Economic Security with SteamMHI Inc. USA

DID YOU KNOW? TRIVIA AND MORE ABOUT HEATING – THERMAL MATERIALS – UNUSUAL FUN SCIENCE OBSERVATIONS

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December 3, 2021

  • Did you know that Self Organized Patterns are seen all over nature from the molecular scale to the galactic scale?
  • An example for pattern formation is observed  in birds that fly in a pattern during long distance migration.  Often, they form a “V” shaped pattern.  Did you ever wonder why?
  • The various possibilities for such a pattern pattern include (1)  a lift advantage from the leading bird, (2) the “V” Patternprovides the most power-optimization condition. This is a feature of a newly discovered principle for pattern formation called the Maximum Entropy Production Rate (MEPR) principle for Self-organization.  MEPR also allows for energy optimization.
  • More on Energy Quality Optimization at  https://mhi-inc.com/simplicity-energy-efficiency-improvements/

November 7, 2021

There is now a worldwide research effort in clean high temperature steam.

  • High temperature steam is used in surface technologies, cleaning technologies, steam drying, catalysis, chemical reaction processing, surface drying technologies, curing technologies, energy systems and nanotechnologies, particularly in the clean energy sectors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheated_steam.
  • The application of superheated steam for sanitation in dry food processing  and plant environment is very important.

Some of the  leading US superheated-steam company websites include https://mhi-inc.com/superheated-steam-generators-electric-steam-generator/ for industrial steam  and www.bayzi.com for commercial high quality high temperature steam.

October 31, 2021

Microheaters and Nano-heaters  are used for a variety of applications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microheater

Fuel Cell Heat Sources, Electronics and Substrate Heating,  RF Applications, Micro tube-heaters for small volume gas heating, High Power micro-furnace with optional tube extension,  Fiber optics, Ideal for long aspect ratio/very small diameter pieces, Fiber optic use to reduce diameter of fibers, Igniters, MicroPlate heaters, Material Testing and Characterization, Thermal Property Measurements, Diamond Anvil Cells,  SEM/ TEM/ AFM, Gas/Vapor Heaters/Converters, Thin Film Preparation, and high emissivity radiation sources.

October 24, 2021

  • An odor starts out as a volatile molecule.  When these molecules enter airways, some get to the olfactory epithelia, a small patch of tissue containing about six million olfactory sensory neurons.  Our olfactory system shares the same signaling channel as our sense of pain. When we have particularly intense reactions to something that really smells bad – it hurts.
  • Porous materials like wood, walls and the fibers in carpets hold onto odor-causing molecules for years.
  • When faced with a bad smell, your first step should be to get its source out of the surface where it hides.
  • Did you know? the same principles as degreasers (see our Trivia of last week) apply to odor removal. Much of the advice to use the SaniZap-4 for degreasing will also apply to removing smells.
  • Using the proper high-quality steam can significantly reduce odor and pain ?.

October 17, 2021

New hygienic requirements exposed by this pandemic are forcing new levels of cleanliness in industrial plants.

  • The Society for Testing and Materials defines six groups of major contaminants in industrial parts. They are pigmented compounds, non-pigmented grease, rust and scaling, chips and buffing.
  • Oil dispersant cleaners and degreasers are employed to deal with all six groups.
  • Cleaners and degreasers are mostly aqueous in nature and are composed of a combination of surfactants, sequestering agents and alkaline builders and other special use agents.
  • Most degreasers work on the chemical principle of molecular dislodging where one of the agent molecule in the cleaning agent has a long hydrophobic chain, which is the end that is attracted to the oil and grease and a molecular hydrophilic end which is attracted to water.
  • The hydrophobic molecules surround the oil particles and dislodges it and makes it flow away with water.

Did you a know?  that a special steam degreaser now allows very rapid degrease action for even the most stubborn grime-stains with minimal water usage?

The kinetic and thermal energy of the cleaning molecule is greatly enhanced for dislodging and lowering the viscosity of grease and grease-cakes.  Click here for more information.

October 10, 2021

Hydrogen use is one way of enabling net-zero harmful emissions during energy use.

Did you know there are several ways of making hydrogen?  Several of these methods also incorporate carbon capture or creation of useful carbon-products such as carbon-nitrides.

Four of the major methods receiving attention are:

  1. Methane Reforming of Fossil Fuels. https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-applications/
  2. Steam-Methane Reforming. https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/
  3. Water-splitting by Electrolysis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water
  4. Decomposition of Methane during High-temperature Pyrolysis. https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/

Often, nano-scale catalysts like the Quasi-R® are employed during hydrogen production.

October 3, 2021

You may know:

  • High temperature steam is an ideal sanitizing agent. It is allowed for food contact surfaces, even for high bio loads, presents very low toxicity and is rapidly effective against yeasts, molds, fungi, and viruses.

But did you know?

  • that good high temperature steam leaves no wet spots or stains, unlike low temperature steam or sanitizing chemicals?  Click for more information.

Published reports:

September 26, 2021

The most pressing engineering problems today include:

1.    Energy Efficiency.  ENERGY SAVINGS: WHY SHOULD WE BE CONCERNED WITH ENERGY-QUALITY CONSERVATION?

2.    Climate Change.  CLIMATE IMPACT SOLUTIONs

3.    Pathogen Control.  PATHOGEN CONTROL.

4.    Planning for Sustainability. SOLUTIONS FOR SUSTAINABILITY

5.    Water Conservation. EXAMPLES OF WATER SAVINGS

September 19, 2021


  • Energy     is measured in Joules or BTU.  1 Joule =0.00095 BTU.  The cost of electrical-energy is ~9US¢ per KWh.  Therefore 1 KJ of electric energy costs 0.0025 US¢.  A match stick produces 1 KJ.  It is enough to light a self-sustaining candle flame but not much more.
  • However a device rated for 1KW, will produce 3600 KJ of energy in an hour.  This is enough energy to not only boil one Kg of water but also to raise its temperature almost to 800C.
  • Power  is the amount of energy that is converted in one unit of time (e.g. in a second).  Almost all devices are rated by their power. Power multiplied by the time the power is employed is energy used.
  • A more powerful device will be able to convert the same amount of energy faster ( speedier ) than a less powerful device.  Power is the rate at which you can do something, e.g. higher power can make an automobile accelerate faster, make a reaction go faster, and so on.  Watt  (W) is a unit of power .    1 J/s (Joule per second) = 1 W (Watt) .
  • Because the Watt is a small unit, the power of a device is rated in kW (KiloWatt)  or BTU/hr.   1KW = 3414 BTU/hr.  One Million BTU/hr= 293.07 KW

September 12, 2021

The Rock Cycle

Rock has been an important natural resource for humans. The first tools produced by humans were made from stone/rocks.  Most rocks are composed of minerals often mixed with organic matter.

Rocks are classified by how they are formed, their composition, and texture. Granite, limestone, marble, sandstone, and slate are common rock materials. It takes temperatures between 500 and 1,400 degrees Celsius to melt a rock, turning it into a substance called magma (molten rock).

The rock cycle is a concept in geology that describes transitions through geologic time among the three main rock types: sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous.

  • Igneous rocks are formed from melted rock deep inside the Earth.
  • Sedimentary rocks are formed from layers of sand, silt, dead plants, and animal skeletons.
  • Metamorphic rocks formed from other rocks that are changed by heat and pressure underground.

Did you know steam can lower the melting point of a rock?  Did you know steam or hot air is often used in underground work?

Explore Steam Generators.  https://mhi-inc.com/superheated-steam-generators-electric-steam-generator/

Explore Hot Air Generators.  https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-process-gas-heaters/

September 5, 2021

How fast does data travel?

Most data travels at higher than two-thirds the speed of light.  Researchers at the University of Southampton have produced fiber-optic cables that allow data to travel at 99.7% the speed of light.

The refractive index of a medium is the speed of light in a vacuum divided by the speed of light in the medium. The refractive index of glass is around 1.5.

Discovert Micro Fiberheaters? 

August 29, 2021

The term self-organization refers to processes where local organization is noted to occur without any significant external intervention.  New research has begun to indicate that self-organization processes are driven by maximizing the rate of entropy generation per unit volume. Self-organization leads to significant efficiencies across a variety of fields ranging from relationship-clusters, data networks to useful patterns in animate and inanimate regions of interest.

August 22, 2021

It’s all about size:

  • Bacteria tend to be ~ 2 micrometers or larger depending on their shape  and can be seen with optical microscopes.
  • Viruses can range from 20 (such as parvovirus) to 1000 nanometers (such as Pitovirus) in size depending on their shape.  1 nanometer =10^(-3)) micrometer
  • The various coronavirus structures are about 25-100  nanometers in diameter (including the SARS CoV-2 virus).
  • Respiratory droplets are typically 1-10 micrometers (µm) in diameter; therefore, could carry hundreds or thousands of virus particles.
  • Antibodies are of the order of 10 nanometers.
  • Steam molecules are sub-nanometer in size.
  • Read about anti-microbial cleaning  here.

August 15, 2021

The scale and shape of patterns at any magnification can be correlated to properties of interest.

For example, the size and shape of grains in a solid is related to the strength and toughness of a solid.

Or the size and shape of a weld pool is a consequence of the eddy patterns in the liquid zone during welding.

New research is shedding light on the entropy generation during any process. This explains several features of clustering of galaxies to the formation of nanocrystals.

Did you know that maximum entropy generation during a process leads to an optimal shape formation? More information on  https://mhi-inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm

August 8, 2021

Sustainability is related to saving energy.  Are there ways to dramatically lower this energy usage?

The use of energy in steam boilers is considerable.

  • Did you know that one can use Steam generators today instead of high pressure boilers?   The flow rate, temperatures and back pressures can be easily controlled in steam generators.
  • Most legacy boilers are large.  These are often located in a boiler room.  The steam produced is then trucked from this room to the entire plant, hospital or university.  Boiler steam is at high pressure.
  • Boilers take time to build up pressure and temperature.  Steam generators are very rapid and can be turned on and off on demand.
  • See modern steam generators here: www.mhi-inc.com.  Several applications are possible with high temperature steam to cut down energy usage.
  • One can save considerable energy using steam at will and the save water as steam generators provide flexible water flow with modern MHI controls.

August 1, 2021

  • Where does space begin?  At the Kármán line. The most commonly recognized imaginary boundary of space is at an altitude of about 62 miles ~100 km above sea level.  Some however place it at a lower 80 km.  The earth’s atmosphere ends here and space begins.
  • Where does space end?  There is perhaps no end to space.  Regardless, the present estimate is that it is 93 billion light years from one side to the other.
  • Since the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, any light from a galaxy more than 13.8 billion light-years away would not have had had time to reach us yet. That is the basis for our best measurement for the radius of the observable Universe.
  • How fast do spaceships travel?  Like any other object in low-earth orbit, a shuttle must reach speeds of about 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour) to remain in orbit.
  • Did you know? that both the Blue Origin Shuttle (which flew to 100 km boundary, 328,000 feet)  and Virgin Galactic Shuttle flights (which flew to the 80 km boundary, 262,000 feet) were suborbital i.e. carried their passengers to the edge of space to float in microgravity for a few minutes.

July 25, 2021

We honor three great scientists this week.

  • Aryabhata Circa 500 AD discovered an approximation of pi, as 3.1416. He also reasoned that the planets and the our moon shine by reflecting sunlight, and that the motion of the stars is due to earth’s rotation.
  • Leonhard Euler Circa 1750 AD was a prolific mathematician whose work spanned the fields of geometry, calculus, trigonometry, algebra, number theory, physics, and astronomy. Euler was the first to introduce the notation for a function f(x).  Euler’s equation for any  convex polygon stated that V – E + F = 2  where V is the number of vertices, E the number of edges, and F is the number of faces of the polygon.
  • Emmy Noether Circa 1900 AD made immense contributions to both algebra and physics. She is best known for Noether’s theorem which states that if a system has a continuous symmetry property, then there are corresponding quantities whose values are conserved in time.  This is the fundamental basis for energy conservation.

Almost everything we make in MHI Inc. (www.mhi-inc.com) utilizes their great contributions.

July 18, 2021

Did you know that modern processing of electronic materials and other materials relies on plasma surface interactions?

  • One of the most beautiful examples of naturally occurring plasma is the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.
  • Auroras Borealis is a plasma, formed by disturbances of charged particlesin the magnetospheric plasma.
  • These particles, mainly electronsand protons, enter  into the upper atmosphere. The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colors and complexity.
  • Based on the temperature and density of the environment that contains a plasma, a partially ionized or fully ionized form of plasma may be recognized.
  • The  Cascade E-ionis a new type of plasma.

July 11, 2021

July 4, 2021

Thermal radiation (also called heat radiation) Process by which energy, in the form of electromagnetic radiation, is emitted by a heated surface in all directions.  The total radiant heat energy emitted by a surface is proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature.  This is the Stefan–Boltzmann law.  In addition, a surface may emit or absorb radiation selectively depending on its chemical make-up, not just its temperature.

Did you know some compounds  like fluorite show Thermoluminescence.  Some minerals emit light when heated that has nothing to do with the Stefan-Boltzmann law. The emitted light released is from relaxing electrons that were out of their normal positions within the crystal lattice of such a substance from a previous exposure to high-energy radiation (for example UV light). High energy radiation creates excited electronic states in crystalline materials.  Heating the substance at temperatures to about 450° C enables the displaced electrons to return to their normal positions, resulting in the release of energy which appears as luminescence.  The amount of luminescence is used for dating pottery and as a tool for sand migration (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoluminescence

June 27, 2021

When a light beam (electromagnetic radiation) is emitted from a source e.g. a light bulb, it keeps on self- propagating because the magnetic and electric waves are out of phase. The light beam stops at the end of the universe or if an absorbing media is placed in its path.

Did you know that steam is a self-propagating gas?  Inside a pipe, any condensation at the front of the steam-gas, causes a vacuum, thereby causing more propagation.  This is why steam-gas can travel to great distances.  https://mhi-inc.com/

June 20, 2021

When heated, even before metal begins to glow red, one can feel the emission of infrared waves (IR) by the heat sensation on the skin.  Heat is generally transferred by IR waves which have longer wavelengths than visible radiation.  When heated further to increasingly high temperatures, metal will glow red, then yellow, and finally white.  This is because a spectrum of frequencies is emitted at any given temperature. The wavelength decreases with increasing temperature.

However, not all solids emit the same spread of frequencies at the same temperature. Transparent glass for example cannot glow red like a metal does, because it cannot absorb red.  A body radiates frequencies that it can absorb. Transparent glass is transparent to red.  However, glass emits (and absorbs) infrared radiation better than a metal.

Did you know that the sun emits 60 million watts of radiation per square meter of its surface?  The earth’s surface only gets 1300 watts per square meter of this radiation.

The Eion plasma is designed for very high emission of specific wavelengths.  Www.mhi-inc.com

June 13, 2021

The sun has enough nuclear fuel to stay much as it is now for another 5 billion years. After that, it will swell to become a red giant. Then, it will shed its outer layers, and the remaining core will collapse to become a white dwarf.   Slowly, the white dwarf will fade and stop radiating in the visible range.  The sun has a very dense inner core.  The out layers are hot convective, often ionized gas.

Like most other stars, the sun is made up mostly of hydrogen, followed by helium.   Nearly all the remaining matter consists of seven other elements — oxygen, carbon, neon, nitrogen, magnesium, iron, and silicon.

The Sun’s magnetic field (almost twice as strong as the earth’s magnetic field) goes through a cycle, called the solar cycle. Every 11 years or so, the Sun’s magnetic field completely flips.  Our Northern lights are caused by charged particles from the sun. When these charged particles hit the atoms and molecules high up in our atmosphere, they become excited. This creates two glowing rings of auroral emission around the North and South magnetic poles, known as auroral ovals.

Did you know that the Cascade E-ion mimics some of these emissions?  https://mhi-inc.com/cascade-e-ion-devices/

June 6, 2021

Did you know these sustainability-impacting numbers can make a difference?

  • A water faucet that leaks one drop per second can add up to 165 gallons a month. That is approximately 624 Kg of water loss.
  • Some new refrigerators are so energy-efficient (100W power rating), they are similar in power rating to one light bulb.
  • Heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems account for 40-60 percent of the total energy use in the commercial sector. The total energy use in the world is approximately about 600ExaJoules. Of this, the total use in the commercial and residential sectors is about 35%.
  • One ton of 100 percent recycled paper saves the equivalent of 4,100 kWh of energy (i.e., $410 @$0.1/kWh), 7,000 gallons of water (i.e., $10.50@ $1.50/1000gallons), 60 pounds of air emissions (note it is estimated that 3.3% of the world GDP is lost to air pollution) and three cubic meters of landfill space (the estimated cost basis is about $53 per ton of landfill in 2020).
  • Using the OAB® steam generators, instead of pressure boilers, can save 90% in the cost of energy and water for packaging.

May 30, 2021

  • Did you know Microheaters are made in spiral, linear or even as 3D heater shapes for additive manufacturing purposes?
  • Special microheater shapes patented by MHI optimize properties, including radiation properties. See for example https://mhi-inc.com/Microheaters.htm.
  • Linear Profiles are like a hot knife edge https://mhi-inc.com/microheaters/
  • A spiral is an involute curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point. The most common form is the Archimedean Spiral defined by the equation r = a+ b(theta) in polar coordinates. A helix and vortex are three dimensional spirals. Nature invokes these shapes for a variety of building blocks, from galaxies to cellular matter. Spirals are also key thematic blocks for many art forms. Spirals and vortex depictions can be found across historical art forms, e.g. pre-Columbian art in Latin and Central America. Spirals are also used to depict hypnotic effects.
  • Did you know that the involute shapes have amazing properties that make them extremely important for engineering products? From gears, jet-engine fan blades, compressors and fans, the involute shaped products allow for low-friction, low-noise and high-life.
  • Did you know MHI patented nano-texture technology is useful for saving considerable friction energy –  www.mhi-inc.com.

May 16, 2021

Steam is used for a variety of applications in commerce and industry: • Fuel from Waste  • Process heating • Vacuum jets • Shaft work for mechanical drives • Power generation • Space heating.

May 9, 2021

Why use steam? Did you know?

  • Self-drying™ steam leaves no mess or puddle.
  • For demanding hospital environment: Easy to use, quick disinfection, broad kill range, reduce potential of cross-contamination, non-toxic and will not damage surfaces.
  • Active agent is not a biocidal or toxic chemical (just H2O is the active ingredient). disinfection is exceedingly fast and broad-spectrum. There is no chance of introducing chemical cross-resistance to antibiotics.
  • Surfaces do not become sticky, no stain, or discoloration over time.
  • Staff can disinfect as frequently as necessary without long-term chemical exposure concerns.
  • The steam cleaning tool is hot, so the potential for cross-contamination from surface to surface or room to room is greatly reduced.  This is in sharp-contrast to a fog, spray and wipe approach, which could possibly spread pathogens if the disinfectant is overused or inactivated for any reason including staleness.
  • By using proper steam (200°C) any high-touch surfaces can be disinfected on an hourly basis without damage to the surface. Prevents chemical induced irritation to sensitive populations or long-term risks to customers or staff.
  • As steam inactivates microbes very rapidly (seconds with steam compared to minutes for many chemicals), steam is considered a high productivity method.

The SaniZap® steam technology is expected to significantly benefit Sanitation.  What is SaniZap® self-drying antimicrobial Technology?

See also The history of Sanitation and Hygiene..

May 2, 2021

  • Did you know that Nano Texture and Nanotechnology of surfaces is critically import for friction and antimicrobial steel?  MHI Inc. has developed and patented several of these inventions.
  • The prefix “nano” most likely comes from the Greek word meaning Dwarf.
  • The diameter of one oxygen atom is approximately 0.14 nm (nanometers).
  • The diameter of human hair lies between 10 -200 micrometers i.e. between 10,000 to 200,000 nm.
  • We use several products with nanometer scale internal features, like the GoldenBlue® tool bits, Fishing Lure, Sunscreen Lotion, and Mayonnaise.
  • Man-made nanoscale crystals (nanoparticles) called quantum dots can transport electrons. When UV light hits these semiconducting nanoparticles, they can emit light of various colors.

April 25, 2021

Did you know that some of the most common engineering principles are not quite well understood?

  • Creating Lift .  If you thought you understood Bernoulli’s principle as the basis for lift – think again!  A fascinating article in Scientific American  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-one-can-explain-why-planes-stay-in-the-air/ describes the difficulty with understanding lift from Bernoulli’s principle or from Newtons second law. There are two competing theories that illuminate the forces and factors of lift.  However both are incomplete explanations.
  • The Lever principle . Levers can be used to exert a large force over a small distance at one end  by exerting only a small force (or effort) over a greater distance at the other. According to legend, Archimedes (287-212 B.C.E.) once famously said “Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the Earth with it” when he uncovered the physical principles behind the lever.  However, this principle is derived only when there is a certain distance travelled (work done) because energy is conserved.  Yet we use the principle for balancing lever-loads, i.e., for determining mechanical equilibrium even where there is no motion.
  • Similarly we are now grappling with easy ionization from air without high voltage conditions.   https://mhi-inc.com/cascade-e-ion-devices/

April 18, 2021

The problem of atmosphere clean-up is severe. The search is ongoing to find reactions for CO2 and reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, like plants do with Photosynthesis.

MHI Airtorch® and MHI Plasma Systems assist catalysis.

  • Gases like methane CH4(g) can be removed through Steam Reforming.
  • CH4+ H2O(g) = CO(g) + 3H2(g) Steam Reforming above ~750C. Both CO and H2 are reducing gasses for several oxides.
  • Also 2CO(g) + NaN3 = 2C + NaO2 + 1.5N2(g) is possible even at medium temperatures.
  • The inverse Boudouard reaction CO2 + C=2CO can occur above ~750C.
  • Similarly Fe2O3 + hot CO(g) can yield clean Fe and CO2 (the blast furnace reaction).
  • Hot CO2 or CO can easily be reacted with azides of Na, Ca, Li etc. to make useful solids or liquids, while the oxides of alkali metals can be recovered.
  • NaN2 +CO2 or Ca-N or Li-N compounds can be reacted with hot CO2; or oxides can be reacted with hot CO for clean metal production.
  • Syngas can be easily heated. Various combinatorial ratios are feasible.
  • Hot CO2(g) + NaN3 = C + NaO2 + 1.5N2(g) is negative free energy with good kinetics above 980C. Catalysts available. Quasi R®

April 11, 2021

Power  is the amount of energy that is converted in one unit of time (e.g. in a second). Devices are rated by their power. Power is oomph! A more powerful device will be able to convert the same amount of energy faster ( speedier ) than a less powerful device.  Power is the rate at which you can do something, e.g. higher power can make an automobile accelerate faster, make a reaction go faster, and so on.   A Watt  (W) is a unit of power .    1 J/s (Joule per second) = 1 W (Watt) .  Because the Watt is a small unit, the power of a device is rated in kW or BTU/hr.   1kW (KiloWatt) = 3414 BTU/hr.   Brake horsepower (bhp) is the measure of an engine’s horsepower before the loss in power caused by the gearbox and drive train.  Electric cars and Hybrids often have a dash-display for kW.   Note that 1hp (horsepower) = 0.746kW.

For your electric bill, you are charged ~9US¢ for every KWhr (power x time used).  Typical power ratings.

Light Bulbs:  ~0.03-0.2 kW ( Example)

Home Sanitizing Devices: 1-4 kW ( Examples)

Home Refrigerators/ Washer/ Dryers: 2-5 kW

Electric Stoves: 4 kW

Cars: 20-300 kW

 

April 3, 2021

  • The strings of musical instruments were originally made from the guts of animals like sheep or lamb.
  • Today, they are made from a variety of materials including  catgut  (sheep intestine), nylon, and steel.  Instrument makers have transitioned to metal wiring, mostly stainless steel.
  • From high-note to low-note, the strings on the violin are E(~0.5mm), A (~0.76mm), D (~1.14mm), and G (~1.17mm). These diameters are approximate and change between manufacturers.
  • The wires have to be carefully drawn and even more carefully  heat treated. Then they are often plated in platinum, gold, and silver (particularly for the E String).
  • The gauge (gage) of a string is its thickness. Gauge and tension can also be referred to in terms of weight i.e., heavy, medium, or light gauge or tension. Tensions and gauges of strings vary from brand to brand.

March 27, 2021

Did you know?  Several technologies that are being developed for addressing the climate change on Earth use are actually important for Mars.

  • Mars  is called the Red Planet because its iron-rich dust gives it a rusty-red color. This dust, however, is a problem for equipment that we send from earth.
  • At the equator, Mars is a comfortable 26°C, but the temperature at its poles can be very low.
  • The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide with traces of nitrogen and argon. This is why the new CO2-to-useful-products  technologies are important for Mars.
  • A Martian day is almost the same as Earth (just slightly longer).  The gravity is about 0.38 that of earth.

Oxide to oxygen  conversion technologies are going to be important for making oxygen on Mars.  The ice caps on Mars actually hold almost 10-15% water.

March 20, 2021

 

Did you know there is a direct connection between energy use and the degradation of the environment? When you consume less energy for the same objective, you can reduce the amount of toxic fumes (including CO2) released by (combustion) power generating plants.Energy degrades when it is used. MHI’s mission is energy quality conservation.  To this end MHI Inc. has created energy efficient materials and systems  https://mhi-inc.com/EnergyefficiencyLinksforGrants.htm.

MHI Inc. has pioneered

Follow our progress  https://mhi-inc.com/simplicity-energy-efficiency-improvements/.

 

March 13, 2021

We live in a strange universe where most of it is unknown to us. Many of the unknowns are beautifully explained  here. Here is a sample of what we don’t know:

  • Dark Energy : In the most widely accepted model of dark energy, it is an inherent property of space itself, which has “negative pressure” driving space apart. As space expands, more space is created, and with it, more dark energy. Based on the observed rate of expansion, scientists know that the sum of all the dark energy must make up more than 70 percent of the total contents of the universe.
  • Dark Matter : Cannot be seen directly nor has it been detected by indirect means. Dark matter’s existence is inferred from its gravitational-like effects on visible matter, radiation and the structure of the universe. The estimate is that 84 percent of the matter in the universe does not absorb or emit light. One study suggests dark matter  radiates out from Earth in the form of fine-grained streams.

While all of these are being explored we take solace that one key law is not violated. Time moves forward because of a property called entropy – there is no way to reverse a rise in entropy after it has occurred (i.e. the entropy of the universe can only increase). A small amount of space with very low entropy apparently ballooned out to what it is now. Perhaps space-time is flat so that it can expand out to infinity? Cosmologists have constructed a theory called inflation that accounts for the way in which a small volume of space occupied by a virtual particle pair (like matter and antimatter) could have ballooned to become the vast universe we see today. For several things we don’t have the tools or understanding:   For example, at 200,000 atmospheres, oxygen organizes to a blue colored, strong, eight atom lattice, but we are not quite sure what happens if compressed a lot more. Or for example the exciting new  Plasma that has been discovered.  Why does it work?

March 6, 2021

Did you know flat radiant heaters are used in various configurations? The most important feature is the simplicity in the heater design and materials.

Most of the time single phase heaters perform more reliably than three phase radiant heaters.  Ideal heaters offer high emissivity and good coverage.

Typical uses:

  • Vapor deposition
  • Inside reactors for activating catalysts
  • Testing with high intensity heat flux on a wide surface. Typical 500KW/m2.
  • Semiconductor processing
  • Ceramic manufacturing

and a variety of other uses listed on  https://mhi-inc.com/radiant-pancake-style-flat-heating-element/ and  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microheater

February 27, 2021

Did you know?  Several technologies that are being developed for addressing the climate change on Earth use are actually important for Mars.

  • Mars  is called the Red Planet because its iron-rich dust gives it a rusty-red color. This dust, however, is a problem for equipment that we send from earth.
  • At the equator, Mars is a comfortable 26°C, but the temperature at its poles can be very low.
  • The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide with traces of nitrogen and argon. This is why the new CO2-to-useful-products  technologies are important for Mars.
  • A Martian day is almost the same as Earth (just slightly longer).  The gravity is about 0.38 that of earth.

Oxide to oxygen  conversion technologies are going to be important for making oxygen on Mars.  The ice caps on Mars actually hold almost 10-15% water.

February 20, 2021

The US Electric Grid.

  • The US has over 450,000 miles of power lines today (about 18 times the circumference of the earth).  The distance to the Moon by comparison is 238,900 Miles.
  • There is no single national power grid in the US.  The US electrical system is comprised of three smaller grids called interconnections — the Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection, and the Texas Interconnected system.  The stability of the grid is of major concern during severe weather events.
  • The first commercial power grid, called the Pearl Street Station, was created by Thomas Edison in lower Manhattan in 1882.  This was followed by a number of grids that came into existence across the US. Only after WWII did this inefficient system start integrating.  Today there is activity to move back to the microgrid (local grids) system
  • While the plant’s steam engines provided grid electricity, Edison also used the byproducts, distributing steam to local manufacturers and warming the neighboring buildings.
  • Power outages triggered by bad weather costs the economy between $15 to $35 billion each year in lost output and wages, spoiled inventory, delayed production and damage to grid infrastructure.

February 14, 2021

February 6, 2021

Did you know environmentally safe die heating is now feasible with the  https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-process-gas-heaters Airtorch®?

  • With direct Airtorch® heating ( https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-applications/) or by supplementing with the Airtorch® and blankets, the thermal watt density on the mold is increased.
  • This reduces the workload in an environmentally sound manner and improves performance and die-life.
  • It reduces down time and energy efficiency.  See published articles  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02711865.
  • Other results include an increase in the temperature uniformity across the mold surface.  Contact MHI for more information.

January 30, 2021

Temperature control mechanisms (thermoregulation) are seen in live systems too– not just in microheaters and furnaces.

  • Animal flight is a very energetically expensive form of locomotion that requires a high metabolic rate. In fact, several large insects need to warm-up before flight.
  • Getting to acceptable temperatures is called   physiological thermoregulation  because heat is generated by a physiological process inside the insect.
  • This involves inefficient muscle operation that produces excess heat and establishes the thermal range in which specific muscles can function. The high metabolic cost of insect flight muscles means that great amounts of chemical energy are utilized by these specific muscles.  However, only a very small percentage of this energy translates into actual mechanical work or wing movement.   The second law of thermodynamics.
  • In order for an animal to fly, its flight muscles need to be capable of high mechanical power output, which in turn, due to biochemical inefficiencies, produce large amounts of energy that is dissipated as heat. But dissipating this heat is also difficult. So although high velocity flight should cool the body, sometimes the body heats up excessively during flight and birds can just fall out of the sky. More often there are regulatory and thermal control practices that an animal employs.  Perhaps even formation flying is one of those mechanisms which is practices by a collection of birds.
  • Butterflies are  examples of insects that are heliotherms (deriving heat almost exclusively from the sun).

January 23, 2021

Science is full of very curious facts. Did you know?

January 17, 2021

Did you know there are key differences between ancient furnaces and modern furnaces? Two major differences.

  • Modern furnaces are electrically heated (no combustion) – so they reach high temperatures exceeding 1700°C (3092°F). Electric heating allows for process control, improved process productivity and therefore much higher efficiencies.
  • The second is the roof span. Earlier, only fire-bricks were available and roof shapes and spans of these furnaces were constrained by arches and chimneys . Today, a host of new composites are used in furnace construction. Newly available materials like NanoFractalAlumina™ allow for very wide roof spans. When coupled with modern roof hanger designs, the roofs can be made to span several feet in width. Examples are seen in  High Quality High Temperature High Efficiency Furnaces – MHI-INC (mhi-inc.com)

January 17, 2021

Did you know there are key differences between ancient furnaces and modern furnaces? Two major differences.

  • Modern furnaces are electrically heated (no combustion) – so they reach high temperatures exceeding 1700°C (3092°F). Electric heating allows for process control, improved process productivity and therefore much higher efficiencies.
  • The second is the roof span. Earlier, only fire-bricks were available and roof shapes and spans of these furnaces were constrained by arches and chimneys . Today, a host of new composites are used in furnace construction. Newly available materials like NanoFractalAlumina™ allow for very wide roof spans. When coupled with modern roof hanger designs, the roofs can be made to span several feet in width. Examples are seen in  High Quality High Temperature High Efficiency Furnaces – MHI-INC (mhi-inc.com)

January 10, 2021

Did you know that modern processing of electronic materials and other materials relies on plasma surface interactions?

  • Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter, and was first described by chemist Irving Langmuir in the 1920s.
  • It consists of a gas of activated species such as ions and free electrons.
  • Based on the temperature and density of the environment that contains a plasma, a partially ionized or fully ionized form of plasma may be recognized.
  • Neon signs  are examples of partially ionized plasmas. The Earth’s ionosphere is a plasma surrounding the earth.  The interior of the sun is an example thought to comprise of fully ionized plasma like other stars.

Not everything is known about plasmas.  The  Cascade E-ion is a new type of plasma.

January 2, 2021

Did you know that prefixes took over a 100 years to adopt.  The last being in 1991.

Prefix Name Prefix Symbol Expressed as Base 10 Long scale Word
yotta Y  1024  quadrillion
zetta Z  1021  trilliard
exa E  1018  trillion
peta P  1015  billiard
tera T  1012  billion
giga G  109  milliard
mega M  106 million
kilo k  103 thousand
hecto h  102 hundred
deca da  101 ten
 100 –
deci d  10−1 tenth
centi c  10−2 hundredth
milli m  10−3 thousandth
micro μ  10−6 millionth
nano n  10−9  milliardth
pico p  10−12  billionth
femto f  10−15  billiardth
atto a  10−18  trillionth
zepto z  10−21  trilliardth
yocto y  10−24  quadrillionth

December 27, 2020

Did you know that advances in materials continuously improve the performance of computers?

  • A disk drive is a device that reads and/or writes data to a disk.  Some examples include removable storage devices and optical drives which read optical media, such as CD’s or DVD’s.  All such drives use magnetic or optical phase change materials to encode bits. The highest-capacity available high-density-discs offered about 16 Terra Bytes in 2020.
  • Major advances were made with phase change chalcogenide glasses last century.  In the 1960’s, Stanford R. Ovshinsky first explored the properties of chalcogenide glasses as a potential material for memory technology.  Phase change from a glassy to crystalline state can happen in a few nanoseconds in the more modern versions of such materials.   In 1969, Charles Sie at Iowa State University described and demonstrated the feasibility of a phase-change-memory device by integrating chalcogenide film with a diode array.
  • Since 1991 solid state drives are being considered.   Solid state storage  is enabled from silicon microchips.   Because there are no moving parts, solid state drives require less power and waste less energy than spinning hard disk drives or magnetic tape.

Yet dust remains a problem for all types of drives and memory devices.  New material technologies are currently being developed to address this dust issue.

December 19, 2020

Did you know that low temperature is important to preserve vaccines or to stabilize electron beam imaging?  Two common ways to obtain very low temperatures are with liquid nitrogen or dry (CO2) ice.

Liquid nitrogen is nitrogen (N2) in a liquid state at low temperature; boiling point at sea level is −195.79 °C  or -320 °F.   It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air.   It is a colorless, low viscosity liquid that is widely used as a coolant.

Dry ice is solid carbon dioxide. At its surface it has a temperature of -109.3 degrees °F or (-78.5 °C).   A frozen block of dry ice transforms directly into a gas, skipping the liquid phase entirely. This is called sublimation.  Dry ice offers more than twice the cooling energy per pound and three times the cooling energy per volume compared to regular water ice (H2O).  Because it does not melt, and because it can be formed in solid blocks or pellets, it is a popular choice for shipping certain foods and medicines. Dry ice can be a very serious hazard in a small space that is not well-ventilated. As dry ice melts, it turns into carbon dioxide gas. If enough carbon dioxide gas is present, a person can become unconscious or worse.

December 13, 2020

Power  is the amount of energy that is converted in one unit of time (e.g. in a second). Devices are rated by their power. Power is oomph! A more powerful device will be able to convert the same amount of energy faster ( speedier ) than a less powerful device.  Power is the rate at which you can do something, e.g. higher power can make an automobile accelerate faster, make a reaction go faster, and so on.   A Watt (W) is a unit of power.   1 J/s (Joule per second) = 1 W (Watt) .  Because the Watt is a small unit, the power of a device is rated in kW or BTU/hr.   1kW (KiloWatt) = 3414 BTU/hr.   Brake horsepower (bhp) is the measure of an engine’s horsepower before the loss in power caused by the gearbox and drive train.  Electric cars and Hybrids often have a dash-display for kW.   Note that 1hp (horsepower) = 0.746kW.

Devices used in homes are also rated and priced by their power consumption and delivery ability.  Did you know?  For your electric bill, you are charged ~9US¢ for every KWhr (power x time used).  Typical power ratings.

Light Bulbs:  ~0.03-0.2 kW ( Example)

Home Sanitizing Devices: 1-4 kW ( Examples)

Home Refrigerators/ Washer/ Dryers: 2-5 kW

Electric Stoves: 4 kW

Cars: 20-300 kW

December 7, 2020

What is commonly known as heat radiation lies in the Infrared part, the longer-than-light wavelengths. For solving engineering problems related to heating by radiation, it is a common assumption to consider emissivity as independent of wavelength. Such an approximation is called the grey-body approximation. Grey-body approximations are commonly made across the infrared spectrum. The Stefan-Boltzmann Law suggests that radiation heat transfer is proportional to T^4 (temperature to the power of four) where T is the temperature in Kelvin.

Wien’s law relates this temperature to a maximum wavelength (Lmax) in the radiation wavelength-spectrum of a black-body. Wien’s displacement law states that the spectral radiance of black-body radiation per unit wavelength peaks at the wavelength  Lmax  given by: (b/T) where  T  is the absolute temperature and  b=  2898 μm⋅K.  is a constant of proportionality called  Wien’s displacement constant .

Did you know  that recent results have begun pointing to a shift in the T^4 law when features below Lmax are associated with a radiating surface such as nano-scale features below ~1 micron  (see Quasi-R®)?

MHI patents and products optimize heat transfer rate. See for example, the GAXP® heating elements  https://mhi-inc.com/PG3/high-temperature-heating-elements.html

November 29, 2020

Power  is the amount of energy that is converted in one unit of time (e.g. in a second). Devices are rated by their power. Power is oomph! A more powerful device will be able to convert the same amount of energy faster ( speedier ) than a less powerful device.  Power is the rate at which you can do something, e.g. higher power can make an automobile accelerate faster, make a reaction go faster, and so on.   A Watt (W) is a unit of power.   1 J/s (Joule per second) = 1 W (Watt) .  Because the Watt is a small unit, the power of a device is rated in kW or BTU/hr.   1kW (KiloWatt) = 3414 BTU/hr.   Brake horsepower (bhp) is the measure of an engine’s horsepower before a loss in power caused by the gearbox and drive train.  Electric cars and Hybrids often have a dash-display for kW.   Note that 1hp (horsepower) = 0.746kW.

Devices used in homes are also rated and priced by their power consumption and delivery ability.  Did you know?  For your electric bill, you are charged ~9US¢ for every KWhr (power x time used).  Typical power ratings.

Light Bulbs:  ~0.03-0.2 kW ( Example)

Home Sanitizing Devices: 1-4 kW ( Examples)

Home Refrigerators/ Washer/ Dryers: 2-5 kW

Electric Stoves: 4 kW

Cars: 20-300 kW

November 22, 2020

Did you know that Robust Radiators are used for Zone Refining?    Robust Radiators can produce high-temperature zones.

A process called zone-refining is a useful method to obtain crystals of very high purity for critical use materials like silicon and germanium. It is also referred to as zone melting, floating zone process, and traveling melting zone.  Solidification/ crystal growth studies are often carried out by observing the freezing behavior  of transparent materials in related zone refining studies, even in space.

Since impurities are generally more soluble in the molten state of metal (the melt-zone) than in the solid state, a molten zone is created by an external heating zone heater. This zone moves along a rod of the impure metal or semiconductor crystal, all the while accumulating impurities in the liquid that are finally pushed to one end of the rod. After several passes a very pure crystal rod is obtained by cutting off the impure end.

Zone refining was created at the famous Bell Laboratories, circa 1953 by John Desmond Bernal and further developed by William Gardner Pfann to prepare high purity materials.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_melting.

These were the heady days of the famous US laboratory that also boasted of inventing the working transistor and superconductor, circa 1947-1951 by the only person who has won the Nobel prize in Physics two times! – the great John Bardeen.

Today several novel microheater configurations can be used for NanoZone™ melting or for additive manufacturing.   Click here for more information.

November 15, 2020

  • Read about anti-microbial cleaning  here.
  • Did you know that humans have over 10 trillion microbial cells, several billion bacteria and bacteriophages?
  • Bacteria tend to be ~ 1^-10 micrometers in size and can be seen with optical microscopes.
  • Viruses can range from one to 500 nanometers in size. Powerful, high magnification electron microscopes are required to see them.
  • The various coronaviruses are about ~50- 150  nanometers (including the SARS CoV-2).
  • Antibodies are of the order of 10 nanometers.
  • The size of spikes on the virus envelope ~20 nm
  • Size of pores in a good respirator ~300 nm.  This is why multiple layers are used.
  • With chemicals, about a 10-minute soak is often required to denature a virus
  • With high temperature steam this could be achieved in seconds

A nanometer is 10^-9 m (^ indicates – raised to the power of)

From: Anu Vissa
Sent: Sunday, November 8, 2020 12:39 PM
To: Jai Sekhar <[email protected]>
Subject: FW: trivia update

November 6, 2020

Did you know that people actually study the History of Trivia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivia

The first blog with trivia about thermal materials and thermal technology is  https://mhi-inc.com/did-you-know/

November 2, 2020

Did you know that high temperature often speeds up all reactions in an exponential manner?

  • High productivity comes from doing things at a high temperature. Broadly speaking, there are two types of reactions (i) spontaneous and (ii) those which require energy to help them along.
  • Regardless, both require some form of activation. Some reactions, though spontaneous, are very slow unless the temperature is increased – think of it as overcoming the inertia.
  • Use the calculator and information on https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_steam/steam-calculator-superheated-tables.html for more information on steam reactions.

October 25, 2020

It appears that the first use of radiant furnaces for chambers above 1200°C was around circa 1850 BCE.  Regardless, some ancient rock temples in India may have seen some form of semi-solid casting of artifacts, which could place the advent of the first use of radiant furnaces to an earlier date.

A good furnace today is considered to be one that produces no emissions when the heat is generated, offers controlled heat-up, provides uniformity to the charge, and is built with high-grade non-toxic  (Fiberfree™) insulation for energy efficiency and safety.   Large spans in high temperature furnaces have become possible because of special materials and designs for  roof-hangers.

Did you know that  any surface at a temperature of 1500°Cemits a high radiation of almost 560kW/m2 – a very high amount compared to an average gas flame?  Read More…?

October 18, 2020

Materials and new designs have impacted furnace efficiency considerably in the past decade. Here are a few examples:

  • Fractal Refractories. Clean refractories last a long time and preserve energy efficiency over the life of a furnace.
  • High alumina roof hangers now allow large furnace spans.  https://mhi-inc.com/product/roof-hanger-99-8-alumina/
  • New heating elements (with nanotechnology) like the GAXP® have brought down furnace prices – as they last for years.
  • In general the rise of electric furnace use is preventing pollution. Now electric Airtorch® products are being used for conversion of CO2 to fuels.  https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-models/

Did you know that some of the earliest furnaces that were used in Mesopotamia, China and India were used for casting bronze alloys as far back as 2000 BCE?  Amazingly, it is now becoming clear that these alloys were nanocrystal-grained as well as possessing special five-fold rotationally symmetric crystal lattices.  Did you know ancient materials often comprised of nanomaterials that lent to color, durability and reflectivity? See   https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119188230.saseas0400 or even photonic special mirrors  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12666-018-1535-1.

October 11, 2020

Did you know steam is an antimicrobial agent? See https://bayzi.com/steam-cleaning-studies/

  • Steam offers a ton of benefits over conventional cleaning. One of the most attractive reasons to use steam is that it cleans with water.
  • Steam cleans, sanitizes and deodorizes .  Steam cleaning can kill 99.999 percent of bacteria, germs and dust mites when above 200C for the correct residence time. This includes E. coli, Staph bacteria, Salmonella and other micro-organisms, surface molds, bacteria, viruses and other dirty critters like flies, lurking around the house.  Products like the  SaniZap® offer very high temperature instant steam.
  • Steam also cleans grime. It removes dirt, loosens stains,and powers through grease and grime without the elbow grease needed in traditional cleaning. This means less time scrubbing.
  • If you have a pet (or a teenager!) – be happy that steam removes odors from soft surfaces such as mattresses, carpets and upholstery without any new allergens.
  • Everyone is increasingly concerned about the possible health ramifications of chemical residue and gases in common cleaning products. There is no need for chemicals or detergents with steam cleaning.
  • Steam can be used on just about any hard or soft surface as long as proper care is exercised. It’s a great cleaning tool from floor to ceiling.
  • Here is just a partial list of things that you can clean and disinfect with steam: sealed flooring (hardwood, tile, natural stone, laminate, vinyl), toilet and surrounding area, counter tops, oven, stove top, pet bedding, mattresses, upholstery, children’s toys, refrigerator, pantry shelves, and laundry areas.  Each type requires some experience.
  • Cleaning with steam replaces expensive cleaners and disinfectants.  No need for special rooms (cold and dark) to store the chemicals.

October 4, 2020

 

US Astronaut Scott Kelly marked Day 300 in space by playing ping pong with a drop of water and two hydrophobic paddles. The paddles are made hydrophobic so that water does not stick to them.

Lotus leaves are hydrophobic because of fine nano-structures – something many engineering systems are now mimicking.  See for example  https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/SurfaceroughnessandDeburringwithe-ionPlasma.htm

The microgravity causes the water droplet to form a sphere because of surface tension (just like a soap bubble) making it possible to play ping-pong in space with a water ball.

See it here:  https://youtu.be/TLbhrMCM4_0 by NASA.  Or see the dance of a water droplet  https://vimeo.com/channels/837974

September 26, 2020

The problem of atmosphere clean-up is severe. The search is ongoing to find reactions for CO2 and reduce greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, like plants do with the Photosynthesis.

The MHI Airtorch® and MHI Plasma Systems assist catalysis.

  • Gases like methane CH4(g) can be removed through Steam Reforming
  • CH4(g) + H2O(g) = CO(g) + 3H2(g) Steam Reforming above ~750C. Both CO and H2 are reducing gasses for several oxides
  • Also 2CO(g) + NaN3 = 2C + NaO2 + 1.5N2(g) is possible even at medium temperatures.
  • The Boudouard reaction 2CO(g) = CO2(g) + C can occur below ~750C. Similarly Fe2O3 + hot CO(g) can yield clean Fe.
  • Hot CO2 or CO can easily be reacted with azides of Na, Ca, Li etc. to make useful solids or liquids, while the oxides of alkali metals can be recovered.
  • NaN2 +CO2 or Ca-N or Li-N compounds can be reacted with hot CO2; or oxides can be reacted with hot CO for clean metal production.
  • Syngas can be easily heated. Various combinatorial ratios are feasible.
  • Hot CO2(g) + NaN3 = C + NaO2 + 1.5N2(g) is negative free energy with good kinetics above 980C. Catalysts available. Quasi R®

September 19, 2020

Have you ever wondered why steam locomotive have very large vertical panels installed on both sides of the engine?

Almost all steam locomotives have a burnt-gas,  soot-spewing chimney at the front. This creates a problem when the train is moving at a high speed.  The smoke gushes into the drivers cab.   The vertical panels (called lifters) guide the airflow around the boiler to push the smoke up and over the cab, thus keeping the view ahead clear.

Did you know that:

  • Although prototypes had previously been created, the first full scale  steam locomotive  was built in Britain by Richard Trevithick in 1804.
  • The  steam locomotive changed  transportation. It was an icon of the industrial revolution and prosperity in many countries throughout the  world .
  • Although steam is not used for direct conversion to work except in sea-faring vessels, the knowledge of steam power has today led to a significant progress  for chemical processes and for  antimicrobial work.

September 12, 2020

 

One would imagine that heat flows smoothly from hot to cold regions in an even manner. In the small-scale quantum world this is not true.Researchers have found that temperature behaves somewhat “oddly” in nanostructures and special thin materials. For example, in graphene, the electrons carrying the heat-energy propagate out in waves with ripples (Instabilities). Consequently, some regions in the graphene remain cold while others heat up while the thermal energy is flowing.

Controlling the ripples may give us a new way in the future for harnessing instabilities and ensuring better heat transfer.

The new laws of entropy generation-rate (MEPR laws) may allow us such explorations.

September 5, 2020

Did you know that there are several free calculators on the MHI site,  Including a product financing calculator?

August 29, 2020

  • Hot air balloons work because hot air rises. By heating the air inside the balloon with a burner, it becomes lighter than the cooler air on the outside. This causes the balloon to float upwards. Unmanned hot air balloons (Chinese lanterns) were flown as early as circa AD 220.
  • The first unmanned flight is reported to have been on September 19, 1783. The Aerostat Réveillon was flown with the first (non-human) living creatures in a basket attached to the balloon – the passengers: a sheep, a duck and a rooster.
  • Following Robert Boyle’s Law in 1662, and Henry Cavendish’s 1766 work on hydrogen, Joseph Black proposed that if a gaseous element filled a balloon, the inflated object could rise up into the air. This balloon was released on August 27, 1783. The balloon flew 13 miles. The first flight with human passengers was made on November 21, 1783.
  • Today , hot air balloons are used primarily for recreation and weather monitoring. There are reportedly about 7,500 hot air balloons operating in the United States.

August 29, 2020

  • Hot air balloons work because hot air rises. By heating the air inside the balloon with a burner, it becomes lighter than the cooler air on the outside. This causes the balloon to float upwards. Unmanned hot air balloons (Chinese lanterns) were flown as early as circa AD 220.
  • The first unmanned flight is reported to have been on September 19, 1783. The Aerostat Réveillon was flown with the first (non-human) living creatures in a basket attached to the balloon – the passengers: a sheep, a duck and a rooster.
  • Following Robert Boyle’s Law in 1662, and Henry Cavendish’s 1766 work on hydrogen, Joseph Black proposed that if a gaseous element filled a balloon, the inflated object could rise up into the air. This balloon was released on August 27, 1783. The balloon flew 13 miles. The first flight with human passengers was made on November 21, 1783.
  • Today , hot air balloons are used primarily for recreation and weather monitoring. There are reportedly about 7,500 hot air balloons operating in the United States.

August 22, 2020

Did you know that Cement Processing Involves  Very High Temperatures?  The major steps are:

  • Concrete is cement slurry with water, sand, and rock.  Cement is manufactured through a closely controlled chemical combination of calcium, silicon, aluminum, iron, and other ingredients that are contained in limestone (CaCO3 and skeletal remains of marine organisms) with other minerals.
  • First the minerals are quarried then the quarried rock is crushed.  The crushed rock is combined with other ingredients such as iron ore or fly ash, ground and fed to a cement furnace with a hot blast e.g. sometimes with an  Airtorch®.
  • The  furnace heats all the ingredients to about 2,700F (1522C) in huge cylindrical steel rotary kilns lined with special firebrick.  As the material moves through the furnace, certain elements are driven off in the form of gases (mostly CO2).  This CO2 can be converted to high value syngas.
  • The remaining elements unite to form a new substance called clinker. Clinkers comes out of the red-hot furnace – grey balls, about the size of marbles. After the clinker is cooled, cement plants grind it and mix it with small amounts of gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O) and limestone.
  • Mr. J. Aspdin in is reported to have first made cement first, Circa 1815, by heating powdered limestone and clay.

August 15, 2020

Microheaters are useful for

  • Did you know Microheaters are used either as Spirals or Linear heaters?
  • Spiral profiles optimize properties, including radiation properties. See for example https://mhi-inc.com/Microheaters.htm.
  • Linear Profiles are like a hot knife edge https://mhi-inc.com/microheaters/
  • A spiral is an involute curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point. The most common form is the Archimedean Spiral defined by the equation r = a+ b(theta) in polar coordinates. A helix and vortex are three dimensional spirals. Nature invokes these shapes for a variety of building blocks from galaxies to cellular matter. Spirals are also key thematic blocks for many art forms. Spirals and vortex depictions can be found across historical art forms e.g. pre-Columbian art in Latin and Central America. Spirals are also are a psychedelic form of art to depict hypnotic effects.
  • Did you know that the involute shapes have amazing properties that make them extremely important for engineering products? From gears, compressors and fans, the involute shaped products allow for low-friction, low-noise and high-life. Now abundantly used in radiation heating.

August 10, 2020

High quality dry steam has several important applications

  • Antimicrobial use. See for example www.bayzi.com a site dedicated to steam for antimicrobial use.
  • The wicking property of steam. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe.
  • High temperature steam as a reaction species in several fuel producing reactions. Amongst these, the waste-to-fuel uses are particularly important as they impact CO 2 removal and enable chemical and fuel production.
  • For waste-to-fuel discrete fuel production consider the GHGA. Many steam reactions are beneficial for energy production and biomass utilization.
  • Waste can be converted to methanol and ethanol. Common garbage can be subjected to plasma impact to break down organic materials into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
  • Organic waste can be converted into fuel. A mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide – from municipal solid waste and other renewable biomass, can be converted to long-chain hydrocarbon molecules that make up diesel and jet fuels. Some of these reactions are discussed in https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/ and related pages such as https://mhi-inc.com/steam-generator-models/.
  • Super-heated steam offers high kinetics and clean chemistry. The Quasi-R® nano catalysts are particularly important for applications where the temperature has to be the low.
  • A variety of steam generators are listed on https://mhi-inc.com/superheated-steam-generators-electric-steam-generator/.

August 1, 2020

  • Did you know that humans have over 10 trillion cells, over 10 trillion microbial cells, several billion bacteria and bacteriophages?
  • Bacteria tend to be ~ 1-10 micrometers in size and can be seen with optical microscopes.
  • Viruses can range from one to 500 nanometers in size. Powerful, high magnification electron microscopes are required to image them.
  • The various coronaviruses sizes are about 50 nm nanometers (including the SARS CoV-2).
  • Antibodies are of the order of 10 nanometers.
  • Read about anti-microbial cleaning here.

 

July 26, 2020

 

We live in a strange universe where most of it is unknown to us. Many of the unknowns are beautifully explained here. Here is a sample:

Dark Energy: In the most widely accepted model of dark energy, it is an inherent property of space itself, which has “negative pressure” driving space apart. As space expands, more space is created, and with it, more dark energy. Based on the observed rate of expansion, scientists know that the sum of all the dark energy must make up more than 70 percent of the total contents of the universe.

Dark Matter: Cannot be seen directly nor has it been detected by indirect means.. Dark matter’s existence is inferred from its gravitational-like effects on visible matter, radiation and the structure of the universe. The estimate is that 84 percent of the matter in the universe does not absorb or emit light. One study suggests dark matter radiates out from Earth in the form of fine-grained streams.

While all of these are being explored we take solace that one key law is not violated. Time moves forward because a property called entropy – there is no way to reverse a rise in entropy after it has occurred (i.e. the entropy of the universe can only increase). A small amount of space with very low entropy apparently ballooned out to what it is now. Perhaps space-time is flat so that it can expand out to infinity? Cosmologists have constructed a theory called inflation that accounts for the way in which a small volume of space occupied by a virtual particle pair (like matter and antimatter) could have ballooned to become the vast universe we see today. But there is no way to know with the tools we employ. For example, at 200,000 atmospheres, oxygen organizes to a blue colored, strong, eight atom lattice, but we are not quite sure what happens if compressed a lot more.

 

July 17, 2020

  • A common problem with standard boilers is that is that very high pressures are needed to create high temperature steam.
  • Steam Generators, on the other hand, allow for independent temperature, flow rate and pressure settings. The GHGA is one such generator.
  • In contrast to conventional pressure-boilers, steam generators produce high quality steam quickly, even on start-up, and have less need for piping.
  • Did you know that high temperature steam is used for many applications? These include the production of Clean Fuels, Antimicrobial Efficacy, Oxidation and Erosion Studies, Food Industry, Packaging, Chemicals, Cleaning, Materials. Bioprocesses, Energy, Hydrolysis, Process Heating, Flavors, Drying, Textiles and even Simulation of Martian Atmospheres.

July 12, 2020

Did you know it is critical to use high thermal shock resistant furniture inside furnaces?

  • These are often porous to withstand thermal shock. High alumina saggars are one type of kiln furniture used in various firing applications across a range in the industry.
  • Furnace Furniture are the shelves, containers and posts used to support parts or ware inside the high temperature furnace.
  • Many shapes and formulations are available in various ceramic compositions, depending on the product application. The key properties to look for are thermal shock resistance, no contamination and high temperature strength. Nanotechnology has made superior furnace furniture possible.
  • Several proprietary formulations are used such as high alumina BR and Fractalin™ boards, shelves, and containers. Some of these are CERAMIC PRODUCTS or HEARTH PLATES.

July 5, 2020

  • Waste-to-Energy Fuel Technologies are now in semi-commercial stages of development.
  • Waste like municipal solid waste and other biomass can be converted to methanol and ethanol.
  • With the ion-plasma organic materials in waste can be broken down into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
  • Did you know that CO2 (carbon dioxide gas) or CH4 (methane gas) can be mixed with very hot steam and converted to various compositions of syngas?
  • Syngas can be used to make a variety of fuels and other products (like diesel and jet fuels), or used for reductions of oxides.
  • The elusive industrial photosynthesis reactions between CO2 and energized H2O are also becoming possible with modern Airtoch® technologies. Some of these exciting possibilities are discussed in https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/.

June 28, 2020

Did you know flat radiant heaters are used in various configurations? The most important feature is the simplicity in the heater design and materials. Most of the time single phase heaters perform more reliably than three phase radiant heaters. Ideal heaters offer high emissivity and good coverage. Typical uses:

  • Vapor deposition
  • Inside reactors for activating catalysts
  • Testing with high intensity heat flux on a wide surface. Typical 500KW/m2.
  • Semiconductor processing
  • Ceramic manufacturing

and a variety of other uses listed on https://mhi-inc.com/radiant-pancake-style-flat-heating-element/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microheater

 

June 21, 2020

 

Microheaters are useful for

  • processing many material
  • targeted heating, fiber heating, channel heatin
  • heating automotive nozzles, plates and engine in cold climates, ship instrument
  • space heating and propulsion, and many more listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microheater

 

June 14, 2020

  • Emissivity is defined as the ratio of the energy radiated from a material’s surface to that radiated from a blackbody (a perfect emitter) at the same temperature and wavelength. It is a dimensionless number between 0 (a perfect reflector) and 1 (a perfect emitter). For solving engineering problems related to heating by radiation, it is a common assumption to consider the emissivity as independent of wavelength. Such an approximation is called the grey-body approximation.
  • The the amount of thermal radiation emitted by a surface depends on the emissivity of the object’s surface. The surface texture and chemistry influence emissivity. The total emissivity also depends on the temperature of the surface as well as wavelength. Radiation thermometers detect the wavelength and the temperature of thermal radiation emitted by a surface. They are generally calibrated using a blackbody reference source that has an emissivity close to 1 (https://mhi-inc.com/microtube_heaters.html). Polished surfaces have low emissivity however the reflectivity depends on the wavelength.
  • Nano-Coatings on metals and glasses are used for controlling the intensity of infrared radiation. For more information visit https://mhi-inc.com/freeradiationpowercalculator.htm
  • Did you know MHI makes materials and devices for high temperature applications and so constantly is concerned about emissivity. See Thermoplates™ and Glow-Panels™ on https://mhi-inc.com/product-category/radiative-heaters/191/.

June 7, 2020

May 31, 2020

There are several calculators available on the MHI site

May 23, 2020

  • The size of the corona virus is (~50- 150 nm) (nm-nanometers).
  • The size of spikes on the virus envelope ~20 nm
  • Size of pores in a good respirator ~300 nm.  This is why multiple layers are used.

A nanometer is 10^-9 m (^ indicates – raised to the power of)

————————————————————————————–

More Dimensional Scales of Interest

  • Average Diameter of the world: 12,792 Km (Km-kilometer
  • Deepest ocean trench: ~10,994 m  (m-meter
  • Highest mountain: ~ 8,850 m
  • Human scale: ~1 m
  • Pencil tip: ~1 mm (mm-millimeter)
  • Grain of salt: ~0.1-1 mm
  • Bacterium: ~1-10 micrometer (10^-6 m)
  • Atoms/molecules ~0.1 nm-100nm (10^-9 m)
  • Electrons: ~10^-7 nm (nanometer)
  • Planck’s length (quarks): ~10^-26 nm (smallest scale that is believed to exist in space-time)

May 17, 2020

High performance materials have greatly impacted the efficiency of thermal devices in the past decade. Here are a few examples:

  • Fractal Refractories. Clean refractories last a long time and preserve energy efficiency over the life of a furnace. https://mhi-inc.com/product-category/68/66/page/2/
  • High alumina roof hangers allow large furnace spans. https://mhi-inc.com/product/roof-hanger-99-8-alumina/
  • New heating elements (with nanotechnology) like the GAXP® have brought down furnace prices – as they last for years. https://mhi-inc.com/PG3/GAXPMaterial.htm
  • In general, the rise of electric furnace use is preventing pollution. Now electric Airtorch® products are being used for conversion of CO2 to fuels. https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-applications/
  • New low friction, antimicrobial Quasi-R® surfaces have changed the way materials interact with the environment.
  • Did you know that some of the earliest furnaces that were used in Mesopotamia, China and India were used for casting bronze alloys as far back as 2000 BCE?
  • Today we value specific alloys that are nanocrystal grained and also display five-fold rotationally symmetric crystal lattices. Amazingly, it is now becoming clear that some of these ancient alloys displayed these very features! The superior properties of color, durability and reflectivity of ancient bronze materials are because of nanomaterials. Books on Nano-Archeology.

May 10, 2020

  • Today, it is even more important to use high quality energy.
  • According to some EU studies, between 1990 and 2014, greenhouse gas emissions in the bloc already decreased by 23%, while the economy grew by 61%. World leaders agreed four years ago in Paris to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), ideally no more than 1.5oC (2.7oF) by the end of the century. Scientists say countries could miss both of those goals by a wide margin unless drastic steps are taken to begin cutting greenhouse gas emissions soon. Click here for published references.
  • New technologies from MHI Inc. make these goals possible: Airtorch® applications page , MightySteam® applications page many more products listed here.
  • Convert CO2 to useful products.
  • Waste can also be converted to methanol and ethanol.
  • Garbage and organic materials can be converted into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, with the use of E-ion Plasma.
  • Organic waste can be converted into Fuel via the Fischer-Tropsch reaction. Some of these reactions are discussed here.

May 3, 2020

  • Millions of lives have been saved with scientifically created antibacterial/antibiotic drugs. It is estimated that penicillin alone may have saved 80 – 200 million lives.
  • So many ways to keep things clean. Many methods in the MHI blog.
  • Over time, bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics. We now live in an era of superbugs. Did you know dry high temperature (over 250°C) steam is often used to sanitize and even sterilize objects? Anti-microbial surfaces like Textured Inorganic Surfaces is another way to a cleaner environment.

April 25, 2020

Science is full of very curious facts. Did you know?

  • Mathematical patterns are some of the purest. Mathematics seeks to explain abstract patterns or regularities of all kinds some of which don’t resemble physical patterns. Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature
  • A three-dimensional object that spins on its long axis will start spinning and keep flipping on its most asymmetric axis. It’s called the wing nut-flip effect or the Dzhanibekov effect. Source: https://youtu.be/1n-HMSCDYtM.
  • Some chemical reactions just oscillate and display beautiful color patterns. This has proven to be a way of making nanocrystals and nano-bands. The effect is named after B. Belosouv and A. Zhabotinsky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belousov%E2%80%93Zhabotinsky_reaction and Acta Mater. 2010, 58.

April 19, 2020

MHI trademarks include 3DBrazing© and 4DSintering©

April 12, 2020

Did you know microheaters are used in their various forms for:

April 5, 2020

We offer our heartfelt good wishes for everyone’s safety and comfort. Did you know that updated information about the impact of Covid-19 is available from the following sources.

March 29, 2020

Materials and new designs have impacted furnace efficiency considerably in the past decade. Here are a few examples:

  • Fractal Refractories. Clean refractories last a long time and preserve energy efficiency over the life of a furnace.
  • High alumina roof hangers. Now allow large furnace spans.
  • New heating elements (with nanotechnology) like the GAXP® have brought down furnace prices – as they last for years.
  • In general the rise of electric furnace use is preventing pollution. Now electric Airtorch® products are being used for conversion of CO2 to fuels.

Did you know that some of the earliest furnaces that were used in Mesopotamia, China and India were used for casting bronze alloys as far back as 2000 BCE?

Amazingly it is now becoming clear that these alloys were nanocrystal grained and also displayed five-fold rotationally symmetric crystal lattices.

Did you know ancient materials often comprised of nanomaterials that lent to color, durability and reflectivity? Click to https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119188230.saseas0400

March 22, 2020

Did you know about self-cleaning surfaces?

  • Self-cleaning surfaces are a class of materials with a surface that has the inherent ability to remove any debris or bacteria from their surfaces in a variety of ways.
  • The self-cleaning texture/functionality of these surfaces are often inspired by natural phenomena observed in plant leaves.
  • There are two classes of self-cleaning surfaces:
    • Super-hydrophobic surfaces where droplets collect debris and roll-off. Hydrophobicity is promoted by low surface energy and hierarchical nano-pillar-asperity surfaces.
    • Super-hydrophilic surfaces where the water spreads rapidly and quickly dissolves dirt or lifts it up to the water surface. Hydrophilicity is promoted by high surface energy.

Did you know that surfaces can additionally be antimicrobial as some of the Quasi-R® surfaces?

March 15, 2020

Did you know clean high temperature dry steam offers several unique applications based on the unique properties of steam?

Applications:

  • Antimicrobial Applications: Dry high quality low-oxygen steam is a known antimicrobial agent without leaving any organic residue.
  • Steam offers several levels of cleaning useful for demanding food contact surfaces and other general cleaning situations. Examples of use for this purpose in industry include the canning and bottling industry, soil remediation, among others.
  • Productivity increases with the availability of MightySteam™ – high temperature, dry and instant steam.
  • Heating Applications: Steam offers heat transfer coefficients that are very high. The heat-content is also very high. Steam dries faster than air above the inversion point.
  • Chemical and Fuel Production Applications: Many steam reactions are beneficial for energy production and biomass. Super-heated steam offers high kinetics and clean chemistry for waste-to-fuel discrete community fuel production.

Unusual Properties of high quality Steam-Gas:

  • Penetration: As it condenses, steam continues to wick.
  • Additive: Add to gas or plasma streams.
  • The heat-content is very high.
  • Steam dries faster than air above the inversion point. Generally about 280°C
  • Power Generation with Condensing Steam. High temperature steam 800C+ models for mega-watts are useful for turning turbines. Remember, only the temperature difference is related to the Carnot efficiency.
  • March 7, 2020
  • The Mpemba effect is the description of a process in which hot water can freeze faster than cold water.
  • The effect is named after the Tanzanian Mr. Erasto Mpemba. In 1963, while freezing ice cream mixes in a cookery class, he noticed that the hot mix froze before the cold mix.
  • Several explanations are offered, from dissolved gas differences to influences on supercooling tendencies depending on the type of water.
  • Regardless, the intrigue continues with this fascinating observation even today. For more information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect

March 1, 2020

  • A substance can exist in solid, liquid or gas phase depending on the temperature and pressure.
  • At extremely low temperatures, close to 0°K, or very high temperatures and pressures, other phases called Bose condensates or supercritical phases can also appear which are neither gas, liquid nor solid.
  • The triple point of a substance is the temperature and pressure at which the three phases (gas, liquid, and solid) can exist simultaneously. The triple point of CO 2 is 68.10 K and 0.1517 atm. For Platinum it is 2045 K and 2.0×10 −6 atm. At the triple point the material rapidly transitions between the three different states of matter. The critical point is the highest temperature and pressure at which a pure material can exist in solid/vapor/liquid equilibrium.

Since the triple point is a point , there is only one temperature and one pressure where the three phases will exist. Did you know some materials may have different types of solids and thus show several triple points like the lamda point for mercury. This fact often helps in identifying compounds. For more information visit https://mhi-inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm

February 22, 2020

  • In several engineering field applications one can alter the path of progress to prevent high energy usage for an objective. It is akin to not taking a hilly path between two locations when something else is available. With mechanical systems, one uses levers and pulley to help with an objective.
  • Similarly, in the chemical industry, catalysts are employed to assist with chemical objectives. Catalysis is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance (the catalyst) which is not consumed in the catalyzed reaction and can continue to act repeatedly.
  • Numerous reactions that occur in the bodies of animals and plants are catalyzed by enzymes. Catalysts can be highly efficient. For example, one molecule of enzyme can transform millions of molecules of the reactant per minute.
  • Catalysts are used for hydrogenation of fats to make margarine. Food items are routinely prepared with biocatalysts.
  • Cars and trucks use catalytic converters which are exhaust emission control devices. They reduce toxic gases and pollutants in exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine into less-toxic pollutants by catalyzing a redox reaction (an oxidation and a reduction reaction).
  • Did you know temperature is sometimes called a thermal catalyst?

February 16, 2020

How are crystals purified?

  • Very often by a process called zone-refining, a useful method to obtain crystals of very high purity for critical use materials like silicon and germanium used in the electronics industry . It is also referred to as zone melting, floating zone process, and traveling melting zone.
  • Since impurities are generally more soluble in the molten state of metal (the melt-zone) than in the solid state, a molten zone is created by an external heating zone heater. This zone moves along a rod of the impure metal or semiconductor crystal, all the while accumulating impurities in the liquid that are finally pushed to one end of the rod. After several passes a very pure crystal is obtained by cutting off the impure end. The Robust Radiators can produce high-temperature zones.
  • Zone refining was created at the famous Bell Laboratories, circa 1953 by John Desmond Bernal and further developed by William Gardner Pfann to prepare high purity materials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_melting.
  • These were the heady days of the famous US laboratory that also boasted of inventing the working transistor and superconductor, circa 1947-1951 by the only person who has won the Nobel prize in Physics two times! – the great John Bardeen.

February 9, 2020

  • Millions of lives have been saved with scientifically created antibacterial/antibiotic drugs. It is estimated that penicillin alone may have saved 80 – 200 million lives.
  • However, over time, bacteria have generated resistance to antibiotics.
  • We now live in an era of superbugs. Did you know dry high temperature (over 250°C) steam is often used to sanitize and even sterilize objects? See steam applications page – https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/.
  • New nano-surfaces like the Quasi-R® also provide a new way to address this problem https://mhi-inc.com/product/nano-silver-coated-stainless-steel-coupon/.

February 2, 2020

  • The melting point of a solid depends on its size? As the particle-size becomes very small, the melting point decreases – but this influence is noted only below ~50 nm (50×10-6 mm) particle diameters. For example a millimeter size nugget, gold (Au) melts at 1064°C but can melt almost at the room temperature when the particle radius is lower than 1 nm.
  • An opposite effect is that of pressure. Pressure increases the melting point (for materials that expand on melting). The same gold will melt at close to 1500°C when the pressure applied during melting is 10 GPa (GigaPascals) i.e., 10000 times greater than the atmospheric pressure.
  • Several additive materials processes are carried out with microheaters https://mhi-inc.com/Microheaters_spiral.html

January 25, 2020

  • When a particle and an antiparticle meet face-to-face, they annihilate each other, creating pure energy. Conversely, from nothing one can possibly get matter and antimatter? Is this how it all formed?
  • Scientists are now exploring the ubiquitous but elusive neutrinos which are their own antimatter. Why? Such research may eventually tell us how we as humans exist!
  • Physics is full of unsolved mysteries. Here is a link with 18 of them https://www.livescience.com/34052-unsolved-mysteries-physics.html including the current thinking about the fate of the universe and what happens to all its energy.
  • On a more practical realm, discoveries like the OAB® and GHGA™ are now revolutionizing steam production – and greatly impact climate change. Did you know steam touches almost half the energy that we use?

January 19, 2020

Did you know the scale of objects that we encounter on earth spans many orders of magnitude?

Deepest ocean trench: 10,994 m
Highest mountain: 8,850 m (m-meter)
Human scale: ~1 m
Pencil tip: ~1 mm (mm-millimeter)
Grain of salt: ~0.1-1 mm
Bacterium: ~1-10 micrometer

New Friction Texture: 100 nm (nanometer)

Atoms/molecules ~0.1 nm-100nm
Electrons: ~10^-7 nm (nanometer) (^ indicates – raised to the power of)
Planck’s length (quarks): ~10^-26 nm (smallest scale that is believed to exist in space-time)

Nano-materials and Nano-textures display grain and asperity sizes that have dimensions of a thousandth of a human hair. Nano-materials in the past were predominantly used in soft organic matter and products. All this has changed with the new class of commercial hard nano-materials for friction and catalysis. See for example some of the information posted on here. MHI is happy to provide significant energy savings with its new patented hard nano-materials used in various MHI products. A considerable amount of high temperature research involves roughness measurements. MHI takes advantage of texture features to construct its thermal products. https://mhi-inc.com/

January 12th, 2020

Did you know modern systems engineering approaches are used by MHI?

  • A modern thermomechanical device operates like a ballet. It requires extreme balancing skills with system engineering insights.
  • For example, a modern plasma that can operate with plazmised species like Air, integrates new knowledge of nano-materials such as Quasi-R®, complex SCR based control electronics such as a TRIPAN, efficient thermomechanical blowers, zero-toxicity FiberFree™ ceramics for use beyond 2000C and novel MP™ style heaters. Materials must be carefully mated so that uneven thermal expansion does not cause warping. Careful control systems and algorithms must be integrated and, yes, today AI principles must be employed.
  • See also Simplicity in Engineering for more guideline to how MHI integrates such skills for bringing you high quality energy efficiency and responsible, ecologically built equipment.

January 5th, 2020

  • One can play ping pong in space with a water ball.
  • US Astronaut Scott Kelly marked Day 300 in space by playing ping pong with a drop of water and two hydrophobic paddles. The paddles are made hydrophobic so that water does not stick to them. Lotus leaves are hydrophobic because of fine nano-structures
  • The microgravity causes the water droplet to form a sphere because of surface tension (just like a soap bubble).

See it here: https://youtu.be/TLbhrMCM4_0 by NASA

December 28th, 2019

Science is full of very curious facts. Did you know?

December 21st, 2019

  • High quality dry steam has several applications like antimicrobial use, heating, or as a reaction species.
  • Amongst these, the waste-to-fuel uses are particularly important as they additionally impact CO2 removal, as well as enable chemical and fuel production. For waste-to-fuel discrete community fuel production consider the OAB-4-750 or GOAB-12-800 or the OAB-36 or GHGA. Waste can be converted to methanol and ethanol. Garbage can be converted with plasma impact to break down organic materials into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Organic waste can be converted into Fuel. A mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide – from municipal solid waste and other renewable biomass, can be converted to long-chain hydrocarbon molecules that make up diesel and jet fuels. Some of these reactions are discussed in https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/ and related pages such as https://mhi-inc.com/steam-generator-models/.
  • Many steam reactions are beneficial for energy production and biomass. Super-heated steam offers high kinetics and clean chemistry. The Quasi-R® nano catalysts are particularly important for such applications.
  • Steam generators are listed on https://mhi-inc.com/superheated-steam-generators-electric-steam-generator/.

December 15th, 2019

  • Yes there is a cost of changing to high quality energy but real data suggests that the costs are recouped. High quality energy is good for the future.
  • According to EU studies, between 1990 and 2014, greenhouse gas emissions in the bloc already decreased by 23%, while the economy grew by 61%. World leaders agreed four years ago in Paris to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), ideally no more than 1.5oC (2.7oF) by the end of the century. Scientists say countries will miss both of those goals by a wide margin unless drastic steps are taken to begin cutting greenhouse gas emissions next year. Click for published reference.
  • Please check out new technologies from MHI. Airtorch® https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-applications/ or Steam https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/.

December 7th, 2019

  • Ancient Chinese and Koreans, and later, the Romans were among the first to create heated floors. The Romans laid stone slabs over a heating source in the ground. In ancient China, it appears that an intricate bamboo-based flue system used natural gas for heating.
  • Although it is not clear who invented the first radiant furnace for industrial use, it appears that the first use was around circa 1850. A good furnace today is considered as one that produces no emissions when the heat is generated, offers controlled heat-up features, and provides good fiberfree™ insulation for energy efficiency and safety.
  • Electric heating is the most efficient. With today’s push for high-grade energy, super-efficient steam generators, plasma generators and furnaces have become possible. Energy efficiency leads to better savings and quality of energy.

November 30th, 2019

  • The average North American uses about 50-100 gallons of water each day and the average European uses about 40-50 gallons each day.
  • In many countries open steam is used for cooking. https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/
  • The potential for conservation is clearly enormous by tackling the same objective but with less water usage. Overuse of water has the potential to adversely affect human health or endanger ecosystems.
  • Did you know MHI steam systems have the potential of cutting down water-usage by over 90% in packaging? Link to https://mhi-inc.com/continuous-steam-chambers/

November 16th, 2019

Can we enable fossil-fuel-free living within one generation?

  • Did you know several world-wide energy companies believe in this?
  • Energy and environmental performance are fundamental for the success of the global society.
  • Did you know MHI has now pioneered several gas reactions with the Airtorch©, OAB©, and HGA™ units that can eliminate methane and CO2 in an energy efficient manner while using their end products.
  • Please contact MHI and also check out Airtorch© Applications and Steam Applications.

November 10th, 2019

What is the most impactful energy efficiency issue that we have encountered as humans?

An interesting take on the human ability to eat cooked (processed) foods is that somewhere during our evolution, we managed the very heavy energy demand to grow and efficiently manage the energy demand of the 84 Billion Neurons in our brains! Were it not for processed foods (think of it as predigested food, as opposed to uncooked food) – perhaps we could not have developed our brains as they are, or develop the power of intelligence that humans possess.

November 2nd , 2019

Did you know that Waste to Energy containing Fuel Technologies are now in semi-commercial stages of development?

Plastics are hydrocarbons that are made from petroleum, and they can be converted back to liquid fuel. For example, pyrolysis could be used to do this. When subjected to the high heat and pressure, water breaks down the plastic and converts it into oil. An attractive method of converting these waste materials to useful forms is anaerobic digestion with proper steam heating. This process produces biogas that can be used as a fuel.

Waste can also be converted to methanol and ethanol. Garbage can be converted with ion-plasma impact to break down organic materials into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Organic waste via the Fischer-Tropsch reaction can be converted into Fuel. A mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide – from municipal solid waste and other renewable biomass, can be converted to long-chain hydrocarbon molecules that make up diesel and jet fuels. Some of these reactions are discussed in https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/.

October 26th , 2019

Heat always moves from hot objects to colder objects. Why does heat go from hot things to cold things and not vice versa? This question relates to the very nature of time. In every case in which a heat exchange does not occur, or when the heat exchanged is negligible, we see that the future behaves exactly like the past.

When heat is exchanged, new entropy is produced. Every process produces some new entropy. If zero or small, the process is reversible; if not, the process is irreversible. Generally, with time moving forward, there are heat exchanges and other fluxes that are constantly operating in our universe, producing new entropy.

  • Have you ever wondered about a thermodynamic principle that determines the formation of a particular (stable) shape such as a microstructure or a flower, over other shapes that may have been possible?
  • Yes, there appears to be one called the Principle of the Maximization of the Entropy Rate per Unit Volume.
  • Did you know that scientists and engineers are applying this principle for determining patterns in fluid-flow, shapes of two phase mixtures like ice-water, and also for the determination of friction?

October 20th , 2019

Did you know that diamonds can be made easily in a MHI Furnace? All you need is the recipe, Simgas mixer and the right furnace!

Production Gas for Diamonds (%CO2 ~0.4%, %H2O~ 0.5 to 0.9, %CO~20.5 to 20, %N2 ~42, H2~36 %, plus CH4- contact MHI)

For diamond surfaces – see Nano-Diamond

October 13th, 2019

Did you know environmentally safe die heating is now feasible with the https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-process-gas-heaters Airtorch™?

With direct Airtorch heating https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-applications/ or by supplementing with the Airtorch™ and blankets, the watt density on the mold is increased. This reduces the workload in an environmentally sound manner and improves performance and die-life. Other results include an increase of uniformity across the mold surface. Contact MHI for more information.

October 6th, 2019

The problem of the atmosphere clean-up is severe. The search is ongoing to find reactions for CO2 and reduce greenhouse gases from the atmosphere- like plants do with the Photosynthesis.

Some possible reactions are:

  • Hot CO2 or CO can easily be reacted with azides of Na, Ca, Li etc. to make useful solids or liquids., while the oxides of the alkali metal can be recovered.
  • NaN2 +CO2 or Ca-N or Li-N compounds can be reacted with hot CO2; or oxides can be reacted with hot CO for clean metal production.
  • Hot CO2(g) + NaN3 = C + NaO2 + 1.5N2(g) is negative free energy with good kinetics above 980C. Catalysts available.
  • Also 2CO(g) + NaN3 = 2C + NaO2 + 1.5N2(g) is possible even at medium temperatures.
  • The Boudouard reaction 2CO(g) = CO2(g) + C can occur below ~750C Similarly Fe2O3 + hot CO(g) can yield clean Fe.
  • Gases like methane CH4(g) can be removed through Steam Reforming
    • CH4(g) + H2O(g) = CO(g) + 3H2(g) Steam Reforming above ~750C. Both CO and H2 are reducing gasses for several oxide

Note that carbon nitrogen compounds can be toxic.
The yields of the reactions are not always great; Continuous Airtorch® and new OAB® Steam Systems are useful for these applications.

September 29th, 2019

September 21st , 2019

Did you know Simplicity helps productivity?

Simply Increasing the Temperature has a big influence on productivity by improving:

Temperature -uniformity, reaction rate, energy-efficiency, heat-transfer rate and the equilibrium-constant.

Temperature has an additional influence on the rate of heat transfer. For more information please access https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_steam/steam-calculator-superheated-tables.html

September 15th, 2019

Did you know that instant dry-steam at high temperatures is anti-bacterial?

Additionally, very high temperature steam has many more applications such as in drying and power-generation by Gasification, Pyrolysis, Digestion and Fermentation.

See typical examples on https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/. Connect to Steam Generators Units by clicking here.

September 8th, 2019

Did you know Simplicity could be an essential part of modern efficiency designs?

Simplicity builds product resilience. The manufacturing landscape is in a flux. There are new demands for improved energy efficiency with a rigorous environmental focus – now a key requirement from every product and process. These new trends have impacted manufacturing operations. They have created the impetus for radically enhanced materials and systems to accommodate global sustainability requirements and new customer preferences.

MHI Inc. now offers a new dimension of manufacturing with tested ideas for energy savings for the same objective but with new designs. We call it Simplicity – Cross platform application of our best practices!

August 31st, 2019

Microheaters are a miniaturization of thermal technology. A correct choice of heating element materials can generate over 90% energy cost savings! See economics on https://mhi-inc.com/reasons.html.

Miniaturization does not just mean taking things down to a microscale or nanoscale. It also means taking things down from a meter-scale to a smaller foot print. For example, the OAB® steam generators are able to provide 500°C+ dry steam with a much smaller foot print than that of conventional pressure boilers.

Aug 24th, 2019

A clean environment is associated with electric devices. But who discovered electricity? Most people believe it was one of the US founding fathers-Benjamin Franklin, who had one of the greatest minds of his time. He was interested in many areas of science. In the mid-1700s, he became interested in electricity. Up until that time, scientists had mainly known about and experimented with static electricity and related discharges.

In 1832 Michael Faraday published the results of his experiment on the identity of electricity. This report proved that electricity made by using a magnet, voltaic electricity produced by a battery, and static electricity are all the same. Since Faraday’s result, the history of static electricity can be thought of as the study of electricity in general. Benjamin Franklin took things a big step ahead. He came up with the idea that electricity had positive and negative charge-elements and that electricity flowed between these elements. He also believed that lightning was a form of this flowing electricity.

Did you know that MHI makes efficient electric devices and a new type of lightning or plasma – shown on www.mhi-inc.com?

August 18th, 2019

There appears to be new environmental challenges that have taken on a sense of urgency.

Did you know that advanced thermal companies are pushing hard to increase the radiated power density and temperature with clean electric sources? Electric heating sources offer a cleaner environment compared to flame heating.

A methane gas flame has an average* temperature range of 900°C to 1500°C. Common flames from wood fires show temperatures ~1200°C.

Electric glow panels now offer 1900°C with high power density ~up to 150W/sq.in and full control.

The Airtorch™ heating is 15000 Watts per sq.in.

Click here for a table showing the comparison of the available Power Density from Laser beams, Plasma, Sunlight, Gas Flames and More.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame and https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/eion-plasma-device-family.html#side-tab6 .

*Note that the average temperature is not the same as the peak temperature.

Aug 11th, 2019

  • The efficiency of obtaining the maximum work from thermal energy is determined by the hot and cold temperatures between which heat may flow. The simple second law of thermodynamics caps this efficiency to (1-Tcold/Thot). If you burn fossil fuel, the best efficiency is ~50-85% for achieving a work objective. With electric energy, efficiency for an objective can be closer to 100% during conversion. Sunlight to direct electrical work is ~35-44%. For a quick review of thermodynamics, look up https://mhi-inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm and learn additionally about the many temperature scales!
  • There are two main types of heat engines for converting heat to work: In an external combustion engine, the fuel burns outside and away from the engine (steam engines). In an internal combustion engine, the fuel burns inside the cylinder (typical in cars and jet engines). Each is associated with a thermodynamic-cycle that consists of a sequence of processes for the exchange of heat and work, in and out of the system, whilst varying pressure, temperature, and other thermodynamic variables within the system- eventually the cycle returns the system to its initial state.
  • Did you know that a cycle called the Brayton Cycle used with supercritical CO2 can possibly dramatically reduce the size of existing Jet Engines? The Airtorch® (https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-process-gas-heaters/) allows for simulation of such cycles.
  • Aug 4th, 2019
  • Why MHI Airtorch™?Very low pressure drop-highest temperatures-high efficiency-industry leading quality, price and delivery. High amounts of pressure-drops can cost the user a lot of wasted expenditure. See example here. Please Request Information
  • LTA Up to 900°C. LTA is a process heater for air which requires a compressed air input.
  • VTA  Up to 900°C. VTA is process gas heater with fan or blower with low flow sensor capability. New* VTA with fan models for 1100°C.
  • MTA and GTA Up to 925°C/1100°C. These are flow or inline sealed process gas heaters which can take compressed air or compressed gas input. New Models for MVTA-DPF-DNA Class.
  • DPF â “ Up to 1150°C-1250°C/~2200°F. DPF models can take fan or blower input as well as a compressed air/gas input.
  • Large Flow MVTA. For 1000-1100°C. These are sealed process gas heater (THN or DNA class) with blower or inline capability. High KW High Flow.
  • Large Flow GTA For high pressure vessel Airtorch use. Custom engineering. Please contact us directly for assistance.

July 21st, 2019

Did you know combustion gasses can be pollutants? What are they? What are the solutions?

Typically a gas like Carbon Monoxide(CO) has toxicity associated with it, different from Carbon Dioxide (CO2) which is a green-house gas that can cause discomfort. Both are by-products of combustion, such as of natural gas. Continued operation of a kitchen gas range producing 800 ppm in a sealed- house without extra ventilation can cause carbon monoxide levels to rise quickly to unacceptable levels. The EPA standard is 9 ppm in the room. More about combustion gas toxicity.

Solutions: Go Electric (but don’t burn food) – burnt food can also produce gas. Provide for good ventilation with a good exhaust. Of course going electric may upset some cooks!

Wish to compare Electric directed energy sources like Sunlight, Lasers and Directed Plasmas? Please link to https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/eion-plasma-device-family.html#side-tab6.

July 13th, 2019

Both old or modern technologies utilize nano structures to provide advanced critical properties.

Example: One of the most famous steels was the Damascus steel used for swords in during 900 -1750 AD. This type of steel was produced using the crucible steel method, based on the earlier Indian wootz steel technology. The solidification process allowed nano carbides to precipitate out as particles arranged neatly within the body of a sword-blade. Today, there is renewed interest in new nano techniques for knives and blades.

What is a nanostructure? Features that are about 1-50 nanometers in size. A human hair is about 25,000 nanometers

 July 7th, 2019

Did you know that a key growth sector in manufacturing is net-shape manufacturing (which includes 3D-printing)?

The industry, however, seems to lag in this kind of manufacturing of engineering parts – particularly those that require higher temperatures to fabricate and deburr. Some progress has been made. Products such as the DNA Nano-powder Depositor, the MC-AM-2-130 3 layer, Steam Plasma Depositorand a host of other MHI products are newly available for net-shaped manufacturing .

MHI trademarks include 3DBrazing® and 4DSintering®

June 29th, 2019

  •  June 23rd, 2019
  • Decibel dB is the unit for loudness of a sustained sound emitting event. A normal conversation is held at about 60dB between humans. At 120 dB the level of sound becomes dangerous for the ear (>100 dB is emitted by jet engines and ambulance sirens).
  • To make any sound, we expend energy. To make continuous sound, we draw on power (energy per unit time). Loudspeakers are used to produce amplified sounds. Doubling the power of a loudspeaker/amplifier generally only adds about 3dB of loudness.
  • A typical modern amplifier that uses ~100W of power to make 84dB will need 200W for a 87 dB level sound.
  • Sound is also an energy loss mechanism from friction. The Airtorch™ (https://mhi-inc.com/airtorch-process-gas-heaters/) makes no sound so all the input energy is used for the objective of process gas heating.
  • Lumens is a measure of the brightness of visible light. The efficacy of lighting products is measured in Lumens per Watt. LED backlit lamps produce 150 Lumens per Watt of power. Old light bulbs gave only 10 Lumens per Watt. To see well in a hallway, one needs at least 300Lumens.

June 15th, 2019

  • A significant increase of 1.5% to 2.8% from the earlier periods is expected for US manufacturing (reference Foundation)? It is being rapidly recognized that the best energy policy is one where efficiency is dramatically promoted by reducing the energy required to carry out the same objective.
  • Progress in new Inorganic materials is again becoming very important as such materials can be used at high temperatures and may not have the same disposability problems as soft-matter materials.
  • One of the most dramatic changes will be seen with innovations that reflect such reduction for energy employed in a variety of applications https://mhi-inc.com/MHIProduct.html.
  • Nano-surface technologies have now become a key part of modern growth-strategies.
  • See more on why we must save energy by clicking here

June 9th, 2019

Did you know that Steam whistles are a great American tradition, often blown during the American Civil War with different tunes to Indicate secret events?

According to a report in the Scientific American Supplement 1897, the first whistle was a steam trumpet, fitted on a locomotive on the Leicester and Swannington Railway (UK) in 1833 (Reference https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu and https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1178268). According to unverified reports from the same period, this whistle was physically so high and ungainly that it had to be quickly redesigned.

Early steam engines were not powerful. In the earliest steam boats, one could either blow the whistle or turn the paddle- not both! The book American Trivia by Richard Lederer and Caroline McCullagh, Gibbs Smith, 2012 lists an anecdote in which Abraham Lincoln compared this to the feeble workings of the mind of one of his contemporaries!

May 27th, 2019

Some of the fastest growing materials sectors are related to sensors and battery development. These are often tested to 1200°C by impinging a hot stream of air from an Airtorch or Steam Generator. A wide variety of application notes are available on https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/Airtorchinfographic.html and https://mhi-inc.com/steam-applications/.

June 2nd, 2019

May 12th, 2019

Did you know productivity can be vastly improved by simple change-factors? For example:

Increasing the Temperature. Big Influence. The Temperature impacts the Reaction Rate, Energy Efficiency, Heat-Transfer Rate and the Equilibrium Constant. Temperature has an influence on the rate of heat transfer.

Increasing the Pressure. Small effect.

Increasing the throughput with improved time-management processes. For example continuous processing over batch processing, or with open system processing over closed system processing.

Improving the Temperature Uniformity and Optimizing the type of energy transfer mechanism for the desired uniformity. Typical energy transfer mechanisms of interest are convective and radiative, enhanced by the e-Ion types of energy transfer/efficiency. Gases can be easily heated with the efficient Airtorch™ process-heater technology. Solids and liquids may be preheated with safe energy-efficient furnaces.

For more information please access https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_steam/steam-calculator-superheated-tables.html

May 4th, 2019

What does $1 (US) get you from the use of energy?

  • Household: @ 10c/kWhr, one dollar will provide full lighting and other common device use needs for about one to two days for an average US household
  • Travel: @ $2.5/gallon of gasoline an average modern car will travel about 10 miles for a dollar. Assumes 25 miles per gallon efficiency.
  • Industrial: @ 10c/kWhr, one dollar will allow for 1000 bottles to be shrink-wrapped every hour with a modern steam generator that draws 12kW of power. https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_applications.html

April 28th, 2019

  • The world today has approximately 7 Billion People.
  • We use energy to sustain our bodies and to do useful things that improve the quality of life. The way we use energy is to convert it from one form to another.
  • However, we create bad waste products in the process of energy conversion – such as excessive CO2 when we combust something.
  • The quality of available energy is continuously decreasing although the total amount remains the same.
  • The annual energy consumption is ~500+EJ/A ( Exajoules/Annum). This amount is expected to peak at~600EJ/A in the year 2030
  • In the future, a large part of the savings of high quality energy will come from smart machines that use lesser energy for the same objective, thus reducing the rate of energy degradation. (see e.g. www.mhi-inc.com).
  • Did you know? Significant energy savings are expected in the future from tribological improvements (sometimes estimated as high as 100EJ/A) just with new surface technologies?

April 20th, 2019

Spiral profiles optimize properties including radiation properties. See for example https://mhi-inc.com/Microheaters.htm.

A spiral is an involute curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point. The most common form is the Archimedean Spiral defined by the equation r = a+ b(theta) in polar coordinates. A helix and vortex are three dimensional spirals. Nature invokes these shapes for a variety of building blocks from galaxies to cellular matter. Spirals are also key thematic blocks for many art forms. Spirals and vortex depictions can be found across historical art forms e.g. pre-Columbian art in Latin and Central America. Spirals are also are a psychedelic form of art to depict hypnotic effects.

Did you know that the involute shapes have amazing properties that make them extremely important for engineering products? From gears, compressors and fans, the involute shaped products allow for low-friction, low-noise and high-life. Now abundantly used in radiation heating.

April 13th, 2019

Did you know the difference between ancient furnaces and modern furnaces? There are two major differences.

Modern furnaces are electrically heated (no combustion) – so they reach high temperatures exceeding 1700°C (3092°F). Electric heating allows for process control, improved process productivity and therefore much higher efficiencies.

The second is the roof span. Earlier, only fire-bricks were available and roof shapes and spans of these furnaces were constrained by arches and chimneys . Today, a host of new composites are used in furnace construction. Newly available materials like NanoFractalAlumina™ allow for very wide roof spans. When coupled with modern roof hanger designs, the roofs can be made to span several feet in width. Examples are seen in https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/high-temperature-lab-furnaces.html

April 6th, 2019

Did you know advanced material companies are rapidly increasing the power density and temperature available from clean electric sources? Electric sources mean cleaner environment compared to flame heating.

This has implications for materials processing, intergalactic transport systems as well as simulators. For comparison, note that a methane gas flame has an average* temperature range of 900°C to 1500°C. Fire is ~1200°C. Electric glow panels now offer 1900°C with high power density ~up to 150W/sq.in and full control. Airtorch™ heating is 15000 Watts per sq.in. Click here for a table showing the comparison of the Power Density from Lasers, Sunlight, Gas Flames and More. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame and https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/eion-plasma-device-family.html#side-tab6 . *Note that the average temperature is not the same as the peak temperature.

March 30th, 2019

Did you know that principle of increasing entropy mirrors the arrow of time?

Now several researchers are examining if aggregate social behavior, the formation of galaxies and life itself may have very similar driving principles. Did you know it is a common simplification that entropy is just thought of as a measure disorder or a comparative measure of the quality of energy? This would be true of course if the temperature was identical . The aggregate of total entropy in the universe (which could just be an isolated control volume) has to increase for anything to happen. But locally, entropy can increase or decrease giving rise to ordered-clumps that are not well mixed with the rest of the space. Did you know there can be many pathways for a spontaneous process but one of them may be the most probable – a conclusion from a yet evolving principle (that is being tested) which indicates a requirement to maximize the rate of entropy generation along the preferred pathway. https://mhi-inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm

3/23/2019

Did you know a near doubling of the average U.S. manufacturing growth is predicted for the 2018-2021 period from 1.5% to 2.8% from the earlier periods (reference Foundation)?

It appears that energy issues and productivity will become keys to planning the growth of industrial products in the future. One of the most dramatic changes is seen in the innovations for energy use in a variety of applications https://mhi-inc.com/MHIProduct.html. Nano-molecules and nano-technology aid energy conservation in a multitude of direct and indirect ways and have become a key part of growth-strategies. An example is texture of surfaces.

3/17/2019

  • One Joule (J) is equal to amount of energy required to raise an apple to a height of 1 m.
  • 1 KJ (KiloJoule) is equal to the chemical energy converted to heat by one burning match.
  • Heating a cup of water to 100C takes about 30KJ. Boiling it – another 300KJ. To lift 1 Kg close to space the energy required is about 100MJ (MegaJoules).
  • The approximate price of electrical energy of 100MJ (~28KWhrs) is about $3 (not including the rocket!)
  • A Watt (W) is the energy conversion per second, J/s. A human converts energy at the rate of about 200W during normal activity.
  • Did you know that electric devices are cost effective because they offer the ability of precise control. See https://mhi-inc.com

3/9/2019

Did you know that the objective of many sensors and devices is to convert one form of energy to a more useful form?

Some typical devices that are used for energy conversion are described below.

Device Type                 Energy Conversion

Thermoelectric           Converts Heat to Electric Work

Heat engines               Converts Heat to Mechanical Work

Fuel Cells                     Converts Chemical Energy to Electric Work

Photosynthesis            Converts Radiation to Chemical Energy

ATP hydrolysis             Converts Chemical Energy to Mechanical Energy

Battery                         Converts Chemical Energy to Electric Work

Microphone                Converts Oscillatory sound energy to Electrical Wave Energy

3/3/2019

Natural crystals are found in the ground where the earth’s high-temperature and high-pressure may have influenced their formation. Quartz is one such crystal widely used for conducting electricity.

A crystal (solid) family is determined by lattices and point groups. Many crystals are also created in laboratories under controlled conditions for specific and demanding applications. Did you know that jet engines have turbine blades grown by directional solidification of metallic crystals in gradient furnaces? For more information https://mhi-inc.com/PG3/robust-radiator.html

February 24th, 2019

Although not a fundamental thermodynamic variable, the Coefficient of Friction and other interface heat transfer coefficients are important surface variables. Did you know that the worldwide average coefficient of friction is estimated to be about 0.35 for moving pairs? With MHI devices www.mhi-inc.com we are trying hard to bring this down to almost 0.1. That means an energy savings of about 50EJ (EJ=10^18J) per year when successful. Wish to know more? Please see more details and references here https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/SurfaceroughnessandDeburringwithe-ionPlasma.htm

2/17//2019

Did you know, for most heat treatment, the ‘windows of opportunity’ for best processing outcomes are very small?  Whether heat treating steels, wood, ceramics or polymers, it is important that the treatment be very controlled. Such control is only provided by electric heating where power control can be easily tweaked. Towards this end, MHI Inc. uses the most sophisticated control systems employing SCRs, and less than ± 1C tunability and accuracy. Visit for example https://mhi-inc.com/product-category/71/ or https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/electronic-controllers-control-panels.html. A faulty heat treatment can lead to wrinkled sheet metal, missing the full bacterial control, low sinterability, macro-segregation and other defects that will reduce the effective life or efficacy of the final product. Proper thermal exposure often defines the highest quality of the final product.

2/10/ 2019

Did you know that the landscape of thermal engineering is undergoing a dramatic change? Some examples are microfurnaces to 1900C to replace large furnaces, steam generators that offer steam that can reduce energy and water consumption by 90%, or strong GlowPanelâ„¢ heat flux machines that can offer power densities in the MW/m2 range. All such technologies are now expanding our simulation of even extreme inter- terrestrial conditions, including plasma generation from just air. Please review thermal miniaturization on the page https://mhi-inc.com/MHIProduct.html. For high heat flux machines please go to https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/thermoplate-hot-plate.html.

2/3/19

The Boltzmann constant was introduced by Max Planck, but named after Ludwig Boltzmann. It sets up a relationship between energy and temperature, wavelength and temperature and also a relationship between voltage and temperature. This same constant also relates the microscopic details, or microstates of a system, to its macroscopic state with entropy S, thus making it the core idea of thermal statistical mechanics. Arguments still persist on whether it is a fundamental constant of the universe. Unlike the Planck’s constant that defines space-timerelated measurements, the Boltzmann constant is thought to simply relate measurable quantities like temperature to more fundamental properties and variations like energy-change and entropy.

Did you know that the constant is set today at 1.380 x 10-23 J/K, but when first introduced, Max Planck set it to 1.346×10-23 J/K, about 2.5% lower than today’s number!

1/27/19

The most liked colors: Blue and Red. Reference:https://www.thetoptens.com/top-ten-favorite-colors/.
The most liked numbers: 7, 3 and 8. Reference:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/most-popular-numbers-grapes-of-math/.
The most liked sounds: Waves against rocks, Rain against the windows.
Reference:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9503557/Top-50-most-loved-sounds.html.
The most liked smells. After it Rains. https://www.ranker.com/list/best-smells/jacob-shelton
Did you know? We pay attention to such small details for our customer relationships. https://mhi-inc.com/PG1/mhi-advantages.html

1/20/19

It took a long time for humans to understand heat, work and energy. Heat and Work are not properties of a material, but energy is a property, just like temperature and entropy are properties. Heat and Work are only recognized when thermal energy or work (like electron flow) crosses a boundary during a process. Heat is energy in transit, i.e. a part of “energy” in the process of transfer from hot to cold objects. Thermal energy comprises of the molecular level of kinetic, vibrational and rotational energy of all the particles in a material.

1/13/19

Materials Science Studies of Inorganic Hard Materials and Biological Studies of Soft Materials are perhaps converging. Some of the weirdest materials are those that repair themselves because of bacterial assisted reconstruction (apparently in use for cell phones). Nanotexture influences surface-friction (worldwide use is almost 100EJ/per year to overcome friction). Interestingly, biological texture of skin for overcoming friction and for vibro-sensing are now known to have wide ranging similarities. Hard surface nanostructure assisted bacterial tunability or survival also depends on the nano-curvature/texture. For an introduction to surface-texture see https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/SurfaceroughnessandDeburringwithe-ionPlasma.htm . Finally, hard icosahedral materials appear to show similar patterns as flowers and petals (IIMTrans-2019).

12/29/18

There was an earlier Global Warming period called the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. This period has been linked to an initial 5 °C temperature rise and to extreme changes in Earth’s carbon cycle. The exact age and duration of the event is uncertain but it is estimated to have occurred some 55.5 million years ago. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum.

As a form of energy, heat has the Units of Joules (J) in the International System of Units (SI). The standard unit for the rate of heat transferred is the Watt (W), defined as one Joule per second. https://mhi-inc.com/Converter/energy-converter.html. More on Energy Conservation: link to https://mhi-inc.com/EnergyefficiencyLinksforGrants.htm

12/22/18

The reaction that uses up CO2 is called photosynthesis. [CO2 + H2O (steam/water) + photons(sunlight)] gives [ [CO2O] + O2]. The reaction product is sugars/carbohydrates. This reaction requires energy of a quanta that is available in visible and infrared spectral regions. Plants have special chemicals that absorb light of the right frequency for the reaction and enable photosynthesis. Photosynthesis, although a complex phenomenon, can be thought to occur in two stages. In the first stage, light-dependent reactions capture the energy of light and use it to make the energy-storage molecules ATP and NA-DPH. During the second stage, the light-independent reactions occur where the carbon dioxide is absorbed from the atmosphere. In particularly during hot and dry conditions, the CO2decreases and the oxygen gas produced by the light-enabled reactions of photosynthesis register an increase. Sugar is created as a byproduct of the photosynthesis process. The plant now has energy. This biomass (energy containing plant) is the organic material derived from plants and animals, – a source of recoverable energy and water. Steam gasification is often carried out for energy recovery. Another reaction with steam that can be used for the production of energy molecules is Methane Steam Reforming reaction (MSR). Here methane and steam can react CH4 + 2H2O ⇔ CO2 + 4H2. Read more in https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_steam/steam-calculator-superheated-tables.html

12/15/18

Units Conversion Calculator All Units Conversion
Watt Calculator Energy and Power Examples
Steam Calculator and Superheated Steam Enthalpy and Entropy of Saturated and Superheated Steam
Flow vs. Power. Airtorchâ„¢ Model Selection Parameters
Radiation and Microheater Calculator. Radiation Colors.
Robust Radiator Calculator. Selection Parameters
Hardness Conversion. Hardness Scales
Grit to Micron Conversion. Particulate Units

12/09/18

The new technologies of high temperature processing enable unusual productivity and efficiency. For example, one can make high quality diamonds in a tube furnace https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/horizontal-tube-furnace.html#t-2. Or one can recover precious materials like palladium. Consider brazing, like the 4DBrazing® – faster brazing in a simple high temperature standard tube furnace is sometimes feasible without using expensive and large braze furnaces. Instant gas cooling is possible with SIMGAS (https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/gas-mixing-system.html).

12/1/18

The basis for high temperature superheated steam applications is because of the unique properties of steam-gas.
Heating: Steam offers heat transfer coefficients that are very high. The heat content is also very high. Steam dries faster than air above the inversion point.
Antimicrobial: Dry high quality, low-oxygen steam is a known antimicrobial agent without any organic residue.
Chemical: Many steam reactions are beneficial for energy production and biomass. Superheated steam offers high kinetics.
Penetration: Steam as it condenses, continues to wick. This is why steam heaters never required pressure driven flow pushers.
Please check out steam products on https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_steam.html#side-tab

2/3/19

The Boltzmann constant was introduced by Max Planck, but named after Ludwig Boltzmann. It sets up a relationship between energy and temperature, wavelength and temperature and also a relationship between voltage and temperature. This same constant also relates the microscopic details, or microstates of a system, to its macroscopic state with entropy S, thus making it the core idea of thermal statistical mechanics. Arguments still persist on whether it is a fundamental constant of the universe. Unlike the Planck’s constant that defines space-time measurements, the Boltzmann constant is thought to simply relate measurable quantities like temperature to more fundamental properties and variations like energy-change and entropy.

Did you know that the constant is set today at 1.380×10-23 J/K, but when first introduced, Max Planck set it to 1.346×10-23 J/K, about 2.5% lower than today’s number!

1/20/19

It took a long time for humans to understand heat, work and energy. Heat and Work are not properties of a material, but energy is a property, just like temperature and entropy are properties. Heat and Work are only recognized when thermal energy or work (like electron flow) crosses a boundary during a process. Heat is energy in transit, i.e. a part of “energy” in the process of transfer from hot to cold objects. Thermal energy comprises of the molecular level of kinetic, vibrational and rotational energy of all the particles in a material.

1/13/19

Materials Science of Inorganic Hard Materials and Biological Studies of Soft Materials are perhaps converging. Some of the weirdest materials are those that repair themselves because of bacterial assisted reconstruction (apparently in use for cell phones). Nanotexture influences surface-friction (worldwide use is almost 100EJ/per year to overcome friction). Interestingly, biological texture of skin for overcoming friction and for vibro-sensing are now known to have wide ranging similarities. Hard surface nanostructure assisted bacterial tunability or survival also depends on the nano-curvature/texture. For an introduction to surface-texture see https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/SurfaceroughnessandDeburringwithe-ionPlasma.htm . Finally, hard icosahedral materials appear to show similar patterns as flowers and petals (IIMTrans-2019).

12/29/18

There was an earlier Global Warming period called the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. This period has been linked to an initial 5 °C temperature rise and to extreme changes in Earth’s carbon cycle. The exact age and duration of the event is uncertain but it is estimated to have occurred some 55.5 million years ago. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum.

As a form of energy, heat has the Units of Joules (J) in the International System of Units (SI). The standard unit for the rate of heat transferred is the Watt (W), defined as one Joule per second. https://mhi-inc.com/Converter/energy-converter.html. More on Energy Conservation: link to https://mhi-inc.com/EnergyefficiencyLinksforGrants.htm

12/22/18

The reaction that uses up CO2 is called photosynthesis. [CO2 + H2O (steam/water) + photons(sunlight)] gives [ [CO2O] + O2]. The reaction product is sugars/carbohydrates. This reaction requires energy of a quanta that is available in visible and infrared spectral regions. Plants have special chemicals that absorb light of the right frequency for the reaction and enable photosynthesis. Photosynthesis, although a complex phenomenon, can be thought to occur in two stages. In the first stage, light-dependent reactions capture the energy of light and use it to make the energy-storage molecules ATP and NA-DPH. During the second stage, the light-independent reactions occur where the carbon dioxide is absorbed from the atmosphere. In particularly during hot and dry conditions, the CO2decreases and the oxygen gas produced by the light-enabled reactions of photosynthesis register an increase. Sugar is created as a byproduct of the photosynthesis process. The plant now has energy. This biomass (energy containing plant) is the organic material derived from plants and animals, – a source of recoverable energy and water. Steam gasification is often carried out for energy recovery. Another reaction with steam that can be used for the production of energy molecules is Methane Steam Reforming reaction (MSR). Here methane and steam can react CH4 + 2H2O ⇔ CO2 + 4H2. Read more in https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_steam/steam-calculator-superheated-tables.html

12/15/18

Units Conversion Calculator All Units Conversion
Watt Calculator Energy and Power Examples
Steam Calculator and Superheated Steam Enthalpy and Entropy of Saturated and Superheated Steam
Flow vs. Power. Airtorchâ„¢ Model Selection Parameters
Radiation and Microheater Calculator. Radiation Colors.
Robust Radiator Calculator. Selection Parameters
Hardness Conversion. Hardness Scales
Grit to Micron Conversion. Particulate Units

12/09/18

The new technologies of high temperature processing enable unusual productivity and efficiency. For example, one can make high quality diamonds in a tube furnace https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/horizontal-tube-furnace.html#t-2. Or one can recover precious materials like palladium. Consider brazing, like the 4DBrazing® – faster brazing in a simple high temperature standard tube furnace is sometimes feasible without using expensive and large braze furnaces. Instant gas cooling is possible with SIMGAS (https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/gas-mixing-system.html).

12/1/18

The basis for high temperature superheated steam applications is because of the unique properties of steam-gas.
Heating: Steam offers heat transfer coefficients that are very high. The heat content is also very high. Steam dries faster than air above the inversion point.
Antimicrobial: Dry high quality, low-oxygen steam is a known antimicrobial agent without any organic residue.
Chemical: Many steam reactions are beneficial for energy production and biomass. Superheated steam offers high kinetics.
Penetration: Steam as it condenses, continues to wick. This is why steam heaters never required pressure driven flow pushers.
Please check out steam products on https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_steam.html#side-tab1

11/27/18

Did you know that fundamental constants are being redefined?

The Consultative Committee for Thermometry (CCT) has noted that the current definition of temperature is unsatisfactory for temperatures above 1,300 K (1,030 °C or 1,880 °F). The Boltzmann constant (same units as entropy) provides a better basis for temperature measurement than older basis which was the triple point of water. The kilogram, ampere, and mole are now defined by setting exact numerical values for the Planck constant (h=6.62607015×10−34 joule-second (J•s).), the elementary electric charge (e= 1.602176634×10−19 coulomb (C)), the Boltzmann constant (k=1.380649×10−23 joule per kelvin (J•K−1)), and the Avogadro constant (NA=6.02214076×1023 reciprocal mole (mol−1)). Does it impact MHI thermal calibration? https://mhi-inc.com.

11/11/28

Hardest Material: Wurtzite boron nitride. Slightly harder than natural diamond.
Light Colors: Furnace Red (~1000K-2000K), Soft White (2700K – 3000K), Bright White (3500K – 4100K), and Daylight/Sunlight (5000K – 6500K).
Highest Reported Energy Efficiency for Steam Use: OAB® or HGA™ steam generators
Continuous Air Plasma: Cascade e-ion™
Lowest Reported Dynamic Friction: Zwitterionic for Organic and Aluminum Magnesium borides for Inorganic.
Softest Mineral: Soapstone Comparing Density of Iron: Cast Iron 7300kg/m3, Mild Steel 7700Kg/m3. So why do cast iron dishes seem heavier? Answer.
Lowest Density Solid: Graphene Aerosol 160Kg/m3
Highest Density Solid: Osmium 22600Kg/m3

11/08/18

Nowadays, heating elements are made from a variety of novel silicides, aluminides and carbides and other materials like doped tungsten. In the future, nanomaterials like the GAXP will become more important.

Did you know that Edison’s first electric heating element for lighting was made from carbonized cotton and bamboo?
Learn More about Microheater materials, especially the GAXP and GAXP-IgMp that are used in air.

Sat, Nov 10, 2018

Hardest Material: Wurtzite boron nitride.  Slightly harder than natural diamond.

Light Colors:  Furnace Red (~1000K-2000K), Soft White (2700K – 3000K), Bright White White (3500K – 4100K), and Daylight/Sunlight (5000K – 6500K).

Highest Reported Energy Efficiency for  Steam Use:  OAB® or HGA™ steam generators

Continuous Air Plasma:  Cascade e-ion™

Lowest Reported Dynamic Friction:  Zwitterionic for Organic and Aluminum Magnesium borides for Inorganic.

Softest Mineral: Soapstone

Comparing Density of Iron: Cast Iron 7300kg/m3, Mild Steel 7700Kg/m3. So why do cast iron dishes seem heavier?  Answer.  Most cast iron dishes are much thicker than mild steel dishes and that is why they are heavier.

Lowest Density Solid:  Graphene Aerosol 160Kg/m3

Highest Density Solid:  Osmium 22600Kg/m3

Sat, Nov 3, 2018

When water molecules exist in a gaseous-state at a temperature above the boiling temperature of water, it is called the superheated steam-state. When at the boiling-temperature, the steam is called saturated steam. The boiling temperature depends on the pressure (e.g. 100°C for 1 atmosphere, or 134°C for 3 atmosphere and so on).

The main difference in the phase-state between saturated and superheated steam is that saturated steam can contain water droplets, whereas the higher-temperature superheated steam, even up to 1300C, is a high enthalpy gas with considerably more work potential that saturated steam. Work potential enables mechanical work and chemical reactions.

Did you know that superheater steam made by instant MHI steam generators can possibly improve the energy efficiency to over 90% of the current usage in applications ranging from biomass production to textile-fiber improvements? Over the past two years, prices have fallen drastically for steam generators.https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_steam.html.

Issue 5 Vol. 25 October 28th, 2018

Creep and Creep-Fatigue Interactions limit the roof- span of high temperature furnaces. Now, with the availability of NanoFractalAlumina™ materials – very long roof spans (non-sag roofs for years) are routinely offered by modern furnace manufacturers. Examine what large roof span furnaces look-like by clicking to https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/front-loading-furnace.html#t-0. Greatly improved energy efficiency comes from non-sag roofs https://mhi-inc.com/reasons.html.

Sun, Oct 21, 2018

X  -ray diffraction, Electron diffraction, and Neutron diffraction are ways to probe the atomic and magnetic structure of matter with radiation (wave). Each type of beam-wave is diffracted by a different scattering event in the matter which makes them all useful in different ways to probe the atomic and crystal structure. The beams were all discovered in the period 1895-1932. Each discovery had interesting events associated with the it.

Did you know a husband and wife team discovered X-rays? Anna Bertha Roentgen, the wife of Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, professor at the University of Wurzberg, the discoverer of X-rays in 1895 teamed with him to discover X-rays. It was the image of Bertha’s hand, which her husband X-rayed, that helped them prove that he had discovered something no one had ever previously seen. When she underwent the worlds first x-ray on a human, on Dec. 22, 1895, Anna Bertha exclaimed, I have seen my death on seeing the ghostly image of bones and a ring when imaged. Today X-Ray imaging and diffraction can be done at very high temperatures with micro-modules https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/fiber-heater-microheater.html

Issue 5 Vol. 24 October 14th, 2018

Did you know that to reduce the global temperature one may have to improve energy efficiency of processes by using very high temperature clean products?

See https://mhi-inc.com/EnergyefficiencyLinksforGrants.htm and https://mhi-inc.com/MHIProduct.html.

Volume 5 Issue 23 | September 29th, 2018

We use about 500EJ of energy per year.

1 ExaJoule = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules. This amount is growing rapidly, while the qualityof available energy is decreasing https://mhi-inc.com/EnergyefficiencyLinksforGrants.htm. All of us must do our part for better management of energy. One way is by utilizing Smart Thermal devices like the OAB®, Airtorch™ and GAXP©. These contain new materials that enable machines and devices to reduce the end-use energy required for a defined objective considerably. Smart, Efficient, and Sustainable devices and materials are the key to success. Computers were miniaturized with smart materials.

Sun, Sep 23, 2018

What is commonly known as heat radiation lies in the Infrared part, the longer-than-light wavelengths. For solving engineering problems related to heating by radiation, it is a common assumption to consider emissivity as independent of wavelength. Such an approximation is called the grey-body approximation. Grey-body approximations are commonly made across the infrared spectrum. The Stefan-Boltzmann Law suggests that radiation heat transfer is proportional to T^4 where T is the temperature in Kevin. Wien’s law relates this temperature to a maximum wavelength, Lmax, in the wavelength spectrum of a black-body.

Did you know that recent results have begun pointing to a shift in the T^4 law when features below Lmax are associated with the surface? These are typically Nano-scale features below ~1 micron. MHI patents and products optimize heat transfer rate. See for example, the GAXP® heating elements https://mhi-inc.com/PG3/high-temperature-heating-elements.html

Sat, Sep 15, 2018

Photons are packets of energy. The packet energy increases across the regions of microwave-infrared- yellow- blue- ultraviolet – X-Rays in ascending order. A photon of Ultraviolet (UV radiation) has a lot more energy than a photon of InfraRed (IR). The heat we feel from sunlight is the infrared because sunlight has a high intensity of IR. We see only Blue to Red which lies between UV and IR with our eyes. Also, it is this IR that can cause molecular vibration in our skin-moisture, so we feel this as heat. UV can actually break apart molecules and be more dangerous as it penetrates deeper – but we may not “feel” it till we are badly sunburnt. More on radiation on https://mhi-inc.com/freeradiationpowercalculator.htm.

Did you know that an average human body emits about 100 Watts of radiation at 37°C, mostly in the IR region? Did you know that detecting human body movement requires sensors that are particularly sensitive in the IR regions? Night vision goggle have a type of feature that accentuates IR and converts it to a visible frequency which the eye can detect.

Sat, Sep 8, 2018

Temperature and heat are the parameters that relate to the inherent thermal energy of an object. The average temperature (measured by a thermometer) is a measure of the average energy of kinetic/vibrational/rotational/oscillatory motion of small particles like atoms that have mass, or of photon energy (radiation) that has no mass. Heat is defined as flow of thermal energy from an object at a higher temperature to an object at a lower temperature.

Did you know? The efficiency of obtaining the maximum work from thermal energy is determined by the hot and cold temperatures between which heat may flow. The simple second law of thermodynamics caps this efficiency to (1-Tcold/Thot). If you burn fossil fuel, the best efficiency is ~50-85% for achieving a work objective. With electric energy, efficiency for an objective can be closer to 100% during conversion. Sunlight to direct electrical work is ~35-44%. For a quick review of thermodynamics, look up https://mhi-inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm and learn about the many temperature scales!

Volume 5 | September 1st, 2018

Microheaters reflect a miniaturization of thermal technology. The most effective use is when moving from batch to continuous operations in a variety of applications listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microheater. Continuous processing reduces waste, reduces inventory, increases productivity, and most importantly, often reduces energy expenditure. Did you know that sometimes over 90% energy cost savings are possible just by the correct choice of heating element materials? https://mhi-inc.com/reasons.html.

Issue 5 Vol. 20 August 20th, 2018

When considering high temperature-use devices, one has to design with ‘creep’ in mind. Creep is the reason why materials slowly sag . Only happens at high temperatures of use, generally at higher than about half the melting point in Kelvin. Did you know that MHI furnaces offer high roof-spans with nanofractal roof-hangers patented by MHI?https://mhi-inc.com/PG4/high-temperature-lab-furnaces.html

Issue 5 Vol. 17 Aug 4th, 2018

Did you know one can now use steam to 1500K i.e., about 1000K more than what was available in the early 1800’s for bulk steam use?

Good high temperature steam is colorless. Although steam power was creatively used in the 1800’s, it is only now that the subtle power of high temperature steam is opening new possibilities in a variety of applications like clean-cooking to clean rapid-acting antimicrobial uses. Review cleaning examples on bayzi.com.

Volume 5 Issue 17 | July 10th, 2018

Did you know that Surfaces can be optimized for emission and reflection to meet specific objectives?

Ice (a solid) reflects a much larger fraction of sunlight than water which reflects only ~ 6% of the incident solar radiation. Technically speaking, this happens because of the extinction coefficient and the refractive index differences between a liquid and solid. Sea-ice is important to prevent warming because it reflects sunlight (50-70%), thereby reducing the amount of energy absorbed at the surface. The change in the amount absorbed when there is less ice formation changes the pattern of water-currents/circulation.  An interesting observation is that snow (a semi-solid) can reflect ~90% of the incident solar radiation – even more than ice! This is related to surface roughness and correlation length differences when comparing snow and ice surfaces. MHI radiators www.mhi-inc.com are surface optimized and patented for obtaining the best efficiencies.

Volume 5 | June 25th, 2018

  • 125,000 BC, control of fire by humans. Reference Wikipedia.
  • Then tens of thousands of years later ~3000 BCE, the first candles are invented.
  • Somewhere between 2000 BCE to 1 BCE, nano-icosahedral, copper-tin alloys for reflection across the entire light and IR spectrum.
  • Almost 1000+ years later in 1792 William Murdoch produces the first gas-light and controlled heater.
  • 1809 Humphry Davy publicly demonstrates first electric lamp for over 10,000 lumens. He uses a platinum strip. One candle power ~12.5 lumens.
  • 1883 Edison produces a ~16-watt (power) lightbulb that lasts over a thousand hours. The first filament was made of carbon. Required a good vacuum.
  • 1926 Edmund Germer invents the fluorescent lamp.
  • 1995 Shuji Nakamura reportedly invents the first practical blue light LED (Blue is a High Energy Wavelength)

MHI’s Microheaters are the first GAXP® Nanotechnology Heaters and Glow

Issue 5 Vol. 9 June 11th, 2018

The Centigrade temperature scale was developed by Anders Celsius (1701–1744) by separating the melting point (~0°C) and boiling point of water (~100°C) by 100 degrees. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736) developed the Fahrenheit scale, also by assuming that 100 degrees separated the coldest and hottest temperatures in a year yet understanding but pegging the fixed points on the scale to a thermodynamic invariant temperature, ice-water-ammonium chloride equilibrium (0°F), ice-water equilibrium (32°F), and body temperature (~98°F). The mercury-thermometer was mainly invented by a Danish experimental-mathematician Ole Christensen Romer (1644-1710) with Fahrenheit’s input. Romer was also the first to quantitatively measure the speed of light, introduce standardized street-lighting and improve nautical navigation with high precision instruments. Today we use thermocouples, thermistors and semiconducting materials with a known band-gap for the accurate measurement of temperature. We also define the lowest possible temperature (0° K) with a Kelvin (or SI) temperature-scale named after William Thompson Kelvin.

Did you know we also use Rankine, Romer, Newton, Delisle and Reaumur temperature-scale(s) for temperature measurement? And also a Planck temperature-scale that ranges from 0-1 (Tp) where 0 (Tp) = 0(°K) and 1 (Tp) = 1.416×10^32 (°K). More about thermodynamics and Planck energy on MHI Watt Calculator.

Volume 5 Issue 13 | May 14th, 2018

Materials and Extreme Temperatures

The ability of materials to withstand high or low temperatures and strong temperature gradients is significantly important. In the not so distant past, ships made of some types of steel were found to be prone to extreme brittleness when operating in very cold waters. So scientists discovered new steel alloys which allowed ships to navigate in cold climates. New Molybdenum diSilicide alloys are able to operate in air without significant oxidation even to 1900 degrees Celsius.

Significant temperature variations also occur across our planet. The highest recorded temperature on earth was 56.7°C (134°F) according to the Guinness World Records. The lowest temperature ever recorded on the surface of our planet earth was −89.2 degrees Celsius (−128.6 degrees Fahrenheit) according to Wikipedia. The core temperature at the center of the earth? This temperature varies between 5,000 and 7,000 degrees Celsius (about 9,000 and 13,000 degrees Fahrenheit) according to a National Geographic report. But not everything is vaporized at these high temperatures. The very high pressures at the core support the existence of many commonly known materials (like iron) even at these ultra-hot temperatures.

MHI makes active thermal Fiberfree™ materials that can withstand 2300 degrees Celsius. Thermal devices made from such materials allow for modern energy efficient devices such as steam generators! See examples on www.mhi-inc.com.

Volume 5 Issue 13 | May 14th, 2018                    same as above

Volume 5 | March 26th, 2017

Did you know one can make a cup of tea with a tiny solar heater that is rated for 20 Watts and uses power from a small battery? Learn More about Microheaters

May 16th, 2017

Although it is not clear who invented the first radiant furnace for industrial use, it appears that the first use was around circa 1850. A good furnace today is considered one that produces no emissions when the heat is generated, offers controlled heat-up features, and provides good fiberfree™ insulation for energy efficiency and safety. Did you know that any surface at a temperature of 1500C emits radiation of almost 560kW/m2 – a very high amount compared to an average gas flame averaged over its emissive area? Read More…?

Volume 4 | May 1st, 2017

Did you know that Thomas Edison’s first electric heating element was made from carbonized cotton and bamboo? Learm More about Microheaters

September 24th, 2018

What is commonly known as heat radiation lies in the Infrared part, the longer-than-light wavelengths. For solving engineering problems related to heating by radiation, it is a common assumption to consider emissivity as independent of wavelength. Such an approximation is called the grey-body approximation. Grey-body approximations are commonly made across the infrared spectrum. The Stefan-Boltzmann Law suggests that radiation heat transfer is proportional to T^4 where T is the temperature in Kevin. Wien’s law relates this temperature to a maximum wavelength, Lmax, in the wavelength spectrum of a black-body.

Did you know that recent results have begun pointing to a shift in the T^4 law when features below Lmax are associated with the surface? These are typically Nano-scale features below ~1 micron. MHI patents and products optimize heat transfer rate. See for example, the GAXP® heating elements https://mhi-inc.com/PG3/high-temperature-heating-elements.html

September 8th, 2018

Temperature and heat are the parameters that relate to the inherent thermal energy of an object. The average temperature (measured by a thermometer) is a measure of the average energy of kinetic/vibrational/rotational/oscillatory motion of small particles like atoms that have mass, or of photon energy (radiation) that has no mass. Heat is defined as flow of thermal energy from an object at a higher temperature to an object at a lower temperature.

Did you know? The efficiency of obtaining the maximum work from thermal energy is determined by the hot and cold temperatures between which heat may flow. The simple second law of thermodynamics caps this efficiency to (1-Tcold/Thot). If you burn fossil fuel, the best efficiency is ~50-85% for achieving a work objective. With electric energy, efficiency for an objective can be closer to 100% during conversion. Sunlight to direct electrical work is ~35-44%. For a quick review of thermodynamics, look up https://mhi-inc.com/Converter/watt_calculator.htm and learn about the many temperature scales!

August 26th, 2018

Fibers are made “naturally” like our human-hair (~25 micrometers) or by spinning like a silkworm does – each silkworm spins about a kilometer of fiber – or are made “artificially” by drawing-down glass at high temperatures. Did you know optical fibers are about a quarter of the diameter of human hair? Fibers and fiber bundles are useful for information transmission (optical fibers) or are used to reinforce brittle solids (carbon fibers) or just spun into textile-like sheets. Many laboratories have Fiberheaters or Microtube heaters that can heat fibers and fiber bundles to temperatures that enable stretching, tapering and bonding.

August 11th, 2018

Who were the scientists who set in motion our understanding of energy? Why should we be efficient? Did you know a very simple idea led to our understanding of the fundamental laws of energy use that allows us to answer such questions? Visit https://mhi-inc.com/EnergyefficiencyLinksforGrants.htm

July 28th, 2018

Did you know that high temperature often speeds up all reactions in an exponential manner?

High productivity comes from doing things at a high temperature. There are two types of reactions – spontaneous and those which require energy to cause them to occur. Regardless, both require some form of activation- a hill to climb before rolling down. Some reactions, though spontaneous, are very slow unless the temperature is increased- think of it as overcoming the inertia. Use the calculator and information on https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_steam/steam-calculator-superheated-tables.html for more information.

July 14th, 2018

Centigrade (C) and Fahrenheit (F) temperatures are the same at -40 degrees (- 40° F = – 40° C).
Did you know that the importance and cost effectiveness of using non-gaseous phases of air are now well recognized. Solid, liquid, gas or plasma are the common phases of matter.
Making Liquid-Air is becoming very important for a variety of applications. Liquid-Air (~78.1% Nitrogen, 21.0% Oxygen, 0.9% Argon and very small amounts of other rare gases ) boils between the temperature of liquid Nitrogen (-195.79 °C) and liquid Oxygen at (-182.9 °C).
On the warmer side, the use of Air-Plasma is also gaining importance. See MHI Plasma devices.

July 2nd, 2018

The world today has approximately 7 Billion People. All living things employ energy to survive.
The annual energy consumption is ~500EJ/A ( Exajoules/Annum). This is currently expected to peak at~600EJ/A in the year 3030.
Most of savings in energy will come from smart machines that use lesser energy for the same objective (e.g. www.mhi-inc.com)
More significant energy savings are expected in the future from tribological improvements (~ 100EJ/A, just with new surface technologies)

Did you know? Just sunlight alone brings in 2.5 Million EJ/A! So we will always have at least one source of energy for a long time to come.

June 18th, 2018

Wet Steam: When water particles are suspended in it. Generally not-good for antimicrobial use.

100% Dry Quality Steam: This is superheated dry steam with no water particles.https://mhi-inc.com/superheated_steam.html

Fun Fact: Steam gas always is self-propelling because steam condenses at the steam front to almost 1000 times a lesser volume causing low pressure.

Steam Boilers appeared in 19th century and are still used, but produce steam very slowly. Today, instant-steam generators like the OAB allow steam to be turned on/off on demand. https://mhi-inc.com/NewOABModels.htm

Did you know? A very early article circa 1925 was able to speak about the benefits of superheated steam over saturated steam but only recently has true dry-quality superheated steam become commonly available. Now steam to 1300C may be instantly generated.

June 4th, 2018

When a solid material is hot, it has more thermal energy than when it is cold. When hot, the atoms increase their vibrational amplitude. When the amplitude of vibration increases, the average distance between molecules also increases. As the atoms get farther apart, all dimension increase. The coefficient of (volume) expansion is the change in volume per unit volume per degree change in temperature. One can imagine how metals (which have lower bond strength than non-metal solids) expand more with the same rise in temperature. The expansion coefficient is of the order of 10^-5 to 10^-6 per Kelvin. Smart thermal systems and devices, like the ones available on www.mhi-inc.com, are designed with a careful eye towards managing all expansion forces, so that there is very little bending or delamination. Did you know our universe is expanding…. yet cooling at the same time? And curiously enough… when water is heated betwee n 0 °C and 4 °C it actually shrinks!

Sun, May 20, 2018

Did you know how vastly varied is the scale of roughness that we encounter on earth?
Deepest ocean trench: 10.994 Km (Km-Kilometer)
Highest mountain: 8.850 Km
Human scale: ~1 m (m-meter)
Pencil tip: ~1 mm (mm-millimeter)
Grain of salt: ~0.1-1 mm
Bacterium: ~1-10 micrometer
Electrons: ~10^-7 nm (nanometer) (^ indicates – raised to the power of)
Planck’s length (quarks): ~10^-26 nm (smallest scale that is believed to exist in space-time)
A considerable amount of high temperature research involves roughness measurements. MHI takes advantage of texture features to construct its thermal products. https://mhi-inc.com/

Sun, May 6, 2018

Nano materials display grain sizes that are at the level of a thousandth of a human hair.

Nano materials in the past were predominantly used in soft organic matter and products. All this has changed with the new class of commercial hard nano-materials. These offer properties such as stable thermal emissivity at temperatures higher than 1000C, extraordinary life against corrosion and erosion, very novel tunable texture properties, and even antimicrobial properties. See for example some of the information posted on here. MHI is happy to provide significant energy savings with its new patented hard nano-materials used in various MHI products.

Sun, Apr 22, 2018

How much CO2 do humans produce when breathing? The average human exhales about 2-3 pounds of carbon dioxide (human activity averages at about 100 Watts or 0.36 BTU/hr) on an average day (about 15- 20 lbs. a week). The exact quantity depends on the activity level (higher activity, more CO2 exhaled). The amount of carbon that a human breathes out is almost exactly equal to the amount of carbon a human takes in (from food), minus the amount of carbon that contributes to the person’s body mass. Thus the amount of CO2 that humans exhale is roughly balanced by the amount absorbed by plants and other photosynthesis-type reactions. However, note that the human population is roughly ~ 7.5 Billion people. Thus preserving forests, using renewable sources for energy and not using combustion as an energy source is important for balance.

More information

Sun, Apr 8, 2018

Did you know that sometimes a higher-temperature item placed in a refrigerator can freeze faster compared to an identical lower-temperature item when placed in the same refrigerator at the same time.

You can do this experiment! It is a real effect named after a graduate student, Mpemba. More about energy from https://mhi-inc.com/EnergyefficiencyLinksforGrants.htm and more about the Mpemba effect from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect