Quest for the Ultimate Gas

[Diving Lore]

Starting a poll off to see whats currently considered the Ultimate/best Diving gas. Commercially there are the 'big four' - Air, Nitrox, Trimix, Heliox and a fifth - the newly experimental gas Hydrox! Not many divers know of this one though!

Although some are not strictly recreational they all have a unique set of advantages and disadvantages.

Feel to leave your reasons as to why you consider it the 'Ultimate' Diving gas.

Have fun polling and posting! :05:

 

[H2Andy]

well, hydrox is hardly new:

The first recorded use of hydrogen as a breathing mix was in 1789. Lavoisier (The Father of Modern Chemistry) and Sequin exposed guinea pigs to mixtures of hydrogen and oxygen (Hydrox).

http://www.mindspring.com/~divegeek/mixhistory.htm

and it's ... what's the word... quite explosive

 

[Diving Lore]

well, hydrox is hardly new:

The first recorded use of hydrogen as a breathing mix was in 1789. Lavoisier (The Father of Modern Chemistry) and Sequin exposed guinea pigs to mixtures of hydrogen and oxygen (Hydrox).

http://www.mindspring.com/~divegeek/mixhistory.htm

and it's ... what's the word... quite explosive

Indeed but if you ask the typical diver on the beach what it is I'll wager you'll get some funny looks!

 

[lamont]

You'd want something that was mostly inert (wouldn't react with tanks, plastics or lungs), non-toxic, non-narcotic but which got bound to something similarly to oxy-hemoglobin and therefore didn't require decompression. Might need to do something two-phase where you built up a concentration of a substrate (like hemoglobin) that the inspired gas could then bind to. If the substrate was degraded sufficiently slowly by the body then you'd just inject yourself with the substrate before diving, then breathe the gas mixed with sufficient oxygen to support life, and then pop to the surface whenever you wanted to without any deco. The substrate could look like some kind of enzyme, or it could be nano-machines.

You did ask for the 'ultimate' gas... And this gets you no tox, no deco and no narcosis... Hard to beat that...

 

[SeanQ]

|¯¯¯¯|
|____| *
^box . ^lamont

Chamber dives to 300 m (984 ft) demonstrated that hydrogen possessed a narcotic effect different from nitrogen. Hydrogen narcosis (the "hydrogen effect") had a tendency to be more psychotropic – i.e. more like LSD, while nitrogen narcosis had an effect similar to alcohol. This deeper work suggested that Hydrox as a binary gas mix would not be too useful at depths below about 500 feet.

Whoa!

 

[wedivebc]

We have been experimenting with FARTROX. It smells like crap but it sure keeps the drysuit warm

 

[SeanQ]

We have been experimenting with FARTROX. It smells like crap but it sure keeps the drysuit warm

Are you using that with a Field Approved Rebreather Tool?

 

[Diving Lore]

You'd want something that was mostly inert (wouldn't react with tanks, plastics or lungs), non-toxic, non-narcotic but which got bound to something similarly to oxy-hemoglobin and therefore didn't require decompression. Might need to do something two-phase where you built up a concentration of a substrate (like hemoglobin) that the inspired gas could then bind to. If the substrate was degraded sufficiently slowly by the body then you'd just inject yourself with the substrate before diving, then breathe the gas mixed with sufficient oxygen to support life, and then pop to the surface whenever you wanted to without any deco. The substrate could look like some kind of enzyme, or it could be nano-machines.

You did ask for the 'ultimate' gas... And this gets you no tox, no deco and no narcosis... Hard to beat that...

Well said! At Diving Lore its often been discussed that perhaps one loophole around the whole
gas dilema would be to look 'inward' more and for companys to develop retro-activated pills and safe drugs for the elimination of nitrogen.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Indeed but if you ask the typical diver on the beach what it is I'll wager you'll get some funny looks!

If you ask the "typical diver" on the beach what percentage of the gas in their tank is nitrogen I'll wager you'll get some funny looks
To the question - the perfect gas depends on the dive. "One size fits all" solutions always compromise something; they only really fit one size.
Rick

 

[ChrisA]

I wonder if there is not some high molecular weight inert gas that would not pass through the lungs. You would just inhale it and exhale it and it would have no effect on the body. Then mix in the rightamount of oxigen for the depth and you are set. Almost no decompression would be required but the drawback would be the high density gas would require more work to breath.