New Device - hype or excitment?

[Weston]

An Israeli Inventor has developed a breathing apparatus that will allow breathing underwater without the assistance of compressed air tanks. This new invention will use the relatively small amounts of air that already exist in water to supply oxygen to both scuba divers and submarines. The invention has already captured the interest of most major diving manufacturers as well as the Israeli Navy.

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[LKunze]

Yeah it is kinda interesting although I've read over on ScubaBoard some emails that someone posted going back and forth with the inventor.  Apparently the air it extracts from the water contains like 34% O2 so it's technically like breathing nitrox which is interesting.  Seems like you'd need a helluva lot of battery power for it to be practical and even then...I think you'd need to carry bailout like a rebreather.  Who knows where it will go though.  :-\

[Omicron]

I'm voting hype for right now.  I'm a tech geek though, so I'm conditioned to be skeptical about these "second coming of christ" press releases.

The scubaboard discussions on this were interesting - I liked the thing someone mentioned about how much water the device would need to process - something like 2000 liters a minute.  They said it could have a side benefit as a DPV

But dang - if it's actually brought to market?  Sign me up

[dfreeman]

There are some real technical challenges to this technology.  Dropping pressure in a centrifuge will working, getting the pressure back up to a level that the diver can breath in will be a challenge.  A lot of water needs to be moved.  There are only 8 mg/l of oxygen in water at the surface.  There is 7 g of oxygen in a SCF.  You have to move 1,000 liters to get 1 scf if 100% efficient.  Yes, this could be used as a DPV.

Power supply  will be the other big problem. 

Stability while diving will not be a problem as you will have on heck of a gyroscopic stabilization system on your back.

Fun to watch this technology.

Doug