Artificial Gills!!!

[PaulChristenson]

It's still very much a prototype.. but let raytheon or some other big tech company get a hold of it and I think it could be viable in a few years...

D.

Cool...let us know how the prototype testing goes...

I submitted your name as a tester

Paul in VT

 

[Daylonious]

Gimme a couple of support divers and a a spare air "just in case" and i'll give it a shot, sure, why not.

D.

There was some research going on around the time the Abyss came out about a super-oxygen infused liquid that (I believe) Stanford was testing out on volunteers. They'd fill one of your lungs up with this stuff and see how you reacted. Apparantly you could 'breathe' this stuff for up to 30-45 min or so...

D.

 

[ba_hiker]

It's still very much a prototype.. but let raytheon or some other big tech company get a hold of it and I think it could be viable in a few years...

D.

Only if the military picks up on it. Say 20mil development costs, 2000 units a year, $1000 each (200 for recouping r&d), recoup you investment in 50 years. These numbers are all WAGS (wild *** guesses...). A smaller/leaner company perhaps could do WAY better..

 

[Scuba Brad]

Lets see now.......hummmm..........ok let me get this straight.........fill my lung up with water and hope I can breathe under water orrrrrrr...........just go with a very reliable tank. Let me think about that one.

Happy Diving

 

[String]

Been discussed elsewhere a few times (and a big article in new scientist 2 weeks ago).

However:

http://www.yorkshire-divers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=390878#post390878

has some detail from someone that should know their stuff:

I asked John Weinberg, who runs Scuba Training Ltd what he thought. Besides having an MSc hydro-biology in and a BSc (hons) in marine-biology physiology, he has an impressive academic family background with access to a father who is a very eminent professor at Imperial College, London. This is his reply:

“I had a quick look at the site and the description on the Patent
Application and I can't see it working. Even on the figures supplied, the device will need to pump 2000 litres per minute. That is a bit over two tonnes of water a minute (over 33 litres a second)! A pump that powerful would need a lot of batteries. A quick look at the Screwfix website shows a 500 Watt electric motor will pump 233 litres a minute so we would need roughly nine of these pumps to run off our battery pack, and that would require an impossible 4.5kw.
Also according to Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion, the thrust of 2 tonnes per minute would propel the diver through the water pretty fast! (A very modest boat jet-drive pumps half a tonne a minute - ed.)
There is also a basic flaw in the assumption that the air will come out of
the water if the pressure is reduced. Whilst that might be true for
saturated water in the lab, seawater is not always saturated with oxygen
and even with a reduction in pressure, it might still not reach
supersaturation and come out of solution. As the bubbles float away from
the cavitation area they will start to re-dissolve.
Another problem is that the amounts of gas dissolved in the sea vary a lot.
Firstly the solubility of each gas will vary with salinity but even more so
with temperature; at a salinity of 35 (average around UK) and a
temperature of 25˚C (Red Sea in May) the solubility of Oxygen is less than 4
ml per litre but if the water cools to 0˚C the solubility rises to 10 ml per
litre. Nitrogen solubility varies in a similar but different way, 10ml per
litre at 25˚C and 15 at 0˚C. "Air" extracted at these two temperatures would
vary from 29% to 40% oxygen - quite a challenge for the nitrox decompression tables. The oxygen solubility figures describe the maximum amount that could be dissolved rather than the true figures. True oxygen levels will vary a lot with biological activity. Next to a shallow reef busy photo-synthesising in the bright sunshine of day-time, the water is likely to be almost fully saturated but swim into a dark wreck with decomposing seaweed in it and there might be no oxygen at all. Don't swim behind your buddy if he is wearing the same kit... not only will you be hit with 2 tonnes of water a minute but it won't have any oxygen left in it!
The 2000 litres seems roughly correct assuming approx 50% gas recovery and allowing for some warmish water. I'm sure the power would be better used electrolysing the water and feeding the 100%oxygen into a rebreather system, you would only need about 1litre of oxygen a minute this way. How much power would this take? This is the system used in nuclear submarines to generate oxygen but smaller diesel-powered submarines do not have access to sufficient energy. I guess you would also need to remove the salt from the water as well to prevent the production of acids and chlorine."

(Text from an article written but never published.)

 

[luft]

Do you ever wish
you could breathe underwater?

I still wish
I could breathe underwater.

Me too, Ned.

 

[Scuba Jerm]

If it doesn't work then at least we still have Gilly Weed to fall back on.

Gilly Weed eh? Professor Sprout would be so proud of you! But that would be really cool.