AboutDavid L. Russell, PE Expertise I`m a Chemical,Civil and Environmental Engineer and have a number of projects in all phases of the environment.
I have worked in the chemical industry and am active in professional societies, and am currently on an industrial wastes committee for the Water Environment Federation, and have taught courses in remediation in the US and abroad.
I have written one book on Remediation of petroleum Contaminated Sites, and have a second book on PRACTICAL WASTEWATER TREATMENT to be published by John Wiley in September, 2006. I've also written over 30 articles on various elements of environmental problems and cleanup. Most Recently, I have addressed a NATO Scientific and Techical Conference on Ecoterrorism, and have worked with the same group on remediation of sites contaminated with Chemical Warfare Agent materials and othe materials as well. . I can answer q`s about Chemical and Environmental Engineering, land development, air pollution, water pollution, soil and water cleanup, combustion, international environmental problems, industrial processes chemical processes. Civil and Environmental and Chemical Engineering. Overall, I have over 35 years of experience in this area. Note: I do not answer homework questions
Experience I love work in the third world and developing areas
because it is challenging and one can get a sense of accomplishment.
Question QUESTION: Hello Mr. Russell, my name is michael i am 24 and will be attending a university somewhat close to Albany Oregon in a few months after my army obligations are complete. my question is i want to learn how to make, build, test, every aspect in creating and operation of wind and solar power plus other renewable energy projects. making hydrogen with salt water and the capacity to build and produce a product and to maintain the product fabricating the entire item and or scraping it together. i do not know if there is a solar or wind or green specific class or institution avaliable but i do know that my current path would have me doing several skills with Welding, auto mechanics, electrical, fabrication, cnc mechinest, computer systems?, physics?, the thing i really don't know is how to maximise the output of power and how to apply it to a home and or car ie solar wind powering the home which powers the hydrogen which powers the car. i would like to learn how to do all this without taking too many cources. besides the state free tuition for OIF vets and the GI Bill i have to work towards a degree to get free education. i have found a few websites that describe how to make these systems and apply them but i want to optimise this. earth4energy.com. such as sterling engines and parabolic mirrors or dishes. do you have any advice on this subject or knowledge to help me out a little. I really can't find anyone to give me infrormation on this as of yet. I have found one insitution OIT but they don't completley fufil my request.
ANSWER: Greeting from the "sandbox" of AbuDhabi. It's where I am at the moment.
I can appreciate your interest. What you are looking at is something along the line of a hybrid degree. I would suggest something in chemical engineering and/or construction engineering. What you want is a solid exposure to the fundamentals of engineering (chemical engineering) and combine that with the other abilities to understand electric circuits and chemistry to research topics in your area of interest.
I believe that the ChE's have the most balanced program. You can always take electives in the electrical field once you start on a degree. But beware! It's a tough program. There's lots of math and science and you will need to take it at some pace you are comfortable with. Get your math and science out of the way at a good small college and then finish at a University with a good Chemical Engineering program.
You may find that you don't want to go that far, and then you might wind up in Construction Engineering where you are putting things together. It does not have the math and science components so it may be more toward your liking.
By the way and this is one final thing. When you disassociate pure water, which has a very high dielectric constant, you get H2 +02. If you have salt in the water to lower the conductivity you also get NaOH which is Caustic Soda, and Chlorine at the other electrode. The energy required to disassociate water has always been greater than the energy available from combining the Hydrogen and Oxygen to make water.
Good luck and let me know what you decide to do. I hope that I have helped you in your decision process.
Dave
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: I would say that U.A.E. would be a little safer than the other sandboxes maybe a little more enjoyable deffently. I have actually really been looking into the program at Oregon Institute of Technology. I read a little more into it after i found the information and it seems really strong. But i still think that i will have if not want to take some Manufacturing courses that i described earlier, that they may not cover completley. From my understanding they are one of the only Higher Education Facilities that offer a recently new degree in Renewable Energy Engineering. But i will deffently look into taking more Chem classes. Math and Science shouldn't be a problem but i deffently need a refresher. I've taken Trig, Pre Cal, and lots of college level Ag Sciences in H.S. Math i can tolerate and i love Science so we'll see how physics and the Chemical lab go.
I thought it was much harder to seperate pure H2O. that's why salt or baking soda or some sort of electrolite was added. leaving a substance in the container but creating the fuel much more efficently. and because you need to either use stainless(because of the corosiveness of the process) which isn't very conductive thats why it is needed? and because Platinum isn't cheap. i guess you can turn up the boost and juice the crap out of it??? H2 excites me expecually when the whole process is done clean. Now i just need to make something so i can run my Audi on it completley, but for now i'll just work on making the system that connects to the intake. Thanks again.
Answer Apologies for the late reply.
First, you are fighting chemical thermodynamics. It takes more energy to disassociate water than you get from combining it, so it is a losing proposition. You are correct, in that adding salt lowers the resistance but you are confusing voltage with current. An Avogadro's number of electrons is required times 2 to disassociate water. Basically that's current. Voltage is a different consideration. A number of years ago I was involved in a project where we were disassociating water to form bubbles for an electroflotation process.
What we found is that we needed the water to have a certian minimum conductivity in order for the current to flow and generate the quantity of bubbles we required. That was basic. We could get those by adding salt or electrolites but we would also get chlorine and other off gasses along witht the hydrogen and oxygen generated, and the mixture was quite explosive. So you need to look at your electrochemistry.
Finally, about 10 years ago, there was a mad inventor in central Ohio by the last name of Meyers. He is dead now. He claimed to have a patent by which he was able to disassociate water using an alternating current applied to a ring and that current would disassociate water apparently in sufficient quantity to enable him to make a car which would run on the hydrogen oxygen combination.
I evaluated the process as best as I could at the time and believed that it was a sham. Later through back channels, I learned that I was correct. Sorry, but there's no free lunch. If you can generate a source of power cheaply and stor the gasses, you can perhaps power a vehicle or heat a house but be careful because it is very explosive.
Good luck.
Dave
