Expanding on an idea posted here earlier.
The Casimir force is hypothesized here to be at least part of the van
der Waals force that can bind noble gas atoms like Argon, or
molecules, especially symmetric molecules, like CCL4. This suggests
that moving van der Waals bound molecules through a Casimir cavity of
sufficently small size will reduce the van der Waals binding energy,
and in the case of liquids, reduce the boiling point and enthalpy of
evaporation.
The binding energy is reflected the enthalpy of vaporization. The
problem with noble gases is they have very low boiling points and low
Enthalpies of vaporization.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_gas
Table 1 shows some candidate media for Casimir cavity boiling.
Enthalpy of
Element/ Vaporization
Compound (kJ/mol) (eV/molecule)
Helium 0.08 8.29x10^-4
Neon 1.74 0.01803
Argon 6.52 0.0676
Krypton 9.05 0.0938
Xenon 12.7 0.1363
Radon 18.1 0.1876
CCl4 32.54 0.3373
CF4 135.7 1.406
Table 1 - Casimir cavity boiling boiling candidates
Carbon tetrachloride, CCL4 and carbon tetraflouride
(tetrafluoromethane), CF4, may be good candidates for a Casimir
boiler because they are highly symmetric and relatively inert in the
expected operating conditions. CF4, with a boiling point of -127.8 C
has the same problem as the noble gases, the energy producing device
would have to be encapsulated in a cryrogenic envelope. However, it
has a stellar 1.4 eV per molecule enthalpy of vaporization. The
problem in all cases is knowing just how much of the liquid state
binding energy is due to the Casimir force. This is best determined
experimentally.
Of the prospects examined, CCl4 is the most readily available, has
the best boiling point, 76.72 °C (350 K), and has a good enthalpy of
vaporization, 32.54 kJ/mol, or 0.3373 eV/molecule. It has a density
of 1.5867 g/cm3, and a molar mass of 153.82 grams. Except for
availability, and toxicity, it is good for amateur experiments. An
MSDS is here:
http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/CA/carbon_tetrachloride.html
It is a probable carcinogen. However, when I was a kid many of us
ran around with butterfly nets and small carbon tetrachloride bottles
in our hip pockets for doing in butterflies quickly, so its toxicity
is limited to at least that degree. It was used by dry cleaners at
one time.
An experiment to evaluate CCl4 prospects for a Casimir force boiler
would consist of measuring any boiling point depression from imposing
a fine mesh barrier between the liquid and gas phases of CCl4. A
closed circuit with condenser would be used to recycle the CCl4. A
controlled heater and stirrer would be used to maintain the
temperature of the liquid phase.
The interesting part is deciding what to use for barriers, i.e. flow-
through Casimir cavities. One possibility is sintered fine metal
powders. Another is stacked fine foils,like gold leaf, with a
dielectric powder or micro-beads used as a plate separator. Plate
separation has to be under 10^-7 m to obtain any effect.
Suppose 10 percent of the heat of vaporization is due to the Casimir
force for CCl4. That is 3.25 kJ/mol, or (1.5867 g/cm3)(3.25 kJ)/
(153.8 g) = 0.0335 kJ/cm^3 = 33.5 kJ/liter boiled, or 33.5 MJ per
1000 liters boiled.
Looking at this from a practical standpoint, at 1 liter per second
boiling rate, that is 33.5 kW output, and at a 1000 liter per second
boiling rate 33.5 MW output. It would take a pretty large device to
produce 10 kW, enough to run a home, as that would require boiling
about 300 ml per second for that output alone. It would make a good
home heater, but probably most of the electricity generated would
have to be fed right back into the boiler for stand alone operation,
and the generator would have to be very efficient. If it turned out
that 100 percent of the heat of vaporization is due to the Casimir
force, and Cavities small enough to release all that energy were used
(an unlikely possibility), then a very good home heater could run by
boiling a mere 100 cc per second, or 6 liters a minute.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
