James Bond's Underwater Breather?

[StewartG]

And what about the regulator required to step down that pressure? Start sucking down air at 18,000 psi (as has been suggested) and it would shoot through the back of your head!

 

[victor]

I thought about extreme high pressures too as a means of packing 2 cu ft into those tiny tanks. It would be interesting to try to figure out the tank wall dimensions needed and to find the point of dimminishing returns where more pressure requires more tank wall thickness and in turn requires larger tanks. (It could be a cool calculus problem, so maybe I'll talk to one of the math profs)

But given that a 6 cu ft 3000 psi pony bottle has walls 1/2 inch thick and a 2400 psi steel tank has walls that are still nearly 1/4" thick, I suspect that point of diminishing returns would be reached at far less than 2000 psi if you had to remain constrained within the dimensions allowed by the prop.

Unless of course Q branch were to make the tanks out of a new wonder metal like Unnobtanium.

From Q
We tried Unnobtanium but it was to hard to find in sufficient quantities.
Instead we spun them from a single longchain molocule. This gave us a wall thickness of about 1000 microns. As the molecule would bond to itself we did not require any glue as would a carbon fibre type material.

The cost of working this material makes it unsuitable for most applications as it is slightly harder than diamond but not brittle.

We never did find the maximum preasure as our compressors were unable to cause a failure.

As the neck of the bottle measured twice the diameter of an O2 molecule we did not require a regulator. The flow of O2 was limited by the size of the orifice. However it did require a very long time to fill the bottles.

Due to the reductions in the budget we are unable to reproduce any samples at present. However if sufficient funds can be raised, £20.000.000 and put in to my private account I am sure some agreement could be reached.

 

[spog]

I suspect that point of diminishing returns would be reached at far less than 2000 psi if you had to remain constrained within the dimensions allowed by the prop.

Unless of course Q branch were to make the tanks out of a new wonder metal like Unnobtanium.

I must admit that I have the same gut feeling.

Assuming that the walls of the cylinder are no thicker than 3mm (to pick a number at random), I wonder if there is anything that could withstand that kind of pressure.

A further thought has just occurred to me. How about if the 2 cylinders each contained a different chemical that, when mixed togther, liberates O2?

Any chemists care to help out?

(it would also solve the 'exploding head' problem that StewartG suggested)

 

[The Chairman]

What? Y'all don't have one of these in your BC pocket for emergencies??? What's wrong with you?

 

[Kim]

IUnless of course Q branch were to make the tanks out of a new wonder metal like Unnobtanium.

Yeah....I heard that that Unnobtanium stuff produced tank walls measured in microns... I think we're on the right track...

 

[Ron Brandt]

who ever said it was an air storage device? since the depth was < 20 feet and exposure time < 5 min, pure o2 would have done the trick without going toxic. so the end pieces are actually high energy batteries powering an electrolysis reaction cracking h20 into h2 and o2 the o2 is fed to Mr Bond and the h2 is simply released as extra bubbles. its perfectly simple really. and do try to bring it back intact for a change double oh seven.

Actually Q states "mini re-breather". I too would love one and have thought about this divice since seeing this movie in the 60's.

It was this movie and Sea-Hunt that got me interested in diving

Ron

 

[carlthecat]

The problem, as I see it, is that you are thinking too conventionally and assuming that this small contraption contains compressed gas. People have already convinced us that there is no way we can compress gas to fit into those itty-bitty cylinders. Not to mention the regulator would be very impractical as well (needing to support a zillion PSI). However, I would like to offer the following&#8230;

What if this was actually a solid breathing reactor? That is right, I said SOLID. Some special solid chemical loaded into each side that when exposed to the dampness of human exhale reacts and releases oxygen. Or two solid chemicals, one loaded on one side and the other loaded on the other that when they are exposed to each other, produce O2. Someone said that the depth would be limited to 20&#8217; which should be well within operational requirements for a secret agent&#8217;s underwater breather.

Now that I think about it, the driving chemical could be liquid as well. Liquid O2 does exist. I looked up liquid O2 and got this from http://www-safety.deas.harvard.edu/services/oxygen.html:

Expansion Ratio, Liquid to Gas, BP to 68°F (20°C): 1 to 860

As DA Aquamaster said, we would need 2cf to last 4 minutes at the surface and at 20&#8217; we would need roughly 3.2cf [ 2cf x (20&#8217;/33&#8217; + 1) = 3.2cf @ 20&#8217; MOD ]. If liquid O2 has a liquid to gas expansion ratio of 1:860 we would need 3.2cf / 860 = 0.003721cf of liquid. Now I am sure my math is going to screw up somewhere soon, but 1.00000 Cubic Ft = 1728.00000 Cubic Inch. So, we would need 0.003721cf x 1728ci/cf = 6.454 cubic inches of liquid. Now that seems feasible. We just need to figure a reliable way to convert liquid O2 to gaseous O2 at a rate that would allow a sufficient quantity of breathable gas. The resulting gas would probably be very cold so we would have to figure a way to heat the gas as well. On our best attempt, I believe that the 007 breather would be slightly larger than the one pictured at best.

I wish I had a PhD in chemistry and engineering so I could start experimenting with creating the first working 007 / Jedi breather for sale in local dive shops near you.

Carl the Cat

 

[victor]

Carl
http://www.allatoms.com/LOXpage.htm
Here's how to make your liquid O2, no big deal and should be possible anywhere as long as it is not close to my house.
Not sure what the preasure is going to be when it warms up to room temp. Again please experiment but not close to anything combustable.
There is plenty of latent heat in the water to warm the O2. How do we do the heat exchange? Maybe needs some more thought.

 

[SteveAD]

I thought about extreme high pressures too as a means of packing 2 cu ft into those tiny tanks. It would be interesting to try to figure out the tank wall dimensions needed and to find the point of dimminishing returns where more pressure requires more tank wall thickness and in turn requires larger tanks. (It could be a cool calculus problem, so maybe I'll talk to one of the math profs)

But given that a 6 cu ft 3000 psi pony bottle has walls 1/2 inch thick and a 2400 psi steel tank has walls that are still nearly 1/4" thick, I suspect that point of diminishing returns would be reached at far less than 2000 psi if you had to remain constrained within the dimensions allowed by the prop.

Unless of course Q branch were to make the tanks out of a new wonder metal like Unnobtanium.

you are assuming aluminum and steel. there are materials other that unobtainium that are stronger than al or stl, they are simply not cost effective. kevlar, titanium. carbon fiber or others could certainly make tanks that are much stonger per wall thickness, but who would want to buy a $1500 single tank. Q branch has a different set of priorities than cost effectiveness.

the device in question could also be using a chemical process to generate o2 from stored reagents. gotta think outside the box on this one, there are solutions other than compressed gas storage.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Warming the liquid O2 would not be to much of a problem as you would just need to run it througha heat exhanger (although that would require a fairly large surface area or some sort of propeller to keep a fairly large amount of water flowing through it to keep it from turning into a big ball of ice.

A big ball of ice however is a potential problem as to keep liquid O2 liquid, you need either very cold temperatures or extremely high pressures. This either requires extremely effiecient insulation or a zillion PSI (which brings us back to the blowing it through the back of your head problem.)

But the idea is on the right track. I remember a dive book from the 1970's sporting a picture of a very nice looking girl wearing a 50 cu ft sized cylinder of liquid air with a heat exhanger along the side. It was shown as a demonstration of future diving technology, but I am still waiting for it to show up in the shop.

I am also eagerly awaiting George Jetson's 2 day work week.