Has anyone here experimented splitting H2O for energy?

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

nt

[acptulsa]

Never done it, but the concept is simple enough. Dangerous if not done right, though. Pure oxygen doesn't technically burn. It's just the substance that any material that does burn needs in order to burn. Give a fire pure oxygen and you get explosive combustion, then nothing but ash.

As for hydrogen, well... Ever see that film clip of the arrival of the Hindenburg? Don't try that at home...

The biggest pain is that, unlike gasoline, these substances are gaseous at anything remotely resembling a normal temperature and therefore hard to handle.

[Original_Intent]

Takes more energy to separate than you get from burning the H and the O.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Takes more energy to separate than you get from burning the H and the O.

I do not agree.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

nt

[roho76]

I was going to post about this today. They have found Stan Meyer's car about a year ago and it's been hush hush all this time but it was just bought by the Orion Project on Jan 4th of this year. Hopefully they will open that box off his and let the world know what the hell he was up to. I remain skeptical but curious.

Apparently Stan discovered how to resonate the water at a certain frequency and then split the H and the O in order to burn the H. The process according to sources say it uses milliwatts to perform the process from beginning to end in theory creating a perpetual motion machine. The process also does not create heat like other hydrogen producing systems. And the whole process is on board which means no filling stations. It's a hydrogen on demand system also so it only produces H when it is needed so your not driving around with a giant bomb on the back of your car.

There is another scientist that figured out how to burn water that was vibrating at high frequencies. There are many other inventors who are on to this technology and there is also a lot of intimidation from outside forces coming down on these people.

Here is more info on Stan and water fuel technology:
http://waterpoweredcar.com/stanmeyer.html
http://www.waterfuelcell.org/
http://waterfuelcell.org/phpBB2/

[roho76]

Move beyond the gas. Contain and pressurize the gases. Recombine the gases into H20. Let the pressure do the work.

This doesn't matter. Burn the fuel, compress it, it doesn't matter. the whole process is clean outside of letting Shell or Exxon make the Hydrogen for you using a coal plant. The byproduct of Hydrogen is water. Stan in one of his video's even talked about using the water that came out of the tail pipe to refill the water to burn again.

[SevenEyedJeff]

This thread question reminds me of what happened in Atlas Shrugged to the motor that was supposed to revolutionize industry, but the motor's creator threw it in a junk pile and disappeared, so that the looters (in Washington) wouldn't be able to rob him, like they were robbing every other successful operation.

I'm thinking the technology is there, somewhere, and repressed one way or the other. Repressed either by those who want to continue making money on current technology, or by those who can make it work but don't want to be looted, just like in the book I mentioned. Or perhaps the NWO is hiding it. :D

[Acala]

I think electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen could be very useful - not because you can get more energy out by burning it than you put in to split it - you CAN'T! Sorry folks. Chemical bonds have constant energy states. They hold a certain amount of energy - no more, no less. Trying to get more energy out of the formation of a chemical bond than you put in to break it is like trying to pour ten gallons of water out of a five gallon can.

BUT hydrogen and oxygen are very useful. For example, how are you going to do welding when the grid goes down (eliminating your arc welder) and the acetylene runs out? Answer: You can weld with oxygen and hydrogen!!! So if you have a solar panel to generate the electricity for the electrolyis and a compressor that runs on wood gas or vegetable oil, you can refill your oxygen cylinder and put hydrogen in your acetylene cylinder and suddenly you are the only guy in town who can weld!

Another possibility is using hydrogen to store energy. Batteries suck. Even good batteries suck. They wear out. So how do you store energy from your solar panels or other electrical sources? How about storing hydrogen? You can use it to cook, you can use it for lighting, you can use to run an internal combusion engine that will run a generator, etc.

Here is what I am thinking: Build an electrolysis cell for generating hydrogen and oxygen and run it off your solar panels. Then feed the oxygen into a wood gasifier. Adding oxygen to a wood gasifier improves the quality of the wood gas produced. Then use part of the wood gas to run an internal combustion engine driving a compressor. Feed the rest of the wood gas AND the hydrogen from the electrolysis cell into the compessor and fill tanks. The compressed wood gas can be used to run a vehicle, light a house, heat a house, cook food, etc. Straight wood gas doesn't burn hot enough to weld with, but maybe the reduced nitrogen content from the oxygen supplement and the increased hydrogen from the hydrogen supplement will make it useable. I don't know.

This is why a gas-powered compressor is high on my list of tools to acquire.

[acptulsa]

I remain skeptical but curious.

It is interesting. There are states when chemical reactions are easier than they should be--in the presence of a catalyst, for example. I share your state of mind on this.


I think electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen could be very useful - not because you can get more energy out by burning it than you put in to split it - you CAN'T! Sorry folks. Chemical bonds have constant energy states. They hold a certain amount of energy - no more, no less. Trying to get more energy out of the formation of a chemical bond than you put in to break it is like trying to pour ten gallons of water out of a five gallon can.

BUT hydrogen and oxygen are very useful. For example, how are you going to do welding when the grid goes down (eliminating your arc welder) and the acetylene runs out? Answer: You can weld with oxygen and hydrogen...

Another possibility is using hydrogen to store energy. Batteries suck.

The guy behind Tesla Motors disagrees with you, but I think you have an excellent point. His point is as another said above--why convert it (with losses to the process) when you can use the electrical energy directly? This is a completely disingenuous argument--batteries use chemical reactions to store electrical energy! So why carry all that weight around? Fuel cells may be heavy, and compressed hydrogen may be dangerous like propane, but--a heavy ass battery? The hydrogen in your tank is lighter than air!

[polomertz]

There is a certain frequency at which water splits. It's like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that got ripped to pieces in a small amount of wind, or an opera singer shattering glass with her voice. Nikola Tesla almost took down an entire building with a small device just knocking at a certain frequency on one of the steel beems. Most everybody who stumbles across something that seems to give them more energy than they put in, was doing something along these lines.
It may still take more energy to split the bonds than you get from burning the parts. However, that doesn't mean you can't draw energy from somewhere else. Some people call it the Zero-Point field. There is energy EVERYWHERE. It's all around us and there's more than we could ever need. This is not something the establishment will let you know about. The technology that can utilize this energy is locked deep away in the vaults of the U.S. Government & Various Contractors (SAIC, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup, etc.) However, there are people stumbling into this all over and I bet that eventually they won't be able to keep a lid on it anymore.

[Acala]

It is interesting. There are states when chemical reactions are easier than they should be--in the presence of a catalyst, for example.


Catalysts lower the energy threshhold for initiating a reaction, but they do not change the overall energy equation. In other words, if a reaction takes a total of 100 kcal/mole and needs an uncatalyzed temperature of 300 degrees to get started, a catalyst may lower the temperature needed to start the reaction to 150 degress, but the total energy required will STILL be 100 kcals/mole.

[Athan]

Just mix Aluminum and Gallium. Hydrogen is a byproduct of the mix.

Scientists in a university discovered this, then the feds came and censored their results.

[Acala]

Just mix Aluminum and Gallium. Hydrogen is a byproduct of the mix.

Scientists in a university discovered this, then the feds came and censored their results.

Aluminum and gallium are elements. There is no hydrogen in them to be released. Unless you think they have discovered table-top fission . . .

[wizardwatson]

Just mix Aluminum and Gallium. Hydrogen is a byproduct of the mix.

Scientists in a university discovered this, then the feds came and censored their results.

Sometimes the internet fills me with an overwhelming feeling of WTF?

[Acala]

There is a certain frequency at which water splits. It's like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that got ripped to pieces in a small amount of wind, or an opera singer shattering glass with her voice. Nikola Tesla almost took down an entire building with a small device just knocking at a certain frequency on one of the steel beems. Most everybody who stumbles across something that seems to give them more energy than they put in, was doing something along these lines.
It may still take more energy to split the bonds than you get from burning the parts. However, that doesn't mean you can't draw energy from somewhere else. Some people call it the Zero-Point field. There is energy EVERYWHERE. It's all around us and there's more than we could ever need. This is not something the establishment will let you know about. The technology that can utilize this energy is locked deep away in the vaults of the U.S. Government & Various Contractors (SAIC, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup, etc.) However, there are people stumbling into this all over and I bet that eventually they won't be able to keep a lid on it anymore.


The Tacoma Narrows bridge was inadvertently designed to concentrate wind energy. The amount of energy in a 40 mph wind over an hour of time over a span of a mile-long bridge acting as an airfoil is HUGE! The fact that the airfoil characteristics and vibrational harmonies made the bridge a good collector of wind energy did not change the tensile strength of the steel. So too, although you might find a particular frequency of radiation that efficiently pours energy into a hydrogen-oxygen bond in water (as does a microwave oven) it will not change the amount of energy required to break the bond. The energy required to break a chemical bond is a physical constant.

Yes, there is energy all around us. But the important consideration when dealing with thermal energy is RELATIVE energy states. If you live in the northern latitudes and you go outside right now, there is a vast amount of energy in the air. Unfortunately for YOU, there is relatively less energy in the air than in your skin. Each air molecule bouncing off your skin takes with it a little bit of the thermal energy that was in your skin. Eventually an equilibrium will be established in which no net energy transfers from the air molecules to or from your skin. Unfortunately, you will then be dead because the overall movement of energy was from your skin to the air which, although full of energy, had less energy than did your skin. The energy moved from a high energy concentration to the lower concentration. Energy will not move from the lower level to the higher level. If this were possible, you could go outside and get warmer while the air around you got colder. This can only be done by expending energy to make the transfer - as with a heat pump. It is like water - it only flows downhill unless you apply energy to push it up.

The zero point energy is so slight as to be barely measurable. It is very difficult to imagine any way to extract that energy because it can only flow to a LOWER energy state and there is none. Of course the quantum world is a strange one and many wonders await. But I have never heard any feasible explanation for how this could be done.

[Johnnybags]

Aluminum and gallium are elements. There is no hydrogen in them to be releaseb. Unless you think they have discovered table-top fission . . .

it does make hydrogen but expensive. Heating water to crack it at 2000+ degrees works,expensive, electrolysis works but energy input/catalyst,expensive. Nuclear power to hydrogen works,expensive. Solar electricity hydrogen electrolysis is expensive but at least renewable. I think Borax works as well. Problem is always not how to get it but how to get it cheaply with an abundant resource. Find that and you are a king. Of course you'd be killed first or sued for some patent infringement into oblivion or if not the environmentalist would find something to bitch about.

[torchbearer]

I did some groundbreaking research last weekend in my garage, but I'm only releasing my findings to GHEM.

[Acala]

it does make hydrogen but expensive. Heating water to crack it at 2000+ degrees works,expensive, electrolysis works but energy input/catalyst,expensive. Nuclear power to hydrogen works,expensive. Solar electricity hydrogen electrolysis is expensive but at least renewable. I think Borax works as well. Problem is always not how to get it but how to get it cheaply with an abundant resource. Find that and you are a king. Of course you'd be killed first or sued for some patent infringement into oblivion or if not the environmentalist would find something to bitch about.


Maybe aluminum and gallium can be used in some way as a catalyst or in a chemical reaction to liberate hydrogen from water or some other source, but aluminum and gallium themselves do not "make" hydrogen.

Borax?

There is no problem making hydrogen. Electrolysis works just fine. It takes more energy to make it than will be released when burning it, but so what? It is a clean fuel that can be made by anyone at home. As long as you don't expect some magic energy fountain that will generate more than you put in, you will be well served looking into it.

[jim70769]

I am in the H2 business. We put over 230 million cubic ft of H2 in our pipeline daily. The main way they use to make H2 is with an SMR. Steam methane reformer.
I'm sure if it was as easy as some people suggest it would have been done. The plant I work in takes acetylene off gas compresses it, removes 02,C02, etc then cool it down to -310 and separate the components.

[Johnnybags]

not cheap either. Check out this guy.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hydrogen-house
It appears he uses a commercial electrolyzer powered by solar panels. I have no doubt the sunbelt desert area in the USA would be the place to drive this. There are cobalt catalysts, various chemical reactions and a a gazillion ideas that work. ITS NOT CHEAP AND USES MUCH ENERGY OR EXPENSIVE RESOURCES! Find a way to use the sun, find a cheap renewable catalyst or forget it. Making hydrogen is not the answer,making hydrogen cheaply is. Check out youtube for gallium/aluminum hydrogen for all the nonbelievers for a demo. Its still expensive though but works. I think TATA steel is working on some slag superheated water sprinkler system that get 70 percent hydrogen, still not cheap. FIRST ONE TO ISOLATE CHEAP HYDROGEN, err let me know before anyone else, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease.

[Acala]

My interest is in home grown technology for survival, not large scale industrial production. Industrial production will ultimately be driven by fission and then fusion, if we survive.

Electrolysis works for home production of hydrogen. Not as a way of generating energy, but as a way of storing and using energy from other sources. In my case, I have a 2kw solar array I can use to drive an electolyisis cell if times get tough.

Actually, the flammable part of wood gas is hydrogen and to a lesser extent carbon monoxide. But it has other gasses in it as well - lots of nitogen in particular. Not really any clever home grown way to separate nitrogen and hydrogen that I can think of, but feeding the gasifier with oxygen should reduce the percentage of nitrogen in the final product.

[Acala]

not cheap either. Check out this guy.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hydrogen-house
.


interesting article

[AdamT]

I split vegetable oil into biodiesel with sodium methoxide. Have made thousands of gallons.

[Acala]

I split vegetable oil into biodiesel with sodium methoxide. Have made thousands of gallons.

This is important enough to have its own thread.

My concern with biodiesel is getting the reagents needed to split the vegetable oil in a post-collapse scenario. Where will you get sodium methoxide or methanol and sodium hydroxide?

Isn't it better to make the hardware changes to the engine so you can burn straight veggie oil?

[AdamT]

This is important enough to have its own thread.

My concern with biodiesel is getting the reagents needed to split the vegetable oil in a post-collapse scenario. Where will you get sodium methoxide or methanol and sodium hydroxide?

Isn't it better to make the hardware changes to the engine so you can burn straight veggie oil?

To make biodiesel you need used (or virgin) veggie oil, methanol, and lye. The methanol and lye get mixed together into sodium methoxide, then added to the oil. You can get methanol from chemical companies, or better yet, race track suppliers that sell fuels. I buy it by the 55 gallon drum. One could buy a few drums and have a store of it that would last quite awhile. To put it in perspective, every gallon of biodiesel requires more less 20% methanol. So 100 gallons of methanol could make 500 gallons of biodiesel.

You can get lye from hardware stores (Red Devil drain cleaner is 100% lye) in small amounts. I get 50 lbs bags at a time. You can order online. I make 55 gallon batches of biodiesel at a time, which usually require around 950 grams of lye. I've been using the same 50 lbs bag for years. The lye amount is dependent on the cleanliness of the veggie oil (specifically it's PH). The more acidic the more lye required.

The problem with biodiesel is cold weather. It will gel up at around 35 degrees or slightly higher. We run it in the spring/summer/fal in our main diesel tanks. All our vehicles are converted to run on straight veggie oil as well. You can blend biodiesel with regular diesel in any percentage. Blending with cold weather diesel will work to a degree depending on how cold it is outside. After clogging untold filters trying various methods of blending, we just run straight diesel in the winter.

To burn straight veggie oil, you don't need to change anything at all mechanical to the engine. You add a 2nd tank (for veggie oil), which is heated by the engine coolant. You basically re-route some of the fuel lines and add a couple electronic valves, which you control from inside the vehicle with switches. You pre-filter the oil before putting it into the tank.

Both of these processes require veggie oil as the main component. In a post-collapse scenario it is unlikely it would be readily available so all this pretty much goes out the window unless one could build up a stash of ingredients.

[tmosley]

On this board we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics!

Seriously, severing a bond takes the exact same amount of energy as reforming that bond. You waste energy at both stages, so it's a losing proposition for energy production. Energy STORAGE is a different story, however.

I seem to remember reading about some compound that would sequester hydrogen very efficiently, and would release it slowly with gentle heating making it an ideal form of storage for cars that don't make 100 meter wide craters when they crash into each other.

As to they biodiesel, you can also use methanol or ethyl alcohol (moonshine) to perform the transesterification reaction (you have to convert it to sodium methoxide or sodium ethoxide first). It's a bit complex to try to do at home unless you have a little chemistry lab or so. If you can get the methoxide from someone else, then that is much better. The process of making biodiesel also puts out some hydrogen. If you can manage to capture it, you've got a little more energy for free.

Edit: AdamT had a good idea there. You can make sodium ethoxide with lye too, by the same method. You can distill it yourself. Get some Dri-rite or so, and you can drop that in there to remove the rest of the water after distillation (you can reuse the Dri-rite, just heat it up in an oven, or a solar oven, and all the water will go out of it).

[Acala]

Both of these processes require veggie oil as the main component. In a post-collapse scenario it is unlikely it would be readily available so all this pretty much goes out the window unless one could build up a stash of ingredients.

My plan is to be able to press oil from native plants (jojoba, acorn, wild gourds) and other people's crops (corn, olive, etc.). That is why I bought a seed oil press. I plan on powering it with a diesel engine that I will run on the oil I press. I think vegetable oil will be in demand for cooking and for fuel. But I am steering away from biodiesel because I don't want to be reliant on a supply of alcohol or sodium hydroxide.

[lucius]

...To burn straight veggie oil, you don't need to change anything at all mechanical to the engine. You add a 2nd tank (for veggie oil), which is heated by the engine coolant. You basically re-route some of the fuel lines and add a couple electronic valves, which you control from inside the vehicle with switches. You pre-filter the oil before putting it into the tank...

I converted my bug-out vehicle to run on SVO, it is also nice to have the extra tank for range.

ps: I would rather use (KOH) for biodiesel...

[AdamT]

I converted my bug-out vehicle to run on SVO, it is also nice to have the extra tank for range.

ps: I would rather use (KOH) for biodiesel...

IE Potassium hydroxide. Never tried it, although I heard it's less toxic?

[acptulsa]

This is important enough to have its own thread.

More than one. This might have been the best:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=137232

[lucius]

IE Potassium hydroxide. Never tried it, although I heard it's less toxic?

generally have to use more but you can compost waste glycerin into fertilizer: http://www.biodieselsmarter.com/archives/2008/07/composting_solution.php

I like svo solutions and I plan to make a trip to el paso to see a pilot plant creating VO from algae with an almost 50% yield. SVO Listor engines are amazing for temporary off-grid power production...state of the art low tech is my mantra.

http://www.f1-rocketboy.com/lister.html

ps: I like this thread.

[acptulsa]

ps: I like this thread.

Me, too. But if this turns into the best thread on biodiesel production, that would be a shame. This site is turning into an excellent research library, and unrelated thread titles can make such resources hard to find...

Come on with the info, though!

[Isaac Bickerstaff]

A basic water splitting device would be a great augmentation to a biodiesel or oil engine.
Even if it does take more energy to split the water than can be recovered by burning the resulting components, overall, efficiency will be increased because the fuel will burn more completely.
Jonathan Goodwin in Lawrence, Kansas has been doing something like this for years and can currently get 60 MPG with a Humvee and 100MPG with a 1970's battleship style Caddy.
(Fast Company magazine, Nov, 2007)

Some theories here that might fit into this thread better than any other and might encourage those that have hit a block or inspire someone else. First, John Ellis discovered that the bond angle on water is not a constant. He discovered that he could increase the amount of energy in the water, thereby increasing the bond angle just by rapidly and repeatedly changing the state that the water is in. (It makes sense to me that the water molecules absorb some of the latent heat from this process)

I have no way of studying this first hand, but if the bond angles in the water have anything to do with electrolysis and gaining energy when reconstituting the parts, I would guess that the bond angle of the water being split would be larger than the bond angle of the water coming out of the tailpipe. Both would be water in every sense of the word, and it would appear that energy has just been created out of nothing, but in reality, the water coming out of the tailpipe would have much less energy stored in it. (This one kind of came to me in a Salvadore Dali moment dozing on the couch last night.)

Another point for discussion would be the work of Louis Cervran, a French . . . uh. . . really bright guy. In his life's work, he discovered that elements really do change from one to another, not only with alarming frequency, but also as a necessity to life on this planet. I was intrigued by his book "Biological Transmutations" mostly because Carl Sagan thought that the idea was preposterous.
Cervran's first major observation happened in grammar school, he knew that the cast iron coal stove in his classroom would produce CO if it were allowed to get red hot. The teacher said that the CO was leaking out through the softened walls of the stove. Louis knew that that explanation was BS, because in order to reach that high of a temperature, the coal needed to burn more completely, thus emitting less CO, and the high temperature would be trying to suck air into the fire chamber as the hot air was violently escaping up the chimney. It has since become fairly well known that paramagnetic and excited ferromagnetic substances act as a sort of antenna for certain extremely low frequency electro magnetic waves-- more than enough energy to (look at a periodic table now) shift a proton from one nitrogen to the other in N2 and change it to CO.
Through much more of his work, he discovered that often the particle being shifted from one atom to another was an alpha particle, or hydrogen atom.
Very difficult to prove scientifically, but following this belief has produced positive results here on the farm--anecdotal evidence only.

[satchelmcqueen]

i tried it for a while on my truck. it did produce gas that would explode from pure water, but i didnt really notice any mpg improvements.

if you could just somehow produce more gas, then i could see how it could really work.

[lucius]

i tried it for a while on my truck. it did produce gas that would explode from pure water, but i didnt really notice any mpg improvements.

if you could just somehow produce more gas, then i could see how it could really work.

Did you restrict the air intake on your truck after install?

[satchelmcqueen]

Did you restrict the air intake on your truck after install?

no. the only thing i did to the engine was i tapped a 3/8 brass fitting into the top of the air cleaner cover (old hotrod style/open face chrome) right above and center to the air ventures on the carburetor. i attached 3/8 clear rubber hose style tubing to that tap from the hho device i had built. the hho device was just secured to the inner fender inside the engine compartment.

this is a 1970 f100 ford truck if that helps you visualize it better. 302 engine.

the added gas didnt hurt performance in any way shape or form. didnt even cause the engine to misfire or anything, but mpg if there was any, was not noticeable.

as i stated the device was making gas on its own that would explode if you put a flame to it, but it basically came down to the fact that i wasnt producing enough gas to make a measurable difference at least on a 302 engine.

i suspect from other videos ive seen that in order to make more gas, most people have to use 2-3 batteries in their cars with a bigger current alternator. more current to play with equals more gas output from bigger or multiple devices. i/you can only do so much with one battery without ruining it. also most people who have done this seem to run it on 4 cylinder engines. i think these things are the key.

the whole "takes more energy to separate than you get back...etc" may be true or may not be true, but either way, if you can get to a point that you can stretch your gas further and gain mpg, then what does that really matter? its on a closed system that runs itself....ie...the car.


thats my take at least.:)

[tmosley]

I have no way of studying this first hand, but if the bond angles in the water have anything to do with electrolysis and gaining energy when reconstituting the parts, I would guess that the bond angle of the water being split would be larger than the bond angle of the water coming out of the tailpipe. Both would be water in every sense of the word, and it would appear that energy has just been created out of nothing, but in reality, the water coming out of the tailpipe would have much less energy stored in it. (This one kind of came to me in a Salvadore Dali moment dozing on the couch last night.)

The only way that the bond angle would change would be if there was salt or some other substance in aqueous solution. Adding or removing salt can result in increased or decreased heat. The amount of energy is so low that it would be almost impossible to harness (maybe a sterling engine--but those are very expensive, and there are far better ways to power them).


Another point for discussion would be the work of Louis Cervran, a French . . . uh. . . really bright guy. In his life's work, he discovered that elements really do change from one to another, not only with alarming frequency, but also as a necessity to life on this planet. I was intrigued by his book "Biological Transmutations" mostly because Carl Sagan thought that the idea was preposterous.
Cervran's first major observation happened in grammar school, he knew that the cast iron coal stove in his classroom would produce CO if it were allowed to get red hot. The teacher said that the CO was leaking out through the softened walls of the stove. Louis knew that that explanation was BS, because in order to reach that high of a temperature, the coal needed to burn more completely, thus emitting less CO, and the high temperature would be trying to suck air into the fire chamber as the hot air was violently escaping up the chimney. It has since become fairly well known that paramagnetic and excited ferromagnetic substances act as a sort of antenna for certain extremely low frequency electro magnetic waves-- more than enough energy to (look at a periodic table now) shift a proton from one nitrogen to the other in N2 and change it to CO.
Through much more of his work, he discovered that often the particle being shifted from one atom to another was an alpha particle, or hydrogen atom.
Very difficult to prove scientifically, but following this belief has produced positive results here on the farm--anecdotal evidence only.

Atoms don't spontaneously change from one to another at anywhere near those energies, unless they are unstable isotopes (ie radioactive). You have to get up to plasma temperatures (think surface of the sun) to break them apart, and the bonds would have dissolved long before. The energy that was released would blow the three atoms apart, and you'd get C, N- and a proton (the reaction happening in both at once would be so improbable it wouldn't happen twice in the lifetime of the universe). If this was happening at a rate fast enough for a high school student to notice, the stove would have exploded, or become freezing cold (depending on if the reaction was exothermic or endothermic).

Even if that were happening, it would be exceptionally easy to measure, as the isotopes that were formed would be obviously different from those in the environment. Even a high school student could perform that experiment, if noticeable quantities of it were being produced. All he would have to do is capture some of it and weigh it vs the volume (higher atomic weights would be denser per volume, lower atomic weights would be lower, a one neutron difference would give a difference in weight of about 3%, which is easily measurable).

[Isaac Bickerstaff]

The only way that the bond angle would change would be if there was salt or some other substance in aqueous solution. Adding or removing salt can result in increased or decreased heat. The amount of energy is so low that it would be almost impossible to harness (maybe a sterling engine--but those are very expensive, and there are far better ways to power them).



Atoms don't spontaneously change from one to another at anywhere near those energies, unless they are unstable isotopes (ie radioactive). You have to get up to plasma temperatures (think surface of the sun) to break them apart, and the bonds would have dissolved long before. The energy that was released would blow the three atoms apart, and you'd get C, N- and a proton (the reaction happening in both at once would be so improbable it wouldn't happen twice in the lifetime of the universe). If this was happening at a rate fast enough for a high school student to notice, the stove would have exploded, or become freezing cold (depending on if the reaction was exothermic or endothermic).
.

I read that textbook too, and it didn't quite satisfy. In pure science, our knowledge is limited to what is observable, and what we are capable of observing is limited by our knowledge.