ScienceIQ.com

The Neurological Complications Of Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is caused by a bacterial organism that is transmitted to humans via the bite of an infected tick. Most people bitten by an infected tick develop a characteristic skin rash around the area of the bite. The rash may feel hot to the touch, and vary in size, shape, and color, but it will often have a “bull’s eye” appearance (a red ring ...

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LymeDisease
Biology

When Did A Cat Become A Kitty?

It has long been thought that cats were first domesticated in Egypt, about 4000 years ago. Indeed, they were very highly thought of in ancient Egyptian society. It was illegal to kill or harm them, ... Continue reading

WhenDidACatBecomeAKitty
Engineering

The Right Stuff for Super Spaceships

Revolutions in technology - like the Industrial Revolution that replaced horses with cars - can make what seems impossible today commonplace tomorrow. ... Continue reading

SuperSpaceships
Biology

Beware -- Red Tide!

Red tides occur in oceans. They are not caused by herbicides or pollutants, but by a microscopic alga. Karenia brevis, when in higher than normal concentrations, causes a red tide. This bacterium ... Continue reading

BewareRedTide
Geology

What's In A Name?

Hurricane Elena as seen from the space shuttle. Have you ever wondered how hurricanes get their names? For several hundred years many hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular ... Continue reading

HurricaneElena

Fire Retardant Gels

FireRetardantGelsUltra-absorbent diapers, the kind that will hold massive amounts of liquids, have been used for years, without a second thought given to the materials within them. Let's face it; those materials aren't very interesting: a bit of thin plastic sheet, some cellulose fiber, and some weird powder that combines with humongous amounts of liquid that even a pediatric urologist wouldn't look at twice. What good is it? But if one considers that 99.9% or more of that liquid is just plain water, and that it takes a lot of energy (as heat) to drive that water out again, maybe there is another use for such materials after all. Water molecules are highly polar in nature; they try to stick together like so many little magnets. It therefore takes a great deal of energy to separate them into vapor. These two observed properties - a material that absorbs a great deal of water, and the high boiling point of water - can work together to hold back the most common destructive force known: fire.

That ultra-absorbent powder material is a polymer, or type of plastic, known as polyacrylate. These polymers are derived from acrylic acid, or 2-propenoic acid, and they comprise a very large group of useful plastics, including Plexiglas, Crazy Glue, and all of the other various acrylics' that one encounters every day. In the form of a powder, certain polyacrylates absorb and trap large amounts of water - up to 1000X their weight - and form a sort of thin paste or gel. This slimy fluid can then be sprayed over things to protect them from fire. Fire produces a great deal of heat energy. Adjacent materials absorb this energy and eventually get hot enough to begin burning on their own. Thus the fire spreads. However, when the water-saturated gel is encountered, the heat energy from the fire is redirected and is consumed by first having to drive out all of the entrapped water as steam. This prevents the heat from building up to the point of combustion in the surrounding materials.

Instead, for as long as there is liquid water present in the gel, the temperature of the coated object can not exceed the boiling point of water, which is far below the combustion temperature. Only when all of the water has been driven out can the temperature of the wood and other materials begin to rise again. The delay caused by this requirement to convert liquid water to steam can be sufficient to allow the fire to burn its way past a building or even to burn out, and the gel-coated building survives the blaze almost totally unscathed. All due to 'diaper technology'.