Water from diesel fumes
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According to General Benjamin S. Griffin, Commanding General, U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC), there are two liquids that are essential on the battlefield;
The fuel is called JP8, a low-grade dirty diesel that is used in almost every vehicle in the military. The emissions from regular diesel fuel are bad, but JP8 is worse. Water is the other liquid. Every soldier needs around five gallons of water for drinking, preparing food and sanitary medical needs. They watch how long their showers last and how much clothes they clean. Water is a commodity more precious than gold on the battlefield. It is trucked in. Jay Dusenbury is the Science and Technical team leader for the Army’s Tank, Automotive, Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) Petroleum and Water Business Area in Warren, MI. Dusenbury says that 30 to 40 percent of the convoy on the battlefield is used for supplying water to the Battlefield.
"There is great interest in removing that footprint. Water recovery and the manufacturing of water on the battlefield is of great interest to the Army. This is only R&D right now. We are doing concept analysis of how to best employ this on the battlefield." says Dusenbury.
United Technologies Corporation (UTC) provides fuel cell stacks to some of the Automotive Manufacturers working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (known as UTCFC). Hamilton Sundstrand, a subsidiary of UTC is supplying two Humvees to the Army, according to Dusenbury, to test at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds (APG) this Fall. The Army will be testing the treatment system that turns diesel fumes into drinkable water. They are doing this in cooperation with Lexcarb Corporation, a company they have a subcontract with to provide the treatment system.
Doug Snowden, Principal Engineer for Hamilton Sundstrand, showed off the water recovery unit at the Association of United States Army (AUSA) technology convention on October 5th, 2005. According to Snowden, five to seven years ago Lexcarb got a Request for a Proposal (RFP) from the Army to recover water from an exhaust system. (Dusenbury said that since Lexcarb was really the only contender, they were awarded a Small Business Innovative Research Grant.) Snowden went on to say that Lexcarb telephoned Hamilton Sundstrand and a subcontract was created to work together.
The process is rather simple in nature and can be applied to any combustion process. They are capturing the water vapors from the exhaust pipe, bringing them down in temperature via a heat exchanger. Based on a cooler similar to a car’s air conditioner, the cooler lowers the exhaust temperature until water starts to condense. The next step is chlorination, then walla, water. According to Snowden it takes about an hour to make a gallon of water.
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The schematics of the system
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There are still military feasibility drawbacks that have to be worked out;
The size of the water recovery system. The weight is around 500 pounds and the volume is about fourteen cubic feet. Think 3X3X2. Right now the system takes up the back two seats of a Humvee. That is two spots where two soldiers could sit. According to Lexcarb’s website, "A mesoscale heat exchanger is under development at MesoSystems, Inc. This unit would be smaller than conventional heat exchangers and could eventually fit in the wheel arch of the Humvee."
the filters need to be replaced often. There are six filters that need to be replaced every 75 to 200 gallons of water. One gallon of water comes from the burning of two gallons of diesel fuel. If you have to replace the filters every 200 gallons that equates to every 400 gallons of combusted diesel fuel. At best, the vehicle will get 10 miles per gallon (mpg), which means every 4,000 miles the filters will have to be replaced.
According to Dusenbury the cost is the least of the challenges, especially when compared to the way we currently take water to the Battlefield. When one takes into account that 30-40 percent of the convoy is used for supplying water they also have to realize the savings in;
- people
- trucks
- fuel to drive the trucks
- food for the drivers of the trucks
- cooks for the drivers of the trucks
It is a cascading process that costs a lot of money. There is a lot of work to still be done. After the proof of concept TARDEC will have to get approval from the Program Executive Office (PEO). Since this crosses lines of water and vehicles a couple of responsible agents would need to sign off on it.
The Army has spent millions on Research & Development to fund this treatment system to free up about thirty percent of the tonnage taken to war. If it works, it will save even more money. War is not the only use of this type of system.
In the summer of 2005 the gulf coast of The United States was hit hard by two hurricanes; Katrina and Rita. Parts of the city of New Orleans was demolished. The rest was filled with water and petro-chemicals, rotting dead bodies and bacteria that made the EPA warn people not to drink the water. Imagine if these treatment systems were already in the military Humvees. The military could helicopter the trucks over, or bring them in one of their C-130s. Drop them down in the middle of chaos, of people who were literally dying of thirst.
The treatment unit is reportedly coming to market at a cost of around $25,000 per vehicle and can make one gallon of water for every twenty miles it drives. How much did it cost us to send vehicles down to Louisiana, send clean water to Louisiana and go from door to door searching and rescuing people? Wouldn’t it have been easier to have this technology down there, drive to the person’s home in a Humvee that has a sixteen inch ground clearance, and offer them a clean cold gas of water to drink?
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30-40 percent of the tonnage for the battlefield is for water
Courtesy: carlist.com