Re: [Vo]:One-watt flame, Part II

[Stephen A. Lawrence]

Jones Beene wrote:
There are two interesting points, and also glaring
inconsistencies in a careful reading of the paper by
Roy, Rao, Kanzius: "Observations of polarized RF
radiation catalysis of dissociation of H2O–NaCl
solutions"

http://www.rustumroy.com/Scans/Observations%20of%20polarized%20MRI%20vol%2012%20is%201.pdf

Where the authors confirmed that RF short wave
radiation causes NaCl solution in water to be
"measurably changed in structure" and thereby to
"permit" the dissociation of H2O into a burnable gas
near room temperature. 

I believe that the wording "measurably changed in
structure" was carefully chosen - most likely to
indicate that the RF itself (the actual power input)
did NOT accomplish the result of water splitting, at
least not alone; and possibly that the electric field
(near-field) of the salt ions themselves - in the
solution, is the actual modality for the water
splitting. 

I hope this this precise distinction as I have
interpreted it - is both the authors intent and that
it is accurate, as it speaks volumes about the
importance of this experiment.

Notice that there are no electrodes present of any
kind- well- I should say no metal electrodes, since
the salt ions themselves may become virtual
electrodes.

IOW the ultimate "power source" for this reaction is
the natural "source" which allows salt to ionize in
the first place! You may not have ever considered that
to be a "source" since it is natural,

The ions in the salt are formed when the metal in the salt is oxidized. 
 The energy comes from the redox potential difference between sodium 
and chlorine.  That's a large difference, and a lot of energy comes out 
when the ions form.  Chlorine loves to get hold of an extra electron and 
hangs onto it very tightly once it has it, while sodium's outermost 
electron almost just falls off if you jostle it a bit.  But once you've 
formed sodium chloride you can't use that same energy over again -- it's 
long  gone.

The energy to separate the sodium and chloride ions in the salt crystals 
when they go into solution is something else again. One common source 
for the necessary energy is the thermal energy of the solution.  It's 
common for water to get colder as certain salts dissolve into it.  I'm 
not sure whether that's true of sodium chloride but I would guess that 
it is.




This is essentially the set-up for an end run around
the LoT. Is that modality of virtual natural ions
ultimately connected to the ZPF? I say definitely YES!

Filling-in the details of this situation would be
interesting and worthy enough for a small book - but
there are several other contributory inputs to the
overall system which in fact could be major inputs. 

This simple device is far more complicated than meets
the eye; and those other inputs are also probably not
governed precisely by the LoT as we normally assume.
IOW any gainfulness depends on inputs from "outside
the local system" - the main input of interest being
ZPE (as broadly defined to include the Casimir force).

Before getting into that now, consider this further
blip from the paper above: "The flame produced is a
burning reaction, probably of an intimate mixture of
hydrogen oxygen and the ambient air" and "the gaseous
effluents are obviously different from those obtained
from [DC] electrolysis as they are produced mixed in
situ simultaneously. Hence, the burning of these
effluent gases should not be compared precisely with
the burning of molecular hydrogen in air or the
molecular oxyhydrogen mixtures [i.e. Brown's gas]

Of course, Roy is no fool and anyone with experience
in these things can clearly see that the flame is NOT
a hydrogen+oxygen flame, at least no wholly. But one
almost suspects that he is overlooking the meaning of
Figure 2A in the paper above - which shows the large
sodium doublet emission line in the spectrum of the
flame. This is a huge finding... but...

Is he then out to lunch when- in the conclusion, he
states "Most of the Na present in the solution,
concentrates progressively – as measured – as the
water is dissociated and burned."

This cannot happen!

I think his error here is that he must have measured
the density of the remaining liquid, and finding it
higher (as it should be with increased salt
concentration) he assumed that the Na was
concentrating- when in fact it was actually being
diluted as a function of it burning in the flame - and
what he was measuring as higher density was in fact
the concentration of chlorite ions. These are higher
density than NaCl.

Why do I think that? Well the flame spectrum is the
major reason, but also if he did measure the pH of the
remaining liquid, he did not mention it, so I am
assuming that was his big mistake. Had he measured pH
he would have noticed that only the Na, and not the Cl
was being expelled in the flame. At least that is my
take on it thus far.

Why such a big to-do over this? Stay tuned for Part
III

Jones