In need of a good debunking

[Arta]

Any physicists/chemists around who can debunk this authoritatively?

http://www.cleanwatts.com/technology/default.asp

Upon immersion of AEC's metal materials into the liquid solution, there is an immediate, steady production of gaseous components, including but not limited to, 99.99% pure hydrogen and oxygen. No source of external energy is introduced or required for such production. The process does not involve electrolysis, or the use of an external source of electrical power of any manner in the actual hydrogen generation process. Removal apparatus for the oxygen are not required for the purity levels to meet required standards for use in alkaline fuel cells and internal combustion engines. The output from the AEC process was certified by Maxxam Analytics, to be 99.9% pure hydrogen on October 7, 2003.

They avoid saying "free energy" but I'm pretty sure that's what they're peddling.

[shout]

"99.99% pure hydrogen and oxygen"

Which when together as gases form water.

Debunked.

[Arta]

Well, yes, it seems like obvious bullshit to me. What I'm after, though, is some science to explain why a 'special alloy' can't react with water to produce hydrogen (which I presume is unlikely).

[shout]

In this reaction, there is an imbalence of everything. I am assuming that their solution has to be slightly-less-than pure water to produce slightly-less-than-pure water right above it.

Where does the energy come from? Following the slightly-less-than-pure water theory, it takes a massive amount of energy to break water apart, and thus release a large amount of energy when it combines.

I know that platinum is a catalyst that can (by means I am not sure of) seperate water into oxygen and hydrogen. It still needs a massive amount of energy though.

I guess we will have to wait until they get their patents to find out what is going on.

[iago]

well, due to conservation of energy, the amount of energy needed to change water into H2 + O is the same amount of energy produced by changing H2 + O back into water.

But who knows?  Stranger things have been invented. 

[R.a.B.B.i.T]

Any physicists/chemists around who can debunk this authoritatively?

http://www.cleanwatts.com/technology/default.asp

Upon immersion of AEC's metal materials into the liquid solution, there is an immediate, steady production of gaseous components, including but not limited to, 99.99% pure hydrogen and oxygen. No source of external energy is introduced or required for such production. The process does not involve electrolysis, or the use of an external source of electrical power of any manner in the actual hydrogen generation process. Removal apparatus for the oxygen are not required for the purity levels to meet required standards for use in alkaline fuel cells and internal combustion engines. The output from the AEC process was certified by Maxxam Analytics, to be 99.9% pure hydrogen on October 7, 2003.

They avoid saying "free energy" but I'm pretty sure that's what they're peddling.

*cough*steam*/cough*

[Adron]

They say they are creating hydrogen from water.

One metal which has that effect when immersed in water is magnesium.


For debunking purposes, try the laws of thermodynamics.

[TehUser]

"99.99% pure hydrogen and oxygen"

Which when together as gases form water.

Debunked.

Only if you apply heat to enable the reaction.

They say they are creating hydrogen from water.

One metal which has that effect when immersed in water is magnesium.

For debunking purposes, try the laws of thermodynamics.

That's not really true.  Magnesium doesn't react that well with water.  It does much better with steam.

Also, I'd be interested to hear how the laws of thermodynamics prove AEC's claims false.

[R.a.B.B.i.T]

The alkali elements react with water (most violently is cesium).

[iago]

The alkali elements react with water (most violently is cesium).

Cesium isn't the most violent, Francium is.  The lower down the table you go, the more violently they react.

I think that has to do with the fact that they already have a lot of stored energy, though.  My last post explains that a bit more, but it involves the laws of thermodynamics.  You can't get back more energy than what you put into it, so to produce H2 and O from water should take as much energy as you get from turning H2 and O back into water. 

However, the energy might be used to product the compound that changes water to H2 and O, which means that, although the energy is there, it doesn't need to be created while driving. 

[R.a.B.B.i.T]

The alkali elements react with water (most violently is cesium).

Cesium isn't the most violent, Francium is.  The lower down the table you go, the more violently they react.

Then my chemistry teacher was wrong.  O well.

[Rule]

The alkali elements react with water (most violently is cesium).

Cesium isn't the most violent, Francium is.  The lower down the table you go, the more violently they react.

I think that has to do with the fact that they already have a lot of stored energy, though.  My last post explains that a bit more, but it involves the laws of thermodynamics.  You can't get back more energy than what you put into it, so to produce H2 and O from water should take as much energy as you get from turning H2 and O back into water. 

However, the energy might be used to product the compound that changes water to H2 and O, which means that, although the energy is there, it doesn't need to be created while driving. 

That doesn't mean that their idea is necessarily useless..  It probably is, but there isn't that much information to go on.

The second law of thermodynamics states that in a cyclical process you can't
get more useful work than the energy invested.  You break even when
the net change of the entropy of the system is zero, which doesn't happen.

HOWEVER... the change in free energy of a chemical reaction might be "Q", and the useful work that can be done out of say a hydrogen product might be L, where L << Q, but we have methods of using hydrogen (rather efficiently) as a fuel, and we don't have good ways to use all of the energy in the chemical reaction to do useful work. 

For example, we often put a lot more heat energy into our engines than we get useful work out of it.  But that's OK, it's not as though we've failed somehow, because we've (in vague terms) "turned" some energy we couldn't use to "less" energy we can use (+ biproduct).


Also Frankium is radioactive, and I'm not sure if it is naturally occuring (I might remember hearing a statistic that there are 4g? on the entire earth?).  So Cesium might be the most reactive with water as far as the naturally occuring alkali metals go.

[Arta]

While we're on the subject, I was talking to someone earlier about free energy - a different system - but he used some jargon that I didn't understand enough to refute. He said that the machine "extracted energy from the zero point energy field, by some process involving the resonant frequency of water".

He didn't seem to accept that you can never get more energy out than you put in. Oh well.

[iago]

The alkali elements react with water (most violently is cesium).

Cesium isn't the most violent, Francium is.  The lower down the table you go, the more violently they react.

I think that has to do with the fact that they already have a lot of stored energy, though.  My last post explains that a bit more, but it involves the laws of thermodynamics.  You can't get back more energy than what you put into it, so to produce H2 and O from water should take as much energy as you get from turning H2 and O back into water. 

However, the energy might be used to product the compound that changes water to H2 and O, which means that, although the energy is there, it doesn't need to be created while driving. 

That doesn't mean that their idea is necessarily useless..  It probably is, but there isn't that much information to go on.

The second law of thermodynamics states that in a cyclical process you can't
get more useful work than the energy invested.  You break even when
the net change of the entropy of the system is zero, which doesn't happen.

HOWEVER... the change in free energy of a chemical reaction might be "Q", and the useful work that can be done out of say a hydrogen product might be L, where L << Q, but we have methods of using hydrogen (rather efficiently) as a fuel, and we don't have good ways to use all of the energy in the chemical reaction to do useful work. 

For example, we often put a lot more heat energy into our engines than we get useful work out of it.  But that's OK, it's not as though we've failed somehow, because we've (in vague terms) "turned" some energy we couldn't use to "less" energy we can use (+ biproduct).


Also Frankium is radioactive, and I'm not sure if it is naturally occuring (I might remember hearing a statistic that there are 4g? on the entire earth?).  So Cesium might be the most reactive with water as far as the naturally occuring alkali metals go.

I was actually thinking that.  Even if it takes a lot of power to create the substance, which then breaks up water, the work would be done before it ever entered the car, perhaps powered by  hydro or something clean, and then the energy would be released.  That would be possible.  So yeah, that claim isn't impossible.

And that's correct, Francium is radioactive and it reacts with the water in the air anyways.  It's so unstable, and it doesn't last long.  But the rule of thumb is, as you go down the "alkali" column on the periodic table, they get more reactive. 

[Rule]

While we're on the subject, I was talking to someone earlier about free energy - a different system - but he used some jargon that I didn't understand enough to refute. He said that the machine "extracted energy from the zero point energy field, by some process involving the resonant frequency of water".

He didn't seem to accept that you can never get more energy out than you put in. Oh well.

Arta: I'd have to see his whole argument, but it seems like nonsense to me.  I've never heard the term "zero point energy field" used.  Usually people start frothing with jargon in an attempt to shut an opponent down.

Other claim --

If what they claim is true, and they're not morons, then they're probably using various chemicals to produce the reagents they need to get their precious reaction, and not using (e.g. hydro power) to do it.

They don't really give enough information to soundly "debunk" them.  Time will do this though, I'm sure.