Cold fusion (?) device based on high voltage pulses introduced to membrane for reverse osmosis

Wyttenbach: I see... As far I'm concerned, John Kanzius published two papers (1, 2) in cooperation with famous scientist Dr. Rustum Roy.

The second published paper describes how having confirmed the observation on YouTube (3, 4) in John Kanzius’ lab in Erie, Philadelphia, the radiation source was brought to Roy’s microwave lab at Penn State University for a series of experiments. The maximum power for most experiments was about 300 W and the frequency of the polarized radio frequency beam was in the range of 13.56 MHz. The radio wave was aimed at pyrex test tubes containing solutions of 0.1 to 30 percent salt (NaCl), held upright by a Teflon stand and individually introduced into the RF (radio frequency) cavity. The gases at the top of the liquid surface were lit by means of a lighter. The solutions typically sustained a continuous flame till the water was exhausted. The temperature of the flame was about 1 800 C.

At 3 percent NaCl (about sea water concentration), the results presented in the YouTube were confirmed. Larger flame sizes of about 4-5 inches were obtained with higher salt concentrations. Immediately after the power is turned on, the flammable gas can be ignited, and it extinguishes instantly as the power is turned off. The smallest flame was sustained at 1 percent NaCl (see figure bellow). They also showed that the Raman spectrum of the saline solutions before and after exposure to RF field differ dramatically in the 3000 to 3500 cm-1 region indicating that the structure of the water after exposure to the RF field has been very substantially changed, specifically with respect to the O-H bond.

Burning water at different NaCl concentrations; a, 0.3 percent; b, 3.0 percent; c, 30 percent

Electrolytic splitting of water is well-known. But, as first demonstrated by Faraday, it takes >1.23V to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The 13.56 MHz RF beam delivers at most 10^-8 of the energy required. What is also striking for me is the size of flame produced with input RF power just 300 Watts. IMO the flame generated provides more energy and this impression was later confirmed with John Kanzius himself without exact COP numbers given. He died of leukemia in 2009, so he unfortunatelly didn't manage to finish his work.

Microwave distillation process produces water of reportedly healing properties, which corrodes plastic and stainless steel..

Inventor Steve Sedlmayr was tired of his wife’s water distillation units breaking. Frustrated with their poor design, he decided to insert a 2.54 GHz microwave antenna directly into a water distillation vessel. To his surprise, multiple distillations of the same water resulted in unusually corrosive and/or healing properties of this water: those drinking his microwave-distilled waters began to report surprising healing effects, but he found he could not store the water in plastic bottles and, in fact, even the plastic tubing he was using in his condenser unit appeared to get eaten away by this water. Yet, it was just… water! How could this be?

Note that the John Kanzius device doesn't actually split water into a hydrogen and oxygen, as this mixture (so-called the Brown gas) is highly explosive and it definitelly doesn't burn with quiet incandescent flame. I presume, it splits the water into hydrogen and peroxide radicale insted. Peroxide radicale recombines into a hydrogen peroxide, which has higher boiling point, so it remains in solution and only hydrogen escapes. Hydrogen peroxide is reactive and it has oxidation properties, which could explain the corrosive action on plastic tubing and possibly the steel. But such a splitting is interesting the more, as the mixture of hydrogen and peroxide radical shouldn't form side-to-side during single reaction, as first component is of reductive and later one of oxidative nature. I'm explaining it with equilibrial conditions of reaction in similar way, like the formation of hellium-4 during cold fusion.

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The "flame" in this case could simply be a plasma of ions pumped by the Rf field, a conductive part of the circuit including the saline solution.

The plasma couldn't be ignited by lighter and it's temperature would be higher than 1800 °C. It's not clear for me, where the hydrogen gets generated from solution, though. The existing photos exhibit no bubble formation.

On the other hand, the length of test tube must be tuned with respect to the wavelength of incoming radiation (so that very local concentration of energy may occur there) and the water must be conductive - the deionized water doesn't work - only the salty solutions. So that your theory has still some merit. Maybe the resulting flame is the result of both effects, which also makes it more stable and bigger. At any case it seems, the standing waves can introduce multiparticle collisions and breaking of water molecules, which get the easier, the more the water molecules remain arranged in long chains, like inside the narrow channels and pores.

Reactor scheme

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Why membrane is glowing at the video, if there is no plasma discharge as you're saying?

This is indeed a good insight and a question. The story of this finding is, it has been accidentally revealed by Russian expert working in research of desalination technology in Dubai, who attempted to increase the speed of desalination process with external electric voltage introduced onto a membrane. He wasn't successful with it - but he observed an anomalous heat production instead. I believe that the overunity effect is the special result of narrow membrane pores, which would force the water molecules to reorient itself and to collide in one-dimensional manner within nanopores. My theory is, an avalanche-like effect analogous to famous Astroblaster toy is what it applies there and what amplifies the amount of heat produced due to repeated breaking and recombination of water molecules. In this extent the reading of anomalous heat during hydrogen recombination may be of certain interest there. I therefore think, that this device may not run on principle of cold fusion, as its source implies.

If the plasma would be the actual source of anomalous heat, then no special osmotic membrane would be actually necessary and every cheap porous membrane or sintered glass filter could be used instead, because the heat would be formed across plasma layer above and bellow the membrane - not within pores of membrane and the type of pores or membrane will be irrelevant. The ceramic membranes would be more stable and as such more suitable in this type of reactor after then. The video source says, that the osmotic membrane survives just an half of hour in the experiment, after then the heat production ceases down and the membrane must be replaced. This could serve as another indicia, that the heat production actually runs inside the pores - not within plasma outside the membrane - but this assumption should be still subject of future research.

The plasma electrolysis at electrode is commonly used in cold fusion research, but its energy yields aren't as high in general. What I think is, that the plasma has been demonstrated at the end of video when the water was already boiling. Under such a situation just a small amount of heat will be able to form vapor layer above membrane, which would get ionized with glow discharge. What I therefore think is, that the plasma formation is actually an unwanted artifact, which would decrease the energy yield and life-time of membrane - but I can be indeed still wrong. IMO it would have a good meaning to try another types of porous plates too: sintered glass, zirconia or alumina.