Pumpkin Flashing, Army Humvees Can Produce Water, Nicotine Fix from Beer

• Pumpkin flashing
• Army Humvees can produce water
• Nicotine fix from beer

Pumpkin flashing

Stories of unexpected light flashing, or triboluminescence, from various crystalline materials (C&EN, Aug. 15, page 56) prompted one reader to recall an annual Halloween event performed while he was a student at California Institute of Technology. Josh W. Kurutz, presently at the University of Chicago, writes that the yearly Halloween party at Caltech culminated in the pumpkin drop.

According to Kurutz, Students would spend several days prior to the party keeping a small cohort of pumpkins immersed in liquid nitrogen, making them about as crystalline as you could expect a gourd to get. At midnight, all the lights on the nine-story Millikan Library were extinguished and the pumpkins were hurled from the top in the hope that we hundreds of spectators below would witness the blue flash' as they shattered on the concrete platform below.

Apparently, most pumpkins just shattered without lighting up, Kurutz says. Some students claimed to see a pumpkin flash, while most did not. Kurutz claims at least one instance where he saw a frozen pumpkin exhibit triboluminescence and says he is 97% certain his observation is real.

Army Humvees can produce water

Delivery of water to an army in the desert is a costly and time-consuming effort. The military calculates that a soldier in the desert needs 20 gal of water a day, five of which must be pure enough to drink. It can take up to 40% of troops deployed in the field just to transport water and other materials, so it would be a great advance if another source of water were available.

That source might be vehicle exhaust. Engineers at United Technologies Corp.'s Hamilton Sundstrand unit are building two Humvees for the Army that will extract and clean water directly from the exhaust. Although the idea is not new, the Army has spent millions to make it work.

The water vapor and other gases in the exhaust from the modified Humvees are vented through a catalytic converter to eliminate as many impurities as possible, and then run through a pair of heat exchangers to condense the water. This blackish liquid is then passed through a series of six proprietary carbon filters that bring the quality up to about tap water. Finally, chlorine is added to kill bacteria and algae, and the water flows into a 5-gal tank with a spigot. The water can be chilled by the Humvee's air conditioner. It is estimated that a vehicle could produce about 1 gal of water for each 2 gal of diesel fuel burned.

The company recognizes that a lot of development still needs to be done. The system can cost more than 20% of the cost of the vehicle, it weighs almost 500 lb, and the water filters need to be changed every 75 to 200 gal. Still, if such a system can help soldiers survive if they cannot get other logistical support, it sounds like a good idea.

Nicotine fix from beer

The German brewer nautilus GmbH Laboratoriumsbedarf introduced a beer this past summer containing nicotine that is advertised as the first smoking-cessation beer. Called NicoShot, the brew is manufactured to the strict requirements of the 1516 German Purity Law for beer, is 6.3% alcohol by volume, and contains 3 mg of natural nicotine alkaloids per each 250-mL shot can. The company claims that drinking three cans of NicoShot is comparable in nicotine intake to an entire pack of conventional cigarettes. The company specifically states that NicoShot is not a cure for smoking.

The beer offers the reforming smoker several benefits. First, it is compared to a nicotine-containing gum or patch as a way to avoid the cravings that come when a person is trying to stop smoking. Second, with some European nations such as Sweden banning smoking in restaurants, bars, and cafs, the company hopes NicoShot can help improve one's social life by allowing one to relieve those noisome nicotine cravings without having to actually walk out of the bar for a quick smoke.

As more and more U.S. states and localities move to ban smoking in public places, it's easy to see nicotine-enhanced beers making an appearance here soon. How we deal with the double whammy of alcohol and nicotine in the same brew could be interesting.

This week's column was written by David Hanson. Please send comments and suggestions to newscripts@acs.org.