Electricity and Fire

[Woodsman]

Ran across this today. . .

_http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=222&content_id=CNBP_026931&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=cd081c4c-070d-4082-8632-77176da17080

Researchers use electrical charge to put out fires and affect their behavior.

Apparently, it has been known for a long time that electricity has many effects on the way flames work.

 

[clerck de bonk]

Good catch Woodsman!
Have to research that when I get home.

DARPA funded ...weell, that don't mean there's no truth in it, rather the opposite methinks...

 

[Scottie]

More info here:

_http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/28/6362578-fight-fire-with-a-magic-wand

Bishop said that the flame-taming effect isn't all that noticeable at low voltages. "The one thing that is new is the ability to use large, time-varying electric fields. ... It's only been recently that the high-voltage power supplies that make this kind of perturbation possible have become commercially available," he told me.

40,000V AC power has been available for ages already. You can buy a transformer and stuff your household AC current at 50 or 60Hz through it, and you can get ~40kV at the output. So, maybe what is required is a very high frequency 40kV?