At 11:57 AM 6/19/2011, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
I won't argue this with you again, Jed, I had enough trouble getting you to admit that it's possible to have steam at higher than 100 C at 1 atmosphere of pressure.
Stephen, perhaps you are making the same mistake here, misunderstanding what's being said. It's possible to have steam at higher than 100 C, but it would take post-generation heating.
That is, if you are generating steam by boiling water, the steam is evolved at the boiling point. There is a classic demonstration, used to be common in high school physics labs: you boil water in a paper cup, over a flame, as I recall. The water in the cup simply cannot go above the boiling point, and remain water. When it is vaporized it absorbs, from the state change, a huge amount of heat, thus, in practice, you can use boiling water to calibrate a thermometer. (And ice-water, at the other end of the Centigrade scale. Mixed phase in both situations.)
So to reach higher than 100 C, the steam would have to be further heated, not through heating of the water, but of the steam directly.
Further, isn't the idea here that there is water in the exhaust, that the steam is wet? Dry steam hotter than 100 C is definitely possible (with post-generating heating). But wet steam presents a problem. The hotter the steam, the more rapidly the water would evaporate, so the less water there could be, it would be transient. It's hard to imagine an arrangement in this situation where the water remains cool while the steam is heated above boiling.
If the water is as fine droplets, forget it. It would vanish almost immediately if the temperature is higher than the boiling point, cooling the steam, until the water were entirely vaporized and the steam dry, or the steam is cooled to the boiling point.
I can understand why boiling water is used as a measure of energy, it's pretty simple, *if measures are taken to measure the water content." If the exit path for the steam is directly from the device into the air, with no water leaving (as with an ordinary teakettle!), the steam will be dry, so measuring the mass of water evaporated is a simple and clean demonstration, allowing easy calculation of energy evolved (aside from other losses, as through radiation or convection off of the device).
My guess, though, the Rossi devices would spit water. That could be avoided by redesign, and this may be what they have done. It would spit water if the manner of heating, inside, allowed pockets of steam to be trapped, with water blocking the exist path, so the water would be blown out. Basically, gravity could be used to keep the water in the bottom of the cell, with the steam rising out the top. But the E-Cat appears to have a horizontal design. So that it would spit isn't terribly surprising. This might be avoided by simply tipping the thing a little, so that the exit tube is the highest point inside, and bubbles of steam rising from anywhere inside would rise directly to that point, with no place for them to be trapped.
Once the thing doesn't spit, there is no need for the tube to the sink, nor any need to collect water, since there would be no water coming out at any point. Does your tea kettle spit water at you? I didn't think so!
The device, as it was powered up, would start to boil water, filling the output tube with steam. The steam will rapidly transfer heat to the output tube until it is also at the boiling point, and that condensed water would drain back into the heating chamber. When the exit tube reaches the boiling temperature, at that time, true dry steam would start coming out, which is invisible. Put a whistle on the thing, with a narrow output opening! You could even calibrate the whistle to provide an operating measure of energy generation rate. (Thanks to a pseudoskeptic who was fond of "steampunk" for that suggestion, Barry Kort.) In any case, if the opening is narrow, you'd see that the steam is invisible as it comes out, guaranteeing that it is dry, it would only become visible a short distance from the opening, as it cools from contact with the air and forms a steam cloud.
Please, folks, don't stick your hand in that invisible steam. It may only be at 100 degrees, but it's dangerous, it's carrying a lot of heat, which it will cheerfully transfer to your skin, in a flash. Maybe if you are *fast*, you wouldn't get burned, but I wouldn't advise trying it. I have no problem with touching something at 100 degrees, or quite a bit hotter, if it isn't live steam! It's easy to be fast enough. If I think it's really hot, I might lick my finger first! The steam formation will protect my skin, as long as I don't leave the finger, and the hiss tells me it's above boiling. Hey, "hiss." Snake!
(I've also watched fire-walkers. Yes, folks, people actually do walk on hot coals. It probably has to do with a protective layer of water vapor that forms under the right conditions. And, skeptics, watch out! Your *attitude* might matter. (I.e., can affect the dryness of your skin. Dry = ouch!)
