Electrostatic Desalination

A briefing

Friday is the best day to get the minister out of the parliament and out among the people.So Friday saw us in a car with a driver on our way to see a different type of water de-salting process.

Organising this day took a bit of doing because we were going on to look at something as far removed from water treatment as was possible. I had organized a hire vehicle parked at this first stop, so as to get to the second site with a minimum of people knowing. Sitting in the back with the minister it was easy to hand him a note outlining what I had planned. Although I got a long searching look from the minister the driver did not notice. I had planned so that the driver did not notice anything out of the way was to happen. As drivers are a source of leaks or lost information.

On arrival at the testing and display site we were met by the liason person and an engineer. We were able to dismiss the car and driver for him to return in eight hours.A large shed housed the equipment ,unlocked for us all to enter.It was a bit of a letdown, all that was visible were gutters or in ground channels, with wiring from the roof hanging down into these channels.

The liason officer and engineer set up a display with a small screen, computer and a projector. This display showed us the plate technologies that are so reliable that we take them for granted and ignore them. The first plate system shown was the aluminium radio tuner. This is two sets of parallel aluminium plates that intermesh and are in fact a variable condenser with an air gap or air insulation. The plates are fixed to small frames that keep them apart and when operating change the radio stations as the plate area varies. The second plate system we were shown was a lead acid battery. This was so ordinary that we queried the engineer, he then explained that the battery plates were in fact quite sophisticated technology. The display went on ,showing us the storage power, due to a very specific acid,sulphuric,an acid proof container and a specific material spacing the plates apart in the acid.

Thechemical reaction between the different plate materials and the acid could instantly give electrical power. Power sufficient that an internal combustion engine of high compression could be started no other way.The icing on the cake when the motor started and recharged the battery the chemical reaction was reversed ready to restart the engine when ever needed.

The display now started on the desalination plant. This was based on biology and the cell structures of living plants and animals. The chemical reactions happening in the cells moving fluids and electrolyres through the cell membranes would show an electron movement that in primates multiplied, so that an induction meter would register as a current flow on the display.

To believe this we were shown an instrument with an opening claw.When closed around an arm or even a finger the meter would show a current flow. The engineer explained it was not a real flow of current, through our bodies, just the billions of cells, each with a tiny amount of electron imbalance due to the chemical reactions. Our heart beat driving fluids around our systems and through individual cells ,adding up to enough to show a reading on an induction meter.

This amounted to a DC or direct current, in a human body of about seventy amps at one tenth of a volt. The minister then asked about the power to the channels, this surprised the engineer who then explained that alternating current power was used for a variety of reasons.

We were then shown the high school water electrolys demonstration, a glass tube bent into a U shape with electrodes inside the bottom of the U with connections outside to direct current electricity. We could see the bubbles of oxygen and hydrogen,rising from the electrodes in their separate legs or parts of the U tube.

The point of this the engineer explained, was to show electricity could break the bond between the two constituent gases and that the gases were broken at separate electrodes.This meant that the oxygen from the hydrogen electrode had to travel to the other electrode and vice versa with the hydrogen. So that between the electrodes there were multiple hydrogen water molecules and multiple oxygen water molecules. This the engineer explained, was to show us that water molecules are in effect the most adhesive liquid of all. That sea water has every element in it , in solution. This last demonstration brough us back to the desalting gutters. The engineer went on to explain the need for an alternating current power supply. The first reason for AC power was to be able to use transformers to lower the voltage and raise the current. The second to prevent erosion of the plates due to electrolysis,the third to prevent the plates being coated with any or all of the minerals in solution in the water.

Just as in the other two plate systems,the plates in the gutters were on frames keeping them apart and parallel with a specific voltage and current applied. These desalination plates were made of high grade stainless steel.

The leap of faith or modus operandi was as a biological cell had an electron imbalance as a consequence of fluid movement through dissolved molecules.A low voltage high current through a saline solution, between the plates, would break the bond between the boomerang shaped water molecules and the various dissolved salts and minerals. The. depth and length of the plate sections was determined by the stainless steel sheeting itself and the strength of the holding frames at each end of a plate group,like a lead acid battery but larger.The plate grouping determined the gutter width and depth. The plate groups were fed with power by hanging wiring from above, also between the plate groups were a section of tubes in the water with high tension wiring going to them.

The high tension leads to the tubes in the water had an air gap in the tube and a metal contact at the bottom in the water. The air gap set the voltage high and the tubes were of insulating material, so a metal contact made the connection to the water.

The engineer showed ua a diagram of an AC sine wave with the two zero or null points to each cycle. This zero or null point was the firing time of the high tension as precise as a spark in an engine and the same type. The jolt of the HT helped to break the saline bond and allowed the saline to sink with gravity and concentrate at the base of the gutter.

A series of drains were built into the gutter bases that took the saline water out of the shed to a drying pan. The top flow of water slowly flowing out of the shed to irrigation, this water was drinkable but mostly stock water. One of the plastic lined gutters was shrouded with a collecting ducting fitted, the engineer pointed this out to us. While the system voltage was deliberately low to prevent any electrolysis, some of the dissolved gases were broken free, just as the minerals were.There was dissolved oxygen,nitrogen,some ozone from the HT arcing but neon,krypton argon and some zenon, the engineering group were evaluating the quantity and potential value.

This brought us to the point of the visit,could the minister assist in using this system on the large outflows of sewerage treatment plants. Also the rights to the dissolved gases and minerals and a percentage value of the better grade of water.Now the liason officer became the spokesperson pointing out that this visit was to be the starting point for any and all negotiations.

The minister then asked for the salt count numbers for the infeed and then the out feed. The salt count number going to the irrigation area was important. He then asked the liason officer whether he could extract the gold known to be in the sewer outfalls. The liason officer said we are trying a few different ideas, as naturer's biology extracted calcium carbonatefor coral reef building and the shells of sea water moluscs and crustaceans. The minister then asked if they knew of the magnesium extraction from sea water,also the cadmium concentration in a specific area of oysters in west Australia. We could see that these were definitely known to the liason officer, so the minister said we not be rushed into signing special interest rights. He then said a trail as soon as possible at one of the smaller, more isolated treatment plants was a priority.

An agreement would have to be drawn up and ratified. The liason officer had a set of contract papers which we could take, discuss and organize with the appropriate department heads. We then retired to refreshments and to study the terms of the agreement contract..

After a short time the minister and myself excused ourselves to go to the next demonstration. This science project was the reason for the cloak and dagger and the hire car. As we were in an industrial area and the project we were to see was a short trip, an anonymous shed. As I was the first contact point with the young scientists, I explained to the minister, what I had been told. It started with a hydrogen atom, one proton and one electron some how combined and emitting photons as heat radiation to balance energy with the surrounding atoms. Add gravity and enough atoms and you have a star.

The atoms combine to give different elements, with each element having specific different attributes. One particular combination is called Cesium and is used to power atomic clocks. During the early twentieth century an experimenter Nichola Tesla, disagreed with the accepted theory of gravity. He was never able to show any one how his theory might be proved. The point these young scientists had fixed on , was Tesla predicting giga-volt electrons outside the earth atmosphere.

This was a result of the o.007% efficiency of the fusion reaction of a star. The solar wind comprised split atoms , photons, electrons as well as radioactive particles. Tesla had been proved to be correct. If Tesla was right, a gravity particle was likely and it would be far faster than photon or light speed. This was scientific heresy, but, some experimenters in America had sent a photon beam through a cesium vapour and increased the photon beam speed. The young group we were visiting had used old cathode ray tubes, T.V.s joined together via a large glass tube. This gave a big cavity with an atmosphere of cesium vapour and instead of electron guns, a window to shoot in laser beams.

The glass working required skilled labour and this group had succeeded in the fabrication needed. We were to see a demonstration of pulsed lasers reacting with the cesium vapour. The minister had followed all this and asked, what next? So I rang a mobile phone number, the answer was the shed door being unlocked, then opened to us. The inside was an artists glass working workshop. The security was to prevent any accidents with the cauldron of molten glass. In a bay by itself was the item we were to see, set up as an art piece, being hidden, right out in the open. The spokesman for the group wanted to lead the minister and myself through their mental processes. The beginning was the waves on the sea, a very light fluid, air pressing down on a heavy fluid, water and when the air moved, the water moved, as waves. He pointed out that a square metre of water area has ten tonnes of weight on it, yet the water can break free and mix with the air as vapour and become clouds.

Solar heating moves the air so we have a cascade of energy, with more momentum with each transition. What did this have to do with atomic particle interactions? Had we heard of the neutrino flux? the tiny particles that seemed to flow through all matter, like x-rays through soft tissue. Our group took the view point that as air moved water, photons were moved interacting with the neutrinos. We considered that the most reactive interaction would be the cesium vapour.The spokesman went on, the origin of magnetic theory was a ferric mineral called magnetite. The origin of atomic theory was the 0.07% of uranium 235 in yellow cake, a paint used in ceramics. The cesium interaction we took as a pointer to another group of particle possibilities. Had we heard of the finding of the carbon molecules named after Buckminster Fuller called Bucky Balls?These were only found using ultra-violet spectroscopy, once found, seeming to be ubitiquous in nature.

The very idea of all the reactions in nature of the C60 and more carbon molecules and nobody knew they even existed, showing an ignorance and hubris as a pointer and a lesson. Integrating all this information together took a little time. To us both it seemed to be logical. This led us to the cesium cavity and the lasers discharging in to it. Our visit was the first full power test, as they were hoping for future backing. The whole glass chamber had been slowly heated to vaporize the cesium and the lasers warmed up ready, so they were switched on. After a short period of time the cavity became filled with a blue light, this pulsed twenty two times and then changed colour. The next colour was a red pulsing but it only went on and off seven times. We watched this sequence of colour change and pulsing for perhaps fifteen minutes. The group then decided that was all that would happen and the lasers were switched off.

Every one was a bit quiet as they worked out what had happened, and what to do next time. So the minister and I took our leave, promising assistance. We had a lot to think about, we then went back to the desalting plant to await the car and driver.