In fact, at the wavelength we are looking at, the UV is pretty nasty stuff, so if you do start to play with it, take precautions. It will cause skin disorders if you have direct exposure, and can cause eye problems. It will also react with the oxygen in the air and produce ozone, and you dont want too much of that in a confined space either.
If your interested, do an online search for the problems found when the external glass shell of mercury / sodium gas discharge lamps gets broken (the glass absorbs all the extreme range UV). I remember a situation where one HID mercury lamp in a sports hall got accidentaly broken (the external glass envelope). About 100 people were taken to hospital suffering from various skin and eye complaints.
That was from a fair distance as most gymn's have pretty high ceilings. So close range, this stuff is real nasty. I'd treat it the same way i would a welding arc. Thats the level of protection you need to be safe. The best bet would be to somehow build it into the core of an electrolyser, that way the water will absorb ALL of the harmfull UV. I deffinately would NOT look at ways of directing the light via an external source. Too many ways for it all to go tits up. Plus you have the problem with ozone production again.
As another example of how powerfull and nasty UV can be, at 254 nm UV causes DNA to break down. This is how UV sterilizers work. They litteraly blast the DNA of germs, etc, killing them outright. Thats why the same frequency is used in germicidal water purification, and in pond clarifiers.
As always, make sure you know what your playing with , before you start playing
Statistics: Posted by golden_guppy — Sat Jan 07, 2006 5:07 am
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What kind of Spectrum is put out by Tanning Booth lights ?
Could this be useable as there is also small Floodlight size home units I have seen.
Statistics: Posted by WaterFireHO — Fri Jan 06, 2006 2:10 pm
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maybe theres something to think on in terms of wavelength modification of light (through colored lenses) to achieve the "photosynthesis" of water into H2 and O? have to get out some more books. worth a try, and its CHEAP!
AlaskaStar
Statistics: Posted by AlaskaStar — Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:42 pm
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It is suposedly very intense UV when outside of the Bulb.
Statistics: Posted by WaterFireHO — Thu Jan 05, 2006 11:08 am
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Now, as pie in the sky as this sounds, i know for a fact that this has been produced in the lab, and that a seven-fold increase in gas production has been achieved. It's no where near OU, as they are having to use high power lasers, but the theory is sound. It would appear that at a certain frequency of VUV, a photon has EXACTLY the same energy as a hydrogen electron. So, bombard water with enough photons, and you effectively supercharge the electrons, and they jump orbit to the next state. In theory, given enough power, you should be able to split water using nothing but light. In practice, the power required is so emense its not going to happen any time soon.
Now, i haven't got much details of the process (my cousin isn't that stoopid, and he wants to keep his job), but i got enough to investigate further. First there's the VUV light. The frequency range of VUV light is such that it gets absorbed in the air, therefore it can only be measured in a vacuum, hence the V in VUV. It will also have problems penetrating water, and it will get absorbed very quickly. So, that means working with a very thin film of water. As for the light source itself, i have not found any lamps that go low enough into the VUV range, so it looks like the only source currently is from laser.
Also worth noting, is that they were using ac power signals to make the anode and cathode oscilate, not the water. I have no idea what material is being used as the elctrodes, but i can assume that there two materials beings used since they were using two ac freqencies.
Anyway, the scary part is that the final aim is for realtime hydrogen prduction to fuel a rocket motor. Now that would be serious hydrogen production. Water powered air transport anyone?
At least its nice to know that big money is being thrown at this research now, so i cant imagine it will be too many years before we start to see it encroaching into the real world in some form.
My cousin actually described it as the 'hydrogen gold rush'. It seems the political tide has turned now and the idea of a hydrogen economy is on the agenda. There's that much money and research being poured into it now, someone is sure to crack it.
Of course, it would be great if we beat them all too it, and come up with a nice simple foolproof process, publish it all, and ruin all their corporate profit forcasts.
Statistics: Posted by golden_guppy — Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:00 am
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