At 05:21 pm 02/10/2005 -0400, Michael wrote:
> Jones wrote:
>
>> Pyrolysis (thermal decomposition) of water normally requires lots of
>> high temperature thermal energy, plus a means to avoid immediate
>> recombination - but what about catalytic pyrolysis?
>
> There's no theoretical reason why catalytic pyrolysis couldn't work,
> and at much lower temperatures than some of the recent work
> has indicated.
>
>> A new technique using carbon nanotube technology is said to
>> require half the energy of normal pyrolysis - and at only 1000 C, plus
>> the carbon is not consumed AND recombination can be more
>> easily engineered into the system.
>
> I guess I am left wondering why the nanotubes won't be oxidized
> in this reaction. They are, after all, carbon.
>
>> This lower-temperature requirement would seem to be doable,
>> even with Michael Foster's cheap Fresnel Lens, no?
>> There is also something in the wind (not the Santa Ana's we should
>> hope), related to thermal water decomposition over in
>> Westwood,Michael, but it is still in the conceptual stage apparently.
>> http://www.research.ucla.edu/tech/ucla05-332.htm
>
>Even a relatively small, say one square meter, at about F1, is easily
>capable of heating its target to a temperature high enough for even
>non-catalytic pyrolysis of water. But, that is inefficient and you have
>to figure out how to keep the hydrogen and oxygen from recombining.
>I'm sure those guys at UCLA have an interesting process, but
>academics tend to make things too complicated. What really needs
>to take place is an all-out effort to find a really good catalyst. But
>that, unfortunately, just requires trying out a lot of different materials.
>You just can't just sit down at your computer and come up with one.
>Catalysis is, to this day, not well understood.
You can say that again. 8-)
I have always found it remarkable that the chemical
industry is so massively dependent on catalysis, a
process which seems to be very little understood.
In his Scientific American article Putterman wrote:-
=========================================
In the 1920s and 1930s, we learned,
chemists working with loudspeakers de-
veloped for sonar systems during World
War I came across an interesting phe-
nomena: a strong sound field could
catalyze reactions that take place in an
aqueous solution...
=========================================
Why does it catalyze materials. Simply this.
Inside materials and even more obviously,
inside cavitation holes we have a reduced Beta-
atmosphere pressure and within those cavities
chemistry is very different to what it is outside.
Thanks to the genius of Victor Gankin whose book,
"How Chemical Bonds Form and Chemical Reactions
Proceed." I have realised for some time that the
Beta-atmosphere must be at the root of catalysis.
Until the consequences of this are worked out,
catalysis is bound to remain an empirical science.
Frank Grimer
