För två år sedan dök den här artikeln upp och blev rätt sågad för en idé som är omöjlig att förverkliga.
Nu har de två svenskarna Saeed Khademi och John Khademi samlat ihop över 6 miljoner kr på Indiegogo på en produkt som aldrig kommer att fungera.
Post på Reddit: https://np.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/4av9xw/triton_allows_you_to_breathe_underwater_100k_in/d13so58
Till skillnad mot andra "kickstarters" så är denna skapad med "flexible funding" vilket betyder att pengarna sätts in direkt på deras konto.
Vilka är dessa killar som nu ska revolutionera hela världen med en så här fantastisk produkt?
Nu har de två svenskarna Saeed Khademi och John Khademi samlat ihop över 6 miljoner kr på Indiegogo på en produkt som aldrig kommer att fungera.
Post på Reddit: https://np.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/4av9xw/triton_allows_you_to_breathe_underwater_100k_in/d13so58
It’s physics time!
They claim the device allows you to breathe underwater by capturing oxygen dissolved in the water and putting it in a tiny tank for you to inhale. Already at this step I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming they meant air and not oxygen, because if you breathe in pure oxygen you’re going to have a bad time oxygen poisoning.
So, how much air does a person need, and how much air can you actually find dissolved in the body of water of your choice? A quick dig though scuba diver forums will leave us with a number of between 10 and 20 litres or atmospheric-pressure air per minute. NASA, on the other hand quotes a typical consumption of 0.84kg of pure oxygen per day, that roughly translates to 2850 L per day, or 2L per minute, much less than the scuba quote, but keep in mind that the NASA number represents an average day, including 8h of sleep, AND astronauts require much less effort to move around in zero-g than a diver underwater. EDIT: see annotation at the bottom of this comment
So let’s stick to the scuba number, but I’m a nice guy, so I’ll use the lower end and say a human diver needs 10L of air per minute.
Now, how much air can we find in water? This depends on the depth and water temperature. You can dissolve more air deeper under water, and when the water is cold. The makers of Triton claim it only works down to 15ft, at that dept, and at a cool 15C (60F) we get a maximum possible solubility of Air in Water of about 0.029, that means every 1L of water can have 0.029L of air in it. Note that the air will be slightly compressed, by a factor of 1.5 at that dept, so we get an equivalent of 0.0435 liters of “atmospheric pressure air” in each 1L of water in those, very favourable for the product in question, conditions.
And we need 10 such liters every minute to breathe.
10 / 0.0435 = 230.
So, if the Triton is 100% effective in sucking air out of water, and the water has as much air as it possibly can, in as favourable conditions as one may expect, and we assume we use very little air, we still need to pump 230 litres of water though that device every minute.
230 litres per minute is a lot. A typical garden hose will pump about 35L/minute, so we’re talking 6 typical garden hoses of water flowing around the device constantly. I guess somebody more engineeracly-capable could do some laminar flow math to show how impossible that is, given the size of this device, but I guess you're going to have to trust my intuition on this one, but it's gonna be at least an order of magnitude of "impossible". If not 3.
But wait! Submarines get their oxygen from the water, they’ve been doing that for years, it must be possible.
Well, they do, but in a different way. Instead of capturing the air that is dissolved in water, they perform electrolysis to get oxygen and hydrogen from water, and dispose of the hydrogen. The oxygen is then mixed with the air inside the craft, to make a nice breathable mix for the crew. That’s not a process that’s easily miniaturised, because you need a way to mix the air, remove carbon dioxide from it, and it requires a LOT of electrical energy. As in: a nuclear reactor worth of electrical energy.
BUT WAIT! Fish do that! They breathe the air dissolved in water! We’re smarter than fish, we should be able to do it as well!
Fish are cold blooded, and have a different metabolic rate, so they require A LOT less oxygen to survive. Their gills are also much bigger in reference to their bodies, than this made up piece of designer wet dream ‘device’ is compared to a human.
But of course, the team at Triton claims they have a device, that they tested and they were “happy with the results”. With nearly $100,000 after a day of campaigning, broken physics and blatant lies, I give them 5 shits out of 5!
💩💩💩💩💩
Edit 1: as /u/squirrelpotpie and some more people later pointed out, the NASA document talks about oxygen consumption, and you don’t consume all the oxygen in the air you breathe in - only approximately a quarter. In scuba gear the air you brave out, along with all the oxygen remaining in it is lost in the form of released bubbles, and not re-used as you can do in a closed system like a spaceship, submarine or re-breathing device. So if the device is to release air (as seen on their demo video), the 10L/min is the number to take.
They claim the device allows you to breathe underwater by capturing oxygen dissolved in the water and putting it in a tiny tank for you to inhale. Already at this step I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming they meant air and not oxygen, because if you breathe in pure oxygen you’re going to have a bad time oxygen poisoning.
So, how much air does a person need, and how much air can you actually find dissolved in the body of water of your choice? A quick dig though scuba diver forums will leave us with a number of between 10 and 20 litres or atmospheric-pressure air per minute. NASA, on the other hand quotes a typical consumption of 0.84kg of pure oxygen per day, that roughly translates to 2850 L per day, or 2L per minute, much less than the scuba quote, but keep in mind that the NASA number represents an average day, including 8h of sleep, AND astronauts require much less effort to move around in zero-g than a diver underwater. EDIT: see annotation at the bottom of this comment
So let’s stick to the scuba number, but I’m a nice guy, so I’ll use the lower end and say a human diver needs 10L of air per minute.
Now, how much air can we find in water? This depends on the depth and water temperature. You can dissolve more air deeper under water, and when the water is cold. The makers of Triton claim it only works down to 15ft, at that dept, and at a cool 15C (60F) we get a maximum possible solubility of Air in Water of about 0.029, that means every 1L of water can have 0.029L of air in it. Note that the air will be slightly compressed, by a factor of 1.5 at that dept, so we get an equivalent of 0.0435 liters of “atmospheric pressure air” in each 1L of water in those, very favourable for the product in question, conditions.
And we need 10 such liters every minute to breathe.
10 / 0.0435 = 230.
So, if the Triton is 100% effective in sucking air out of water, and the water has as much air as it possibly can, in as favourable conditions as one may expect, and we assume we use very little air, we still need to pump 230 litres of water though that device every minute.
230 litres per minute is a lot. A typical garden hose will pump about 35L/minute, so we’re talking 6 typical garden hoses of water flowing around the device constantly. I guess somebody more engineeracly-capable could do some laminar flow math to show how impossible that is, given the size of this device, but I guess you're going to have to trust my intuition on this one, but it's gonna be at least an order of magnitude of "impossible". If not 3.
But wait! Submarines get their oxygen from the water, they’ve been doing that for years, it must be possible.
Well, they do, but in a different way. Instead of capturing the air that is dissolved in water, they perform electrolysis to get oxygen and hydrogen from water, and dispose of the hydrogen. The oxygen is then mixed with the air inside the craft, to make a nice breathable mix for the crew. That’s not a process that’s easily miniaturised, because you need a way to mix the air, remove carbon dioxide from it, and it requires a LOT of electrical energy. As in: a nuclear reactor worth of electrical energy.
BUT WAIT! Fish do that! They breathe the air dissolved in water! We’re smarter than fish, we should be able to do it as well!
Fish are cold blooded, and have a different metabolic rate, so they require A LOT less oxygen to survive. Their gills are also much bigger in reference to their bodies, than this made up piece of designer wet dream ‘device’ is compared to a human.
But of course, the team at Triton claims they have a device, that they tested and they were “happy with the results”. With nearly $100,000 after a day of campaigning, broken physics and blatant lies, I give them 5 shits out of 5!
💩💩💩💩💩
Edit 1: as /u/squirrelpotpie and some more people later pointed out, the NASA document talks about oxygen consumption, and you don’t consume all the oxygen in the air you breathe in - only approximately a quarter. In scuba gear the air you brave out, along with all the oxygen remaining in it is lost in the form of released bubbles, and not re-used as you can do in a closed system like a spaceship, submarine or re-breathing device. So if the device is to release air (as seen on their demo video), the 10L/min is the number to take.
Till skillnad mot andra "kickstarters" så är denna skapad med "flexible funding" vilket betyder att pengarna sätts in direkt på deras konto.
Vilka är dessa killar som nu ska revolutionera hela världen med en så här fantastisk produkt?
