Woohoo. Easy O2 and light for just a small personal price.

[Finless]

Well, a few of you may remember a recent post of mine about a TV program called 'Atom'? When I got back from t'club last night it was being repeated and I hadn't missed as much of this program as I did the first time around.

Now, at this juncture, I would like to point out that I had had a couple of pints and a JD AND I have an atrocious memory, so you will have to excuse any slight blurring of scientific accuracy.

The word alchemist was mentioned (lightheartedly) in relation to someone who had discovered something to do with what happens to air in the presence of a radioactive source (specifically radium, I think). Apparently oxygen and hydrogen were appearing in greater quantities than there should be! Further narrowing of the tests showed that nitrogen, when subjected to radioactive bombardment, changes (some of it/eventually all of it?) to oxygen and hydrogen!

Well, surely this is all we divers need to know. I can't figure out whether to dump some radium into my cylinders ........... the hydrogen could be bled off with some of the excess oxygen to power a divers tilly lamp. Actually, that's a really bad idea isn't it. I'd have a really big problem tracking my PPO2 during a dive?

No, the answer is obvious; radioactive blood? That way excess nitrogen in the blood stream is converted to oxygen so you won't want/need to breathe as often. The hydrogen will, presumably, escape through the back bottom ......... oh wouldn't it be perfect if hydrogen had a better thermal capacity than argon? Bollocks to deco stops I say (in the near future).

Genius!

[Finless]

Whilst searching for a link to detail the science involved I found this link which looks kind of interesting?

Producing medical grade oxygen for human, animal, or laboratory use by paramagnetic separation of oxygen from air - Patent 4150956