Cavitation and Sonoluminescence .

Introduction.

In the Meyer patents a recurring theme is the application of electrical stress to split the water molecule. However there are many other ways of producing stress in water, that involve almost unbelievable levels of energy.  Some of these 'effects' will be found in a water fuel cell, including the light one sees under certain circumstances. The good news is that everything described here, was discovered by scientists and is accepted as fact.  An enormous amount of data and information exists on this subject, so please regard this article as merely an introduction.

Cavitation.

Cavitation is the effect where  micro bubbles can be formed in water by any surface vibrating underwater with sufficient amplitude and acceleration. The bubbles expand, then collapse emitting large amounts of energy.  Two kinds of Cavitation exist, Inertial and non-inertial.

Inertial Cavitation.

Inertial cavitation can  occur in the presence of an acoustic field. Microscopic gas bubbles which are generally present in a liquid will be forced to oscillate due to an applied acoustic field. If the acoustic intensity is sufficiently high, the bubbles will first grow in size, and then rapidly collapse.  Chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have now quantified those effects in a single bubble. High power ultrasonics usually utilize the inertial cavitation of microscopic vacuum bubbles for treatment of surfaces, liquids and slurries.

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During bubble collapse, the inertia of the surrounding water causes high speed and high pressure, reaching around 10000 K in the interior of the bubble, causing the ionization of a small fraction of the noble gas present. The intense energy released by the implosive compression of the bubble rips molecules apart. The collapse of these cavitating bubbles generates intense local heating, forming a hot spot in the cold liquid with a transient temperature of about 9,000 degrees.  For a rough comparison, these values correspond to the temperature of the surface of the sun, the pressure at the bottom of the ocean, and the lifetime of a lightning strike !. Volatile molecules are ripped apart by the intense heat and pressure.

Non Inertial cavitation.

Non-inertial cavitation is the process where small bubbles in a liquid are forced to oscillate in the presence of an acoustic field, when the intensity of the acoustic field is insufficient to cause total bubble collapse.

Sonoluminescence

Sonoluminescence is the emission of short bursts of light from imploding bubbles in a liquid when excited by sound. Sonoluminescence can occur when a sound wave of sufficient intensity induces a gaseous cavity within a liquid to quickly collapse. This cavity may take the form of a pre-existing bubble, or may be generated through a process known as cavitation. Sonoluminescence in the laboratory can be made to be stable, so that a single bubble will expand and collapse over and over again in a periodic fashion, emitting a burst of light each time it collapses. For this to occur, a standing acoustic wave is set up within a liquid, and the bubble will sit at a pressure anti-node of the standing wave. The light flashes from the bubbles are extremely short — between 35 and a few hundred picoseconds long, with peak intensities of the order of 1-10 mW. The wavelength of emitted light is very short; the spectrum can reach into the ultraviolet. Light of shorter wavelength has higher energy, and the measured spectrum of emitted light seems to indicate a temperature in the bubble of at least 20,000 kelvin, up to a possible temperature in excess of one megakelvin.