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Science Technology

De-Icing with Electricity, Not Heat 22

Posted by timothy from the zip-zip-drip dept.
danspalding writes: "The New York Times has this article about using eletricity against ice. Turns out ice creates a reverse charge in whatever it binds to, and that that charge can be neutralized. Battery-powered ice cream scoopers can't be far behind."
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De-Icing with Electricity, Not Heat More

De-Icing with Electricity, Not Heat

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  • Ice is just a form of water...so wouldn't electricity and ice form some horrible effect?
    • Yes. It would create a time-space distortion that would disrupt the time continuum destroying all known universe.

      Now, seriously, what's the problem with electricity and water ? For starters, pure water is a bad conductor. If it has ions on it, then it can conduct electricity. So what ?
      • Yes. It would create a time-space distortion that would disrupt the time continuum destroying all known universe
        That's why there aren't any electrical sockets inside my freezer. You live and learn.

        BTW, my Lord, are you giving me the eye?

  • "Ice is one of the unusual semiconductors in which electrical charges are conducted by moving protons instead of electrons. It was that property of ice that particularly intrigued Dr. Petrenko."

    On a chemical level, how do protons shift the atom that they are part of the nucleus of? Is there a special property of crystals that makes this happen or is it just ice that does this?

    Any information would be, well, informative...

  • Roads and Tarmacs (Score:2, Informative)

    by denubis ( 105145 )
    Another difficult problem with ice is not only with tires and airplane wings -- it is with the roads one walks on. Having skidded my way to classes more than once (walking on paved pathways) I would be very interested if they could develop this technology as a "film." The relative cost savings for both car windshields, and snow plows would be insane. You probably could also charge people fees to watch "popcorn snow." Imagine the snow/ice bouncing off your driveway, visibly. This would definetly be something I would like to see.

  • More info about moving protons (Score:4, Informative)

    by Lord Sauron ( 551055 ) on Thursday February 21, 2002 @07:45PM (#3048387)

    University of Illinois has a very good article [uiuc.edu] (with pictures!) about Proton conduction, proton channels, proton wells on water.

    This page [dartmouth.edu] about Victor Petrenko, a little more technical than Slashdot's article

    This one [iicm.org.tw] is brief, but says: "PROTONIC CHIPS NEVER FORGET Researchers at the University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories are investigating the use of protonic memory for making cheap forget-me-not computer chips. In 1995, they noticed during experiments on silicon wafers that protons deep within the wafers were responding to electrical signals on the surface. "Nobody had seen these moving protons before," says one scientist. Further research showed the protons can be precisely controlled with standard microcircuits -- and are thus able to store data. Protonic chips won't need the fancy processing used in "flash" and other so-called nonvolatile memory chips, and can operate at very low power levels, thus prolonging battery life in laptops. Protonic chips currently are being tested at Texas Instruments.

    This PDF [rl.ac.uk]explains the Mechanism of proton diffusion in the solid state protonic conductor Rb3H(SeO4)2, wich I assume is somewhat equivalent to the ice (haven't read the whole article yet) This

    • Does anyone else remember the Asimov Positronic brain stories (all of the robot stories.)

      The protronic robots have the one design feature listed here (that electronics don't have):
      very little power input.
      (they also can't kill or injure people, and this article seems to imply that proton chiops won't either...)

      Is truth stranger than fiction, or are the two going to be the same someday.... (x-files music)

  • First, isn't it just easier to use an electric heater to melt ice?

    Also, when the H20 and O2 ignite, wont the explosion send shards of ice flying? I would imagine that a shattered plate of ice would act similar to glass, and be jus as dangerous...unless i'm being stupid and the ice all melts

    Otherwise, it's brilliant...

    • "First, isn't it just easier to use an electric heater to melt ice?"

      Using the electric heater, you end up getting water running down the windscreen, and it takes an age - plus as soon as you stop heating the windscreen, all that water that still exists as a film on the screen will re-freeze. Using this method, the ice just jumps off the screen almost instantaneously, without melting, and leaving your windscreen (relatively) dry, and so it will not refreeze.

      "Also, when the H2 and O2 ignite, wont the explosion send shards of ice flying?"

      Since the layer of gas is very thin, it should only be enough to "pop" the ice off the glass due to the expansion of the ignited gas. I don't think there would be any explosion - the shedding effect would be due to the gas expanding, not igniting. Watching it happen would be like the ice just falling off the screen, as the bonds between the two surfaces are broken.

    • Re:Exploding the ice? (Score:2, Informative)

      by ilbrec ( 170056 )
      The amount of gas produced would be very small.
      Let's say there is 1 gram of ice on the windshield of your car. Given water is 18 grams/mole, that would be 0.056 moles of water on it.
      Now, since for every 1 mole of water, you will get 1 mole of hydrogen and half a mole of oxygen, you will get 0.056 mole of hydrogen and 0.028 mole of oxygen.
      Given gas occupies about 22.4 L at 1 atm, 0 degrees Celcius, about 124 mL of hydrogen and 62 mL of oxygen will be produced out of 1 g of water.
      While that may seem a lot to be produced, all of that will be formed on relatively large area, about 1 or so square meters. Therefore, they will be dissipated into the air very very quickly (less than a second).
    • Ugg.. nowhere in the article does it say the ice will ignite. When the electrolisys turns it into gas it occures on the surface of the window trapped behind the sheet of ice. The gas takes up more space so the pressure pushes the ice off the windshield. I'm just guessing on that but it makes alot more logic than the gas exploding....
  • http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/21/technology/circu its/21NEXT.html [nytimes.com] For those of you who don't want to register. Always substitute 'archive' for the 'www'.

    <ponder>
    On an off-topic note, it was weird that this article wasn't on the front page of /.
    I wonder what's going on with that, I've noticed a lot of stories miss the front page, and i notice these articles later with very few comments. Something in Slashcode is screwed up I suppose.
    </ponder>
  • Can this tech be put in reverse and cause skates/skis to have less friction? You would have skis and skates that would slide easier resulting in faster times in races etc.

    Maybe even a way to replace lubricants in bearings and moving parts?

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