Biochemical Decompression

[zaberman1]

Anyone know the % of 02 and % of Hydrogen required to produce an explosion? Its clear that the applications are for extremely deep diving where the PP02 is sufficient to sustain life but %02 is low enough to avoid explosion. That said, how does moisture factor in (e.g. residual 02 from breathing stage transferring to backgas of x% Hydrogen)?

EDIT: I spoke to a friend (chemist) and its a much more complicated answer, as I expected...

 

[Rhone Man]

Slightly less improbably, wasn't there some USN research a while ago about trying to directly filter nitrogen and helium bubbles out of the bloodstream (in a Chamber) to accelerate decompression?

 

[GrimSleeper]

Anyone know the % of 02 and % of Hydrogen required to produce an explosion? Its clear that the applications are for extremely deep diving where the PP02 is sufficient to sustain life but %02 is low enough to avoid explosion. That said, how does moisture factor in (e.g. residual 02 from breathing stage transferring to backgas of x% Hydrogen)?

EDIT: I spoke to a friend (chemist) and its a much more complicated answer, as I expected...

During the Hydra experiments, Comex found that any Hydrogen blend with over 4% O2 was liable to go whoomp. And that included inside the divers lungs. So they were pre-breathing a 4% Heliox to get the O2 content of their lungs down before switching to Hydrox. Of course, they were doing all this in a chamber, pressurising the 'diver' down to the equivalent of, if memory serves, 720-odd metres. That's a lot of feet. Really don't think Hydrogen is going to be making an appearance on the recreational scene any time soon.

Flying home from the dive would be fun, though, but you'd need to watch your altitude... And beware lightning strikes, unless you want Ed Murrow saying 'Oh! The humanity' over the radio as you go up in flames!

 

[wedivebc]

Reminds me of a Sea Hunt episode.

Was that the one where he scams Leonard Nimoy into believing he was diving to 300ft to find his dead wife by taking a "decompression pill"? I loved that show.

 

[Scuba_Shane]

Future divers will be putting out methane like cattle. Global warming's newest threat!

This kind of technology does seem feasible, besides the fact that it would be insanely dangerous. Maybe they will iron the quirks out with another gas, one a little more stable than hydrogen.