This little black box cleans your hands with plasma gas

From: http://dvice.com/

A technology being developed by a variety of laboratories utilizes plasma gas to clean hands and kill germs quickly and effectively — even drug-resistant strains, such as MRSA, or obnoxious repeat offenders such as Athlete's Foot. (Maybe you should get your own box if you're going to be doing that, though.)

The idea of plasma gas may have you thinking twice about sticking your hand in this box, but at room temperature and pressure and in the controlled environment its in, it can get your hand — from your skin to under your fingernails — entirely sterilized in under four seconds. It's so effective, in fact, that researchers found it could get rid of said Athlete's Foot without the patient ever having to remove a sock.

The technology is geared toward hospitals, hotels and the service industry, where cleanliness is key. Plasma-cleaning itself isn't new as it's been used to sterilize medical instruments for years, but to use it on human tissue several advancements in both the way plasma gas is handled and the technology behind industrial hand sanitizers had to be made.

In the future, the plasma gas sanitizer could open up new areas elsewhere, such as being used in air conditioners to purify air. In other words, get ready to see all those ion air purifiers at Sharper Image replaced by plasma ones.

Via NYT

Plasma Rocket Could Travel to Mars in 39 Days

October 6th, 2009 by Lisa Zyga

In the VASIMR rocket, magnetic fields force the charged plasma out the back of the engine, producing thrust in the opposite direction. Image copyright: Ad Astra Rocket Company.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Last Wednesday, the Ad Astra Rocket Company tested what is currently the most powerful plasma rocket in the world. As the Webster, Texas, company announced, the VASIMR VX-200 engine ran at 201 kilowatts in a vacuum chamber, passing the 200-kilowatt mark for the first time. The test also marks the first time that a small-scale prototype of the company's VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket) rocket engine has been demonstrated at full power

"It's the most powerful plasma rocket in the world right now," says Franklin Chang-Diaz, former NASA astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra. The company has signed an agreement with NASA to test a 200-kilowatt VASIMR engine on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2013. The engine could provide periodic boosts to the ISS, which gradually drops in altitude due to atmospheric drag. ISS boosts are currently provided by spacecraft with conventional thrusters, which consume about 7.5 tonnes of propellant per year. By cutting this amount down to 0.3 tonnes, Chang-Diaz estimates that VASIMR could save NASA millions of dollars per year.

But Ad Astra has bigger plans for VASIMR, such as high-speed missions to Mars. A 10- to 20-megawatt VASIMR engine could propel human missions to Mars in just 39 days, whereas conventional rockets would take six months or more. The shorter the trip, the less time astronauts would be exposed to space radiation, which is a significant hurdle for Mars missions. VASIMR could also be adapted to handle the high payloads of robotic missions, though at slower speeds than lighter human missions.

Chang-Diaz has been working on the development of the VASIMR concept since 1979, before founding Ad Astra in 2005 to further develop the project. The technology uses radio waves to heat gases such as hydrogen, argon, and neon, creating hot plasma. Magnetic fields force the charged plasma out the back of the engine, producing thrust in the opposite direction. Due to the high velocity that this method achieves, less fuel is required than in conventional engines. In addition, VASIMR has no physical electrodes in contact with the plasma, prolonging the engine's lifetime and enabling a higher power density than in other designs.

More information: www.AdAstraRocket.com

Plasma Plants Will Vaporize Trash While Generating Energy

by Mike Chino

Recently St. Lucie County in Florida announced that it has teamed up with Geoplasma to develop the United States’ first plasma gasification plant. The plant will use super-hot 10,000 degree fahrenheit plasma to effectively vaporize 1,500 tons of trash each day, which in turn spins turbines to generate 60MW of electricity - enough to power 50,000 homes! Cutting down on landfill waste while generating energy is a pretty win-win proposition, and the plant will also be able to melt down inorganic materials to be reused for other applications, such as in roadbed and heavy construction.

Plasma gasification was invented by NASA 40 years ago to recreate re-entry temperatures for spacecraft. The process uses an electrical arc to heat up gas to form Plasma, which in turn breaks down waste. The intense heat of the plasma gasifies municipal waste, converting it into “syngas”, which is then cleaned to remove volatile elements. Next, the vapor is sent through a turbine to generate electricity.

Plasma Gasification plants generate much less emissions than standard waste incineration plants, and also cuts down on landfills, which are the US’s largest human caused producer of methane gas. No word yet on the cost-effectiveness of maintaining such plants (all that plasma gas and filtration must be expensive), but if Geoplasma is able to make the process more efficient they could simultaneously solve our landfill problems while generating a significant amount of energy.

+ Geoplasma

Via Scientific American