx (or which NOx can be 
removed in another step) ?

I suppose what this is suggesting, in a practical device is this: 

The O2 in air has magnetic properties which allow it to be enriched to some 
moderate degree cheaply, but there is still going to be substantial nitrogen in 
any low-cost process not involving cryogenics. 

This is not a problem for automotive, as the nitrous compounds and NOx get 
obliterated in a hot explosion. The nitrogen products are a no-no for water 
purification, however, without another step to remove them. 

This factor might eliminate the cheapest ozone process- which would begin with 
enriching air in O2 from say 20% to 40% which is great for automotive.

3) Mother Nature's way, of course, is the shorter wl's of UV operating on O2 at 
low pressure. 

Ultraviolet B    UVB     315 nm - 280 nm     3.94 - 4.43 eV
Ultraviolet C    UVC     280 nm - 100 nm     4.43 - 12.4 eV

These shorter wl's of UV radiation are NOT efficient to make from electricity, 
except from arc discharge (or the Tesla method) and UV itself is easily 
absorbed (by even glass !) such that the Pyrex which must be used in industrial 
UV tubes removes most of the UVB and UVC . The so-called "blacklight" tubes 
available now are usually mercury discharge and emit almost entirely in UVA or 
lower- and consequently do NOT make much ozone per kWhr of input.

Otherwise, of course, Richard would not be asking for suggestions but would 
install blacklight tubes... as any one can do for a hot-tub or pool, but that 
is expensive and ineffective for high volume use.

In looking at this cheap-ozone problem (or opportunity) in the past, but with 
an emphasis on automotive implementation, the only hope which I could see then 
for making ozone on-the-fly, and at a cost which would be competitive on a 
"substituted" molecule-for-molecule bases with gasoline, for instance (about 
$1/kg) would depend on the 'questionable' possibility of UVC emission coming 
from below ground state hydrogen - i.e. if the hydrino process of Mills can be 
adapted. 

This does not have to be the full-monty BLP process ... which if that worked as 
claimed by Mills and Co. then *everything* changes at a more fundamental level 
... i.e. since a viable hydrino process would be the equivalent of very cheap 
electrical power (exactly like robust LENR as envisioned by Jed Rothwell and 
others who are working on cold fusion processes). 

However, none of that has yet to live up to expectations or past claims... 
sadly ... but unlike the case with LENR, there does exist with the hydrino what 
can be called a "BLP-lite" version of the technology, which can be envisioned 
as producing only cheap UV from an unstable hydrino (short lifetime). 

This does not involve the stable hydrino, or hydrino hydride, at least not as 
Mills' envisions it. It does not infringe on his patents. It would actually 
NEED - or depend-on, a secondary process of converting UV --> ozone, in order 
to be a viable energy process.

That would be the closest technique which is on the horizon, IMHO, for making 
ozone on-the-fly cheaply. Everything else which I could dig up in patents or on 
in the literature is a factor of ~10 times more expensive.

Actually, there are some ways to pull this hydrino-like process off, which I 
can envision, but it would not be not be easy to do, and since Mills has 
already burned through roughly $50 million looking for the full-monty process, 
yet without being capable of presenting even a small public demonstration ... 
much less a prototype energy system ... then one can only conclude that a 
"BLP-lite" version of the technology, with the intent of bypassing Mills' IP, 
would be a risky undertaking. 

Jones