Reusable scrubber

joshhan2000

Question to everyone. If there was a way to reuse your sorb would you do it?

I thinking about building a device that would allow you to do this and all you would need is salt water and electricity. I not sure if I should go down this road or not but I have made one in the lab for my own research. Do not want to keep buying Ca(OH)2 over so I made a system. There no heat evolved and could be made in to a portable system like maybe cubic meter. Just a thought I would like to put out. Give me some feed back on how much it would it be worth and usefulness.

JonnyB

pring it on dude...
me wanna play

/Jonny

nigelh

I suspect that until we get a good break-through detector using recycled 'sorb is a bit of a non-starter.
CO2 seems to be implicated in a lot of the nasty incidents and it's the one area where we have to rely on buying a good tested and QAed product.
Also rebreathers are a bit labour intensive now. Do we want another job?

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nigelh

Scuttle

yeah it could be a winner but two things spring to mind, safety & costs.
for safety I think I would like you make a Co2 sensor first
For costs, to be reduced everyone would agree there, & I can think of the savings--- shipping costs to those far & away places we go to in the middle of nowhere is a small fortune sometimes & thats just one.

Nad

Wow, already found the solution for the CO2 sensors discussed in previous thread?

Nad

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wizbang

Consistency and applicablility would be my concerns.
There are a few types of Sorb available for different machines and applications and the manufacturer adjusts the composition of their models to meet specific needs.

I have trouble understanding how you could reconstitute or regenerate the sorb with the same properties as the roiginal. Especially while keeping costs down for the device and making the consumables/chemicals easily available.

For me; I change the sorb at the drop of hat, especialy as Scuttle said, we don't have a CO2 monitor yet to catch a bad batch of "regenertated Sorb".

A fellow chemist / bio-chemist.

joshhan2000

I understand that I would have to put out a CO2 detection system with it and a way to check to make sure that it was good sorb. With out going into the process I can tell you that it will not cost that much. You would put in your use sorb in one end and get good stuff out of the other end. I am looking at making it automated so all you would have to do is push a button. The only thing that would be coming out of the machine would be CO2. There are device that can measure the purity of sample and there are way to tell you if the sorb was done right. I recycle about 500 g at a time in the lab about once a week. The process is not hard but it just has to be done right.

• I am developing a CO2 sensor
• I am developing a sensor that will tell you how much time you have left on the system
• I have a method to tell the purity of sorb.

As far as the color changing dye that is the easy part. I can just be added in the end of the process to the sorb. I have been doing this process for my experiment to develop a CO2 scabbing system. I could have all of it out by the end of next year. I have been investigating this problem for a long time and I should have a working prototype soon. I hope in 3 months. I was just interested if any one would by the system. I thinking of dive shops mainly. But the private consumer could get one too.

Genesis

For the right price I bet its interesting.

Have you tried reprocessing the Micropore cartridges? If you could do THAT, it would almost entirely remove the complaints about their cost!

nitrojunkie

If it works it could be great boon to Rebreather diving. Put these in Bikini, Truk and all of those hard to get sorb to places on the earth and there is a major logistics challenge solved for traveling off to all kinds of great places. Make the price point right and maintenance reasonable it could also be a valuable tool on liveaboards too. Just sell them in two packs so if one goes down we're not stuck with used kitty litter and not enough fresh backup.

Realistically the adoption curve would be the biggest challenge to address. Manufacturers currently only cert/test one brand of sorb for their units. I would imagine they would be terrified of the concept... not to mention the concerns of most divers. But it would be great to know that 1 packed cartridge and little make-up material could get you through a week of diving.

How extendable is sorb? At some point I would imagine the breaking down of the material and dust byproduct would change the characteristics and WOB. If the revitalizing process works, I would guess that you need to really work out the cost/savings benefit before the stuff would need to be tossed and replaced.

I too would vote for seeing the CO2 monitor before solving the sorb question, you'd probably make more money for it as well.

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joshhan2000