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matt brown wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2023 2:23 pm

Fool wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2023 6:43 am
The maniac that was able to think up that cycle must either be wickedly smart, or a lucky fool. I'm voting for the smart explanation. It amazes me the things people come up with.

absorption_1.jpg


This is a good diagram of small ammonia absorption setup common in RV (aka gas or 3 way reefer). Many guys are familar with this, but few know it was Einstein and 1 or 2 buddies that invented this while he was at the Swiss PTO. Note there's no mechanical pump, instead a sneaky clever thermo siphon is achieved via partial pressure from a third component: hydrogen gas. This is the reefer version that Serval made famous.


absorption_2.png


During my steam days, I spent a few mornings studying absorption systems over breakfast. Note the difference between these 2 diagrams where the first diagram is so detailed that it's hard to see much beyond what's in front of you. However, the second diagram is a simple schematic devoid of clutter (distractions). As I was bouncing between these two diagrams, I became convinced that I was missing something. On the third day at breakfast, the lights went on...in this second diagram, simply remove both condenser and evaporator (the 2 blue parts) and insert an engine.

This is the basic Kalina scheme, and here's the nickel tour. At room temperature, 1 vol of water can absorb 700 vols of ammonia to make 2 vols of solution, but as you raise the temperature, the ammonia "cooks off". My thinking was sweet, a steam cycle without the inherent loss of the heat of vaporization. Well, technically this is correct, but on the other side of the cycle - the absorber - even if the ammonia gas is the same temperature as the "water" (weak ammonia solution) when the ammonia is absorbed, the heat of solution raises the temperature quickly and prevents further solution (solubility a function of temperature). It turns out, that the cooling required to achieve absorption back to start state in this scheme is basically the same as the heat of vaporization for a similar Rankine cycle.

What Kalina did was to manipulate the 'timing' of heat into and out of the cycle via an array of counterflow heat exchangers. My contribution to this scheme is upping the ante while nixing the nasties...forget ammonia-water and go with another combo, maybe 3 element. I spent many hrs checking my CRC and figured water-glycerol would be better baseline. I'll stop here before I bore you guys more, but during this time, my single-phase gas sidebar tookover and I rarely look back.

Not boring at all. Very interesting.

Last time I tried to read some link about this cycle it seemed like a nightmare of complexity. The patent, or whatever it was seemed like it just kept repeating the same thing over and over. For some reason though, now, relating it to the absorption refrigerator it clicks.

Thanks!

BTW if anyone here wants to be a billionaire, here's your opportunity. Due to clueless greenies, geothermal is gaining popularity. The problem is not inherent low Carnot efficiency between source and sink. No, if only this was soooo simple. Nope, assuming endless heat supply from mother earth, greenies think we need only stick a pipe down there and feed an engine, thus earth supplies the latent heat of vaporization (this on basis that we're pulling out steam vs 'hot' water). The problem with this naive thinking (greenies are always naive) is that the steam can't be directly used due to various nasties (depending upon global location) that will quickly trash any 'engine'.

So, the challenge is to come up with some type of engine/system that's benign to these contaminants (so the steam can be used directly) or figure out a heat exchanger scheme that doesn't involve additional latent heat addition. Simply start doodling and you'll see the problem.

Tom Booth wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2023 2:34 pm
Not boring at all. Very interesting.

Last time I tried to read some link about this cycle it seemed like a nightmare of complexity. The patent, or whatever it was seemed like it just kept repeating the same thing over and over. For some reason though, now, relating it to the absorption refrigerator it clicks.

Thanks!

Since the '80s, most patents have become hard to read as if on purpose. The original patent dates to the 1930s, but I couldn't find it with a quick search. Dang, I should remember the patent, since I paid for a patent search back in the day after I found nothing on it.

I put up those 2 diagrams just to show how obscure this idea is with the first diagram, but nearly obvious with the second diagram.

matt brown wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2023 2:54 pm ...

I put up those 2 diagrams just to show how obscure this idea is with the first diagram, but nearly obvious with the second diagram.

Those ammonia systems are really fascinating. I have a couple I bought second hand just to look over. One I tried to see if I could run it on solar heat. Focus a fresnel on the heater or something but never really got far with that.

They work by compression and expansion same as any heat pump or refrigerator, just have a real unusual way of going about it.

What I find most fascinating is how the ammonia gas is compressed and expanded in this system.

The "compression" is pretty straightforward. Just liberate the ammonia from the water by heating it up. As the gas escapes the water and has nowhere to go it builds up pressure and heat and the heat is dissipated, but what is really amazing is how the ammonia is expanded. It is allowed to escape into what, for the ammonia is like a vacuum, but the vacuum is really filled with hydrogen gas. To the ammonia it's as if the hydrogen isn't even there so it "expands" into this hydrogen, but fundamentally its still just an "ordinary" alternating high pressure heat out, low pressure heat in (cooling).

The "Icy Ball" is another "batch" ammonia refrigerator with DIY potential that is interesting. I'd like to build one of those someday.

Tom, you probably see my absorption engine scheme, but just to make sure everyone else does, here goes...

Assume the generator heats the strong ammonia-water solution and cooks off the ammonia gas. The more heat the merrier, since a hotter solution evolves more AND higher pressure gas. In this manner, I would have plenty of hot gas to drive an engine and wouldn't waste any heat to ambient like original reefer scheme (in condenser). Then, expanding to a near vacuum in absorber, I only needed temperature leaving engine as near ambient as possible. Obviously, this would depend on various factors, but when you're 20 yrs old, you ignore details (ya know, a work in progress lol). My starry-eyed vision was that the absorber would remain "near" ambient, prior and during absorber, where after absorption, I'd pump this strong COLD solution back to generator via a counterflow heat exchanger that supplied weak HOT solution from generator to absorber.

So, Tom, you're not the only guy who's tried trying cheating Carnot. Yep, I planned to flip him off big time and laugh all the way to the bank. Unfortunately, the heat of solution (in absorber) is no trifle matter and quickly raises the bar. Kalina stuck with ammonia-water since it was well known (and still had a hard sell) but ammonia is not a good choice except for easy solubility. What I hate about ammonia is nasty health risk, corrosion, and whimpy vapor power. Granted, it's very soluble in water, but there's other common candidates. I favor a water-glycerol solution, since a glycerol "carrier" has a higher heat (before boiling) than a water carrier, and steam has a massive kick vs whimpy ammonia. The major downside to water-glycerol is that the higher heat capacity of water will require much larger heat exchangers than ammonia, so it's a numbers game between flow rate vs source values. Einstein's 3 element trick must not be overlooked, and there's also the possibility of combining cycles.

AFAIK there's no research in this direction and DOE avoids this sort of stuff like the plague. The post war (WWII that is) business model is the higher the gross, the higher the net (especially since we left the gold standard and brought in the funny money). Industry has no incentive to do stuff on the cheap and plenty of incentive (grant subsidies, tax subsidies, investor funding, etc) to inflate everything, all with the blessing (and ultimate funding) of Uncle Sugar.

Well, to be perfectly honest, over the past ten years or so I've been looking into this stuff my impression is that cryogenic cooling via turbo-expansion is some kind of military-industrial complex "trade secret" of sorts.

There is virtually no good information on the subject, yet, it is how the refineries seperate and liquify nearly EVERYTHING. Bottled/liquified gas of all kinds, gasoline, oxygen, etc. and is of strategic military/science/research value.

Are "THEY" hiding something from us? It really wouldn't surprise me.

Years ago, I stumbled across a few websites that detailed how the more difficult to liquify gases are liquified using a very small, extremely high speed turbine (turbo-expander).

The basic procedure is simply to pressurize the gas, then use it to drive a turbine adiabatically.

But the turbine has to be kept perfectly insulated. Buried in insulation, inside a vacuum chamber, inside another cold box, inside a "cold room" so that upon expansion through the turbine the gas gives up its "internal energy" and having no way to get that energy back from the environment, immediately condenses into a liquid.

How simple is that?

The key is turning static "pressure" into high velocity at the nozzle. The high velocity gas turns the turbine giving up energy, like it or not using its own "internal energy" to expand, but can not get make up energy to stay expanded so condenses.

OK, so we are talking about mega high compression and precision turbines spinning at hundreds of thousands of RPM, but in principle, you can carry out the process with a shop compressor and a lawn mower engine converted to run on compressed air and get down to some pretty seriously cold temperatures. Possibly cold enough to put the resulting cold exhaust back into the compressed air tank without much trouble as it is effectively already "compressed".

What is this guy doing? Is it real?

https://youtu.be/KXFaxWC1oBc


Probably entirely bogus, but who knows.

Technically, I'm not entirely sure that that "demonstration" is completely fake.


https://youtu.be/j301aDC2PdQ


In both videos, though very faint in the second one. It sounds like there is a small compressor running in the background, perhaps adding some "make up" air to the system.

Theoretically though, he's doing several things "wrong".

The "expansion engine" has no insulation. None of the return pipe allegedly recirculating the cold exhaust to the tank is insulated.

But, we now have some confirmation from Goofy of a temperature of -60°C from the exhaust of his compressed air "expansion engine" in a single pass using about 90 psi.

My $300 shop compressor (similar to the one in the above video) puts out 150psi

So if we take Jeff Muller's "Free energy" exhaust recycling compressor/expansion engine setup and make a few alterations if necessary, like insulating the head of the expansion engine, maybe the little "make up" compressor wouldn't be needed, but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed.

But what if this were actually REAL and is simply being ignored because, as "everybody knows" if it were real, it would be a violation of the second law, perpetual motion is impossible, therefore we KNOW, without examination, inspection, testing of any kind a priori that it is fake, fake, fake. The guy is a film flammer taking advantage of these ignorant Islanders.

It looks like he has a refrigeration system expansion valve on the top of that thing and two inline check valves in the exhaust return pipe. Kind of makes sense.

I wouldn't entirely dismiss it and condemn the guy without at least trying to build such a system and test it myself.

If that makes me ignorant and unscientific, oh well.

Just curious to see if there really is such a place, the island nation of Vanuatu:
Maybe somebody can call up and ask if they are using Jeff Muller's Free energy compressor.

Probably they don't have any phone lines.

Apparently the same guy:

https://youtu.be/Haw9l0Z0iWY

Tom, now we know you're smoking something LOL!

This guy apparently started a company called Save the World Air, Inc., which sold stock.

The SEC. Got him and his company on "fraudulent claims" charges. Lots more like this:

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr-17283

The gist of it seems to be he lost control of the company which made some kind of deal evading charges. Muller was ousted as CEO and slapped with injunctions by both the SEC and his own company.

As far as I can tell the company apparently still exists and is supposedly installing "energy saving devices" on pipelines for some oil companies or some such thing.

So his claim that in the US "they" are trying to stop him seems credible, but why are they trying to stop him?

Because he is making "false claims" of course.

So who should we believe?

I'm not about to try and sort it all out, this seems to be a pattern with these 'free energy" inventors.

It's easy enough for me to just stick a Briggs and Stratton "expansion engine" on one of my compressors with a fridge expansion valve and send the cold exhaust back into the tank with a couple of check valves or whatever and see what happens.

All I can say is thank goodness I have my government to protect me from Mr. Muller's shop compressor and 5 horsepower Briggs and Stratton. We can't have these back yard inventors running amuck all over the place trying to "save the world"

Tom Booth wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 9:00 am All I can say is thank goodness I have my government to protect me from Mr. Muller's shop compressor and 5 horsepower Briggs and Stratton. We can't have these back yard inventors running amuck all over the place trying to "save the world"

When it comes to energy, Big Oil is not the major threat. Nope, it's Big Brother, since Uncle Sugar would loose his world stage without the petrodollar. The Holy Grail must elude the Men in Black.

matt brown wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 10:28 pm

Tom Booth wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 9:00 am All I can say is thank goodness I have my government to protect me from Mr. Muller's shop compressor and 5 horsepower Briggs and Stratton. We can't have these back yard inventors running amuck all over the place trying to "save the world"

When it comes to energy, Big Oil is not the major threat. Nope, it's Big Brother, since Uncle Sugar would loose his world stage without the petrodollar. The Holy Grail must elude the Men in Black.

Ummm.,. A little too cryptic. No real idea what you are saying here.

A few interesting points though

Muller's company fellows, well, apparently after the SEC charges the company got a new executive who assembled a new board of directors.

The company evaded charges but not Muller, the company with it's new leadership filed their own charges against their former CEO and sought to have all his stock in the company rescinded canceled etc.

The company changed its name.

Incidentally, I think one of Muller's inventions was apparently some magnetic thing or other that could be attached to your fuel line that supposedly reduced the viscosity of the fuel for better gas mileage or some "obvious hoax".

Anyway:

As for the name change:
And what the company is doing today


https://www.qsenergy.com/


Legal stuff regarding the company and Mr Muller etc.

https://ir.qsenergy.com/all-sec-filings ... 002126.pdf


https://ir.qsenergy.com/


So the crazy inventor making "false claims" has his company hijacked, all his assets taken his patents "acquired" and now the company he founded is using his, (apparently) technology to save the oil companies money by reducing the viscosity in the pipelines.

Stunning.

Tom Booth wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 11:05 pm
Ummm.,. A little too cryptic. No real idea what you are saying here.

A lot of people are familiar with the FRB, but these goons only print the moola (burrrr) and regulate domestic credit. Meanwhile, the 800 lb. gorilla on the world stage is the petrodollar which the Fed has no direct control over. It's not money, but credit, denominated in US dollars. Here's the 'problem' which the rich and Uncle Sugar enjoy...since most commodities are dominated in US dollars, you need DOLLARS to buy this stuff and there's only 2 ways to get these dollars (1) trade something to the US for the dollars, or (2) 'borrow' the US dollars. The 1st method forces countries to discount exports to the US to get the desperate dollars they need for commodities they lack. The 2nd method is more sinister, a credit system created out of thin air with a massive debt that settles in dollars or default. Either way, guess what the #1 thing is that everyone is scrounging dollars to buy? Yep, it's oil.

Haven't you heard, this dollar hegemony is what the US military enforces. Nix the oil dependency (or the oil trade in dollars) and you nix the dollar...

Hey Tom, don't forget all those air car scams.