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Friday, September 21, 2007 Can Magnets Boost Ethanol Production?Continued from page 1 By Peter Fairley
Perez says that he is confident that the magnetic fields will "more than pay for themselves," offsetting the cost of the magnets and their power supply. Applications for patents on the technique have been filed--patents that Perez believes will be applicable to processes that use feedstocks other than sugarcane, such as corn and biomass, to produce ethanol. But Perez acknowledges that more research is needed before the magnetic effect can be applied commercially. "Studies in pilot plants and on the industrial scale need to be carried out to conclude a more complete analysis of the impact on the process cost," he says. Hermann Berg, a biochemist at the Saxonian Academy of Sciences, in Leipzig, Germany, says that the Brazilian researchers' results corroborate evidence that he and others have found for magnetic fields' ability to boost bacterial and yeast metabolism. "I believe that it works," says Berg. James Weaver, associate director of the Biomedical Engineering Center at Harvard and MIT's joint Division of Health Sciences and Technology, counsels caution while scientists sort out the causes of the increased yields. "This is a controversial area," he says. But Weaver adds that there is a lot of research under way that bears watching. For example, he points to a report published in June in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that alternating, low-intensity electric fields can stop tumor cells from dividing by disrupting the "molecular machinery" of cell division. (Electric fields attract charged molecules in much the same way that magnets attract metallic particles.) That work, led by researchers at Haifa-based Israeli biotech firm NovoCure, is now in phase III clinical trials as a treatment for patients with glioblastoma multiforme--the most common form of brain cancer. The fermentation boost, too, could be due to an electric field induced by the alternating magnetic field, but Weaver believes that all such hypotheses are pure speculation. "Plainly, the effect is very large. It's very interesting, but it's hard to say anything beyond that," he says. "It's the proverbial 'It raises lots of questions but at this time [offers] no answers.'" |
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Engineered Microbes Boost Ethanol
12/08/2006
Comments
walt on 09/21/2007 at 5:59 PM
14
devassocx on 09/21/2007 at 6:07 PM
21
Becker, titled "the Body Electric". Its a lay book
but the guy (a PHD) was an FDA researcher and he
describes some of their experiments.
amulekii on 09/22/2007 at 9:01 PM
10
g8oz on 11/14/2007 at 12:43 PM
1
michaelebradley on 11/28/2007 at 10:16 AM
1
martinaatayo on 09/21/2007 at 6:58 PM
29
details raises very serious controversies.
The scientific mechanism of action supporting
the claimed ethanol increase has not been
provided to afford fair comment(s)and methodology
appreciation.
Known knowledge indicates that exposure of live cells to either, electric or magnetic flux
density produces adverse effect on shelf life and survival of bioreactants, concentration of reactants, bioactivity, ambient temperature and pressure etc.
Role play of magnetic field to the culture must
be explained, as the cited increase bears no
correlation to, either, mechanical or electrical
modification of bioreactors. (contact: martin@mpgatechnology.com)
jklonoski on 09/22/2007 at 5:43 AM
1
grow some plants in a cup, subject them to electromagnetic radiation, set up a control and see for yourself.
hereiam355 on 09/23/2007 at 9:52 PM
1
srujanm on 09/24/2007 at 2:09 PM
1
tvalone on 09/25/2007 at 2:19 PM
1
Another company that offers similar products is The Magnetizer Group http://www.magnetizer.net/index2.htm which has water and fuel magnetic energizers. Therefore, the Brazilian discovery is not new. However, the US Patent Office still considers this magnetic treatment of fuel to be unscientific, for unknown reasons (ref. MPEP online).
DJTal on 09/28/2007 at 7:38 AM
109
Monsterboy on 10/09/2007 at 11:50 AM
53
DJTal on 10/10/2007 at 9:14 AM
109
nayan2910 on 10/14/2007 at 6:05 PM
1
donnasenhora on 11/13/2007 at 2:01 AM
1
Technofan on 03/10/2008 at 2:47 AM
1
They developed a technology called Biomagnetic Bioremediation that utilizes unipolar magnetic fields (South pole) to stimulate the growth of microbes in the bioremediation process. This invention can clean up toxic waste better than any other known method and it has been successfully tested by the EPA.
Davis and Rawls discovered that water was affected differently depending on which magnetic pole it was exposed to. They also found that plant growth could be increased by placing seeds on the North or South pole of a magnet for a few days just prior to planting them, and watering the plants with magnetized water. Depending on the species of plant, most grow best with South pole exposure, but some respond best to the North pole. All of the information from the Magnetizer website came from the discoveries of Davis and Rawls.
These two scientists found that fermentation could be sped up by using South pole magnetic fields too.
In their books they state that they have not found any field of human inquiry that these discoveries cannot be applied to.