Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Artificial Gills

Artificial Gills


Andre Willers
15 Jan 2014
Synopsis :
This technology was supposed to lead to cheap desalination . Oh well .
 
Discussion :
1.Nano-holes allow only oxygen.
2.Is there enough oxygen in water to power a 100 kg mammal ?
3.The efficiency of the process is not known , but I suspect the diver will have to surf underwater currents of oxygen .
See Appendix B on Underwater Avalanches how oxygenization in deep-sea can occur .
 
4.The technology can easily be applied to desalination , detox , etc .
See Appendix A .
5. The article :

Revolutionary Scuba Mask Creates Breathable Oxygen Underwater On Its Own
·         1
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2 days ago
Designer Jeabyun Yeon has created something great.  Essentially it turns humans into fish.

"Triton uses a new technology of artificial gill model.
- It extracts oxygen under water through a filter in the form of fine threads with holes smaller than water molecules.
- This is a technology developed by a Korean scientist that allows us to freely breathe under water for a long time.
- Using a very small but powerful micro compressor, it compresses oxygen and stores the extracted oxygen in storage tank.
- The micro compressor operates through micro battery.
- The micro battery is a next-generation technology with a size 30 times smaller than current battery that can quickly charge 1,000 times faster." - Yanko Design



9. Water is so passé .
Use a fluorocarbon as a carrier medium , and Triton to obviate biochemical problems. This is literally off-the-shelf tech for extremely high accellarations , pressures , but also low pressures on space missions .

Fluorocarbon-based oxygen carriers: new orientations.
Abstract
Fluosol, a first, low-concentration fluorocarbon emulsion, was recently approved for oxygenating the myocardium during percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. Improvements in fluorocarbon and emulsion technology have led to the development of significantly more stable, more efficient second-generation injectable O2 carriers. This progress extends the potential of fluorocarbons in medicine to new applications both in diagnostics and in therapeutics. Future objectives will aim at adjusting and optimizing the preparation's characteristics for each specific application. The emulsifier, or surfactant, which determines the external appearance of the fluorocarbon droplets, will play a key role in the mastery of emulsion properties. Extensive research efforts are therefore being directed toward the synthesis and evaluation of new families of surfactants or co-surfactants specifically designed for emulsifying fluorocarbons.
PMID:

1741687

[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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Now take a deep breath …
Regards
Andre

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Appendix A

Negative Pressure : a Critical Invention.
Andre Willers
29 Jan 2009

Source :
NewScientist 13 Sept 2008 p26 " Making the most of trees pulling power"

Synopsis :
Negative pressure joins negative refraction index and negative Kelvin temperature as
useful constructs .
The presence of negative pressure in trees makes one wonder whether the other two items might not also be found in nature .

Discussion :
Ever wonder why trees can be so tall ?
Capillary action only works up to 10 meters height .

The reason :
Leaves have nano-pores that allow only water molecules to pass , but not air .
The hydrogen-bonds in water form a linked chain from the leaf to the root .
As the water molecule is pulled out at the leaf-pore , it tugs on the whole chain .
This is expressed as negative pressure .

The Trick .
The hydrogel material used in soft contact lenses has the right size nano-pores to allow water molecules to pass , but not air . Just like leaves of a plant .

Synthetic trees:
Using this material , Abraham Stroock of Cornell University constructed artificial trees with negative pressures of 10 atmospheres . (ie a 100 meter tree equivalent)

Some consequences :

1.What does this do to eyeballs with soft contact lenses ? Glaucoma?
Can the cornea be shaped by using fixed hydrogels ?

2. Powerful nano- and micro pumps .
Nano-tech .
Phase-change medicine delivery systems . Concentration variation .
A lot of micro-pumps together = macro pump . (Our old friend the tree)

3. Cosmetics.
There seems to be some promise for cosmetic procedures involving pumping out surplus fluid from cells by dabbing on hydrogels .
Argh! Those cucumbers slices on the eyes might work after all !
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Cool as a cucumber"

3. Chemo therapy
Killing targeted cells by dehydration .
Cancer cells by definition must use more water than normal cells . So hit them with the water bill . Or better yet , a prepaid meter .

4. Food preparation and preservation .
Instant biltong .

5. Construction .
Concrete curing can be accelerated . Significant time-savings are possible .And time is money .

6. Desalinization = detoxification .
Removing the pure water out of a poisonous soup using only a hydrogel and a wind or fan seems to hold a powerful promise . A true cheap nanotechnology.

7. What will happen if you line a stomach with hydrogels ? Maybe intestinal bacteria are already doing the equivalent .

8. What will happen if you line alveoli in the lungs with hydrogel aerosols ? Emphysema , asthma .

9. Stealth propulsion .
Probably already used by oceanic slimy creatures . Tentacles coated by hydrogels with suitable hydrophilic and hydrophobic additions will dramatically increase silent propulsion efficiency .

10. Cavitation nullification in marine propellers .
Coating a propeller in hydrogel should dramatically increase propulsion efficiency and reduce noise and cavitation . An obvious money-spinner .

11. Terraforming .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Cool as a cucumber"
This is already part of the Earth's terraforming process .
Pseudonomas syringae is only one of the bacteria that uses nano-systems like hydrogels to influence the water concentration and by implication the remainder of gas concentrations of the planetary ecosystem .
What happens to the gases dissolved in droplets of water when they freeze ?

12. Paper
Felt can be dispensed with , enabling much finer cellulose fibres . Benefits as discussed.

14. 3D Printing .
Nano-printing becomes easier , as nearly any material can be suspended in water , printed via an Ink-jet type 3D printer , then dehydrated using hydrogels and then fixated .


As you can see , it goes on and on .

Cheap , precisely controlled variation of water concentrations is really important to water-based life-forms .

This is why this is a critical finding and invention .

Happy hunting!

Andre
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Appendix B

Friday, December 20, 2013
Water Avalanches.
Water Avalanches
Andre Willers
20 Dec 2013
Synopsis:
Tsunami's can occur without tectonic movement . Massive shifts of water along the pycnocline causes large wave action on tsunami scale .

Discussion :
1.An illustrative example : see Appendix A



A large volume of cold , saline water suddenly erupts into the North Atlantic . The Richardson number drops far below 0.25 , then an avalanche of water occurs .
This displaces previous top layers of water and large , deep , high-energy waves occur . Tsunami's .
2.This triggers unstable mud-slides , adding to the mess .

3.The percussion effect on clathrates increases methane burps . The density of top seawater decreases , resulting in a runaway positive feedback reaction as the Richardson number drops even further .
An avalanche of water along the pycnocline , resulting in severe surface waves even in deep ocean .

4.Damping : funnily enough , the pycnocline will dampen the tsunami wave as it nears shore , because the Richardson number will increase from a very low level , causing turbulent mixing . This decreases wave amplitude . Neat .
Very rough surf and good fishing .
5.Also described as Rogue Waves
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave
I always wondered why these monster waves never made it ashore .

6.Just be thankful they dampen out , otherwise coastal regions might become very dangerous .
7.As they were during the end of the last ice age .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2013/12/gobleki-tepe-and-sirius.html et al .
8.Ice cover .
I can intuit , but not prove that there is critical threshold of ice-cover from the arctic where reverberations between the oceanic pycnocline and the ice pycnocline will result in large mid-ocean tsunami's , with some overspill to land areas . Not really difficult in the North Atlantic , if clathrate burps are ignored . Otherwise , difficult . Experience .



9.Mid-Ocean surfing .
For really large and wild waves , forget coastlines . 300 foot mid-ocean waves are not unusual . See Satellite images . And they don't break quickly . You can surf as long as your knees hold out .




There's always room on the Board.
Andre


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Appendix A
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pycnocline
pycnocline is the cline or layer where the density gradient (ρ⁄∂z) is greatest within a body of water. 
 However, vertical mixing across pycnocline is a regular phenomenon in oceans, and occurs through shear-produced turbulence.[3] Such mixing plays a key role in the transport of nutrients.[4]


Stability[edit]
Pycnoclines become unstable when their Richardson number drops below 0.25. The Richardson number is a dimensionless number expressing the ratio of potential to kinetic energy. This ratio drops below 0.25 when the shear rate exceeds stratification. This can produce Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, resulting in a turbulence which leads to mixing.[11]

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