H2O....Just Add Water...

[graymask1120]

This is something I submitted to Warehouse 23 several years back:

'Crystallized H2O' is a form of "compressed" water intended for dry-bulk (VERY DRY!!!) shipment.

Developed during the later stages of the Solomani wars with the Ziru Sirka, 'Crystallized H2O' is manufactured using special enzymes native to Agidda (Solomani Rim/Sol/1824). Never discovered by the Vilani, under heavy gravitic stimulation these enzymes caused a seemingly-impossible reaction when introduced into water: they modified the liquid's structure to mimic that of Carbon, effectively reducing it's volume by several orders of magnitude.

The process was reversed by reintroducing the crystalline form to liquid water in average-gravity environments.

To deploy, a 2kg packet of 'Crystallized H2O' was dumped into an empty tank rated for at least 10,000 gallons. Five gallons of water were then applied directly to the crystals. The 'Crystallized H2O' would react with the water, and would rapidly revert to its original state within one standard hour....The only real difference in adding less water is that the reaction takes longer to run fully - the 2kg can be converted back with a single cup.

Each 2kg packet was equal to c.9,000 gallons of water.

The water could be repeatedly recompressed with no ill effects (the enzymes broke down into gaseous Argon upon reconversion), but the equipment needed was (and still is) massive, complex, and extraordinarily expensive, which is why it is still far cheaper to simply purify water.....

OTOH, on desert worlds, and in extreme disaster situations, 'Crystallized H2O' can still turn up, especially in military hands.....

Thoughts?

 

[veltyen]

This is something I submitted to Warehouse 23 several years back:

......

Thoughts?

It sounded fine until you broke the rule.

Never explain. Sounds too much like Star Trek if you do. Describe, but don't add information that will sound like BS to anyone who knows much about the issue.[1]

Breaking conservation of mass is another (lesser) problem.

On the other hand, a stable compacted version of water (say with a specific density 20-100 kg/litre) would be useful in the Traveller universe, where volume overrides mass as the important factor for transit. It means that an emergency supply vessel could bring significantly greater quantities of water to where it is needed.

That brings on the knock-on problem of extrapolation. If this is possible what else would it be used for (hint: Water has a significant proportion of hydrogen, which is what you feed fusion reactors and jump fields - that was the first thought to my mind).

The concept sounds similar to Ice-Nine but different enough to not be immediately counted as a clone.

[1] For example "enzyme" is good to use "Argon" isn't. One is a specific element, one is a type of material that could be a wide range of things (and is often used too widely in popular culture to describe other similar materials).

 

[Icosahedron]

Sorry, Graymask, but from a physics viewpoint I have to agree with Veltyen, though I don't see too much wrong with the description, apart from the scale of reduction and the mass thing (a quantity of water will still weigh the same when it is compressed).

When you get the scale right, I doubt whether it would be a more compact store of Hydrogen than LHyd or metal hydrides, and anyway 'metallic Hydrogen' is real, if unstable (with today's tech) so your idea shouldn't rock that particular boat.


Excuse the liberty, but I would re-engineer it like this:


'Crystallized H2O' is a form of "compressed" water intended for dry-bulk (VERY DRY!!!) shipment.

Developed during the later stages of the Solomani wars with the Ziru Sirka, 'Crystallized H2O' is manufactured under heavy gravitic stimulation causing water to crystallize into a metallic form, effectively [halving/quartering?] it's volume.


[Homework: find the mass and volume of a single water molecule, figure the density, then halve it. That should get you in the right ball-park for 'Metallic water' density. You won't get the molecules closer than 'touching', and there will always be spaces between them even when close-packed.]


The process was reversed by reintroducing the crystalline form to liquid water in average-gravity environments.

To deploy, a 1 litre packet of 'Crystallized H2O' was dumped into an empty tank rated for at least [I'm guessing] five gallons. A few cc of water were then applied directly to the crystals. The 'Crystallized H2O' would react with the water, and would rapidly revert to its original state.

The water could be repeatedly recompressed with no ill effects, but the equipment needed was (and still is) massive, complex, and extraordinarily expensive, which is why it is still far cheaper to simply purify water.....

OTOH, on desert worlds, and in extreme disaster situations, 'Crystallized H2O' can still turn up, especially in military hands.....

 

[veltyen]

When you get the scale right, I doubt whether it would be a more compact store of Hydrogen than LHyd or metal hydrides, and anyway 'metallic Hydrogen' is real, if unstable (with today's tech) so your idea shouldn't rock that particular boat.

Metallic Hydrogen is stable.

If you keep it under 6+ MegaAtmospheres. [1]

Keeping an environment with that pressure (with a material that leaks through diamond - or pretty much anything else) I'll leave as a problem for others.

Of course that means that at High TL's jump fuel would end up with a sudden drop in requirement, when the "extremely powerful repulsor/attractor fuel storage system for metallic hydrogen" becomes available.

[1] Sloppy but probably approximately correct.

 

[The Thing]

Don't they have some superdense metals in traveller? Maybe stable transuranics created either in supernovas or by honking high energy fusion reactions.

 

[aramis]

1/8th of the mass of water is hydrogen for normal water, with Hydrogen at 1AMU, and oxygen at 16, that's 2 of 18, or 1/9th. Which, BTW, is better storage of Hydrogen than H2 in "standard" liquid form at about 13.5-14 L per kg, versus water's 1L/kg.

"Pure" Duterium Heavy Water has an atomic mass of 20, and is 4/20, or 1/5 duterium by mass.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Yes, Thing: superdense and bonded superdense.

And, I agree with everybody else - the main problem is just how compact would it be, and how heavy (since it would mass the same, just in a smaller volume).

But, boy, would this ruin some great survival instructor gags about dehydrated water....

 

[atpollard]

Of course that means that at High TL's jump fuel would end up with a sudden drop in requirement, when the "extremely powerful repulsor/attractor fuel storage system for metallic hydrogen" becomes available.

... and a "fuel hit" gets moved to the "critical hit" table.

"Oooh, look at the fireworks."

 

[atpollard]

Is it possible for oxygen to form a diamond-like lattice with the hydrogen trapped inside the lattice? How does the diameter of an oxygen atom compare to a carbon atom?

 

[veltyen]

... and a "fuel hit" gets moved to the "critical hit" table.

"Oooh, look at the fireworks."

Um. Yes. But a MUCH smaller volume

Is it possible for oxygen to form a diamond-like lattice with the hydrogen trapped inside the lattice? How does the diameter of an oxygen atom compare to a carbon atom?

It is similar in size (oxygen is a little larger). The chemical properties are more the problem. The closest you might get is H2O degassed and distilled frozen very slowly.

....

After checking some sources VHDA Ice does exist. It needs to be frozen quickly rather then slowly however. My Bad.

 

[atpollard]

Um. Yes. But a MUCH smaller volume

Breeching the containment should release the high pressure maintaining the super-dense state and allow the entire fuel volume in the tank to revert to its normal volume. Wouldn't this happen quickly? Isn't this the basic definition of an explosion? For a dreadnaught , that's hundreds of dTons of compressed jump fuel expanding to thousands of dTons of volume in an oxygen rich hull (per hit = 10% of fuel).

 

[graymask1120]

Well, I never claimed to make it work in physics *biggrin* but it sounded good.....Thanks for the replies!

 

[vegascat]

What about mass conservation? The mass of that much water in that small of a volumn would produce neutronium. That stuff is always fun stuff to handle. One slip and the condensed gravity could be fatal.