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  4. How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
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How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?

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Offline remotemass (OP)

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How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« on: 11/09/2022 09:12:39 »
1) The column is very high, let's say 1000 meters high.
2) The column is a pipe with a very cold liquid flowing inside at one meter a second. Let's say, the liquid is "alcohol ethanol (C2H6O)" and is always at: " -100 ºC (minus a hundred degrees)".
3) The air around the very cold pipe has the average humidity of the air on the planet (of the last 22 years, up to 1000 meters high above sea level).
4) The column pipe is a triangular prism that fits perfectly inside the inscribed circle of each of the 6 triangles of an hexagon that fits a circle with 0.01 meters of diameter (10 mm). This detail is important in terms of showing the pipes could be put in a very regular hive configuration (6 columns = 1 hexagon that fits a circle of 10mm diameter).
5) Extra note: the column pipe can be made of an affordable material ideal for the purpose and it can be made modular using a simple joint that lets smaller pipes be joint promptly and conveniently.
6) The thickness of the walls of the pipe are quite thin. Let's say, 1mm of thickness if we used copper.

How much water leaks from each of these very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipes that can be further put in a hexagonal hive configuration of 6 pipes per hexagon (3 with liquid flowing up and 3 with liquid flowing down)?

Note: water will condensate around the pipes because the pipes will be much colder than the air around them and air has always some humidity.

[EDIT] [Final note]: To have pure water at home out of thin air you only need to fill a vertical tube with very cold alcohol (from your freezer) and water will leak down.
.
« Last Edit: 11/09/2022 12:31:09 by remotemass »
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Offline Origin

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #1 on: 11/09/2022 13:53:40 »
Quote from: remotemass on 11/09/2022 09:12:39
How much water leaks from each of these very cold and high "triangular prism" column
How could water leak from a container of alcohol?
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Offline alancalverd

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #2 on: 11/09/2022 14:03:18 »
It looks to me as though the air spaces will be about 1 mm wide at most. So you will probably get a few ice pellets stuck at the top of the assembly and no water at the bottom.
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Offline Bored chemist

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #3 on: 11/09/2022 17:27:40 »
Why make it triangular?
A thin flat plate would be better.
Though, as has been pointed out. it's vastly impractical.
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Offline remotemass (OP)

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #4 on: 11/09/2022 19:12:27 »
Quote from: Bored chemist on 11/09/2022 17:27:40
Why make it triangular?
A thin flat plate would be better.
Though, as has been pointed out. it's vastly impractical.

Well, yes, many forms/configurations can be used and finding the ideal one is probably the job of "Google Depmind" systems. You will probably just need to put it in formal pure logic language and maybe even that is not necessary since these days computers can understand natural language without any hassles. In a few days, it will probably be able to say the ideal configuration of the "snake" we are talking about. Maybe ends up being a matter of playing more of the "snake 2D" videogame. Or even better, coming up with "snake" as a 3D videogame instead of a 2D one.
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Offline Bored chemist

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #5 on: 11/09/2022 19:38:34 »
Quote from: remotemass on 11/09/2022 19:12:27
finding the ideal one is probably the job of "Google Depmind" systems. You will probably just need to put it in formal pure logic language and maybe even that is not necessary since these days computers can understand natural language without any hassles. In a few days, it will probably be able to say the ideal configuration of the "snake" we are talking about.

Or we could just copy a heat exchanger that was designed a few hundred years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-tube_boiler#/media/File:Aufgeschnittener_Kessel.jpg
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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #6 on: 11/09/2022 20:01:18 »
Quote from: remotemass on 11/09/2022 09:12:39
2) The column is a pipe with a very cold liquid flowing inside at one meter a second.

You dont say if it flow upward or downward.
you dont say why it is flowing. Gravity ? Pump ?

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Offline remotemass (OP)

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #7 on: 11/09/2022 20:26:10 »
Quote from: Bored chemist on 11/09/2022 19:38:34
Or we could just copy a heat exchanger that was designed a few hundred years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-tube_boiler#/media/File:Aufgeschnittener_Kessel.jpg

Well, you may be cynical about it but the reality is that people have a fridge on 24/7 that can keep such a liquid cold enough to get free pure water out of thin air in this simple way, avoiding the water bills, virtually not spending more energy than they do and having a huge incentive to invest in permaculture with things like growing fruits at home (apples, pears, berries, etc.) all year-round, saving even more. Also, you avoid spending on water filtering systems and your water is pure and free from chemicals. Not to mention the water you can get for other things with such a simple system, like agriculture, fire extinction, etc.
Also, it is quite a modular system. Pipes can extend each other in a quite modular way with very simple joints... and the material can get to be quite affordable and versatile.
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Offline remotemass (OP)

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #8 on: 11/09/2022 20:30:58 »
Quote from: Deecart on 11/09/2022 20:01:18
You dont say if it flow upward or downward.
you dont say why it is flowing. Gravity ? Pump ?

Yes, there must be an ideal way. Probably the ideal way would pump the cold liquid up with the column empty and full of air and let it flow down with gravity once it warms to a certain temperature to be cooled down again in a freezer-like deposit.
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Offline evan_au

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #9 on: 11/09/2022 22:05:44 »
Quote from: remotemass
cold liquid up with the column empty and full of air
If the column has cold liquid, how can it be empty?
If the cold liquid is empty, how can it be full of air?

Do I understand that you want to extract drinking water from humidity in the air?
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Offline Bored chemist

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #10 on: 11/09/2022 22:42:45 »
Quote from: remotemass on 11/09/2022 20:26:10
Well, you may be cynical about it but the reality is that people have a fridge on 24/7 that can keep such a liquid cold enough to get free pure water out of thin air in this simple way,
You may remember that I am the one who pointed it out to you.

Quote from: Bored chemist on 05/09/2022 10:03:13
Yes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehumidifier#Potability

And now, I'm pointing out that you don't need some supercomputer to design something that has existed for 200 years.
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Offline remotemass (OP)

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #11 on: 11/09/2022 23:08:55 »
Quote from: Bored chemist on 11/09/2022 22:42:45
And now, I'm pointing out that you don't need some supercomputer to design something that has existed for 200 years.

Well, I'm sorry but you are not answering my question. Let's rephrase it and put it more simply.
Assume you can always have alcohol in the freezer at: -18 ºC (minus eighteen degrees) and you fill a column of very thin copper 1 meter high and with a total volume of 0.1 liters (100 cl), and let it leak down the droplets of water that will be condensating if the air is at quite an average temperature.
How much water will you get till the alcohol inside your 1-meter  high column warms up above 0 ºC? Let's say, that when it warms up to zero degrees you put all the alcohol in the freezer again to cool it down to -18 ºC (a temperature most freezers can do).
The question is how much water will leak? What is your rough guess or estimation anyway?!
« Last Edit: 11/09/2022 23:11:04 by remotemass »
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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #12 on: 11/09/2022 23:15:29 »
Do you know what the word "leak" means?
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Offline alancalverd

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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #13 on: 11/09/2022 23:16:08 »
Most of the air, and thus most of the water, is at low level. So the point of extracting it from air at 1000 m altitude rather escapes me.

If you really want to sample water from that altitude, either wait until it rains or collect it from a river whose source is a mountain stream.

One problem is that there's a fair bit of dust, microbes and insect life in the mid-atmosphere. If you want to guarantee clean drinking water, it's probably better to extract it from a chalk aquifer. 

But if you absolutely insist on building a vertical condenser, don't run it below 0°C because you will simply accrue a layer of ice. Water will condense at any temperature below the local dew point - currently about 14°C in the Cambridge area.
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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #14 on: 11/09/2022 23:25:17 »
As Alan pointed out, if the surface is below freezing, you will get ice  and that's a good enough insulator to massively reduce the efficiency of your system.
The actual answer depends mainly on how much air blows past the cold surface.
It's possible to get that airflow from a "reverse chimney".
This might help
https://www.chimneysheep.co.uk/how-to-use/save-money/stack-effect-calculator/

The air in my room at the moment is probably near 50% RH and 20C.
That means it has about  8.6 grams per cubic metre.
If I chilled it to 1C it would carry about 5.2 grams per litre so you could extract  about 3.5 grams per cubic metre.

The interesting question is how expensive is it to run the fridge?

You might find this helpful
https://www.ready.noaa.gov/READYmoistcal.php



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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #15 on: 20/09/2022 09:10:30 »
But maybe even better is that the liquid used for the interior of the "snake" (snake 2D videogame, made snake 3D) is instead very cold seawater from -1000m below the sea level. If you get water as cold as 0º C you probably can keep the "snake" tube/pipe cold enough outside to keep water from air moisture/humidity condensating around it and leaking (vertically) down. You would probably only need to spend some energy to pump new cold water from deep sea when the previous one warms up enough to justify a new pumping of brand new cold seawater from deep down the ocean... What do you say?

(Also, note the RH above sea is higher than above land. https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog_held/47-relative-humidity-over-the-oceans/#:~:text=The%20relative%20humidity%20(RH%20%E2%80%94%20the,C%20warming%20is%20about%207%25)
« Last Edit: 20/09/2022 09:18:06 by remotemass »
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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #16 on: 20/09/2022 10:07:52 »
IIRC agriculture in the Canary Islands depends on sea air blowing over the land  and depositing a heavy dew on the volcanic soil (which cools quickly by radiation at night). It's sufficient to sustain a healthy export industry in salads and bananas.

For a more spectacular example of clean water condensing from sea air, look at the Lake District, the waterfalls of western New Zealand, or the Norwegian electric power industry.
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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #17 on: 21/09/2022 13:21:58 »
Quote from: remotemass on 11/09/2022 23:08:55
The question is how much water will leak? What is your rough guess or estimation anyway?!
You are using the wrong word.  The word is condensation not leak.
Some form of your idea would work.  The amount of condensation would depend on the RH of the air.  The problem is your idea would be expensive and inefficient especially in an area with low RH.  It would be much cheaper to just haul in water by truck.
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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #18 on: 28/09/2022 06:53:41 »
Quote from: Origin on 21/09/2022 13:21:58
Quote from: remotemass on 11/09/2022 23:08:55
The q expensive and inefficient especially in an area with low RH.  It would be much cheaper to just haul in water by truck.

I disagree it is necessarily expensive and inefficient compared to other possibilities of getting pure water, since it is modular (you can make the 1-meter size pipes pretty much everywhere, in any continent in any one of 198 nations of UN, I suppose) and also it can even be made only with carbon in its very well known and basic diamonds crystal configuration (with gaps for the ideal airflow) with nanotechnology at the speed one tube per meter {quite metric, right?} If you don't believe then please ask someone like a 'Eric Drexler', an expert in the field of "Nanotechnology Tools & Instruments". On top of being modular and ideal for worldwide competition and massive industrial production, it can even, possibly be made organically, for instance with silver from spiders' webs, which of course would be, in that specific case highly immoral and probably, because of that, particularly unhealthy if not lethal, in the long term. But still, there are probably quite moral ways of making the tubes in a very organic, sustainable, and ecological fashion. Will you bite?
« Last Edit: 28/09/2022 07:02:38 by remotemass »
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Re: How much water leaks from a very cold and high "triangular prism" column pipe?
« Reply #19 on: 28/09/2022 07:21:20 »
Quote from: remotemass on 28/09/2022 06:53:41
Quote from: Origin on 21/09/2022 13:21:58
Quote from: remotemass on 11/09/2022 23:08:55
The q expensive and inefficient especially in an area with low RH.  It would be much cheaper to just haul in water by truck.

I disagree it is necessarily expensive and inefficient compared to other possibilities of getting pure water, since it is modular (you can make the 1-meter size pipes pretty much everywhere, in any continent in any one of 198 nations of UN, I suppose) and also it can even be made only with carbon in its very well known and basic diamonds crystal configuration (with gaps for the ideal airflow) with nanotechnology at the speed one tube per meter {quite metric, right?} If you don't believe then please ask someone like a 'Eric Drexler', an expert in the field of "Nanotechnology Tools & Instruments". On top of being modular and ideal for worldwide competition and massive industrial production, it can even, possibly be made organically, for instance with silver from spiders' webs, which of course would be, in that specific case, highly immoral and probably, because of that, particularly unhealthy if not lethal, in the long term. But still, there are probably quite moral ways of making the tubes in a very organic, sustainable, and ecological fashion. Will you bite?
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