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What use are tunable microwaves in Aquaculture?

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PoppaRex

Agricultural
Feb 27, 2006
2
US
Hi there.... i read an odd 'teaser' in an aquaculture forum where the poster just questioned people for thier thoughts on using 'tunable microwaves'. This guy sometimes has some different ways of looking at things so i thought it might be worth looking in to. I spent some time googling this but nothing really struck me as interesting enough to give me a clue as to what this guy was thinking. This was months ago and this is sticking in my head. I suppose i should just go have a beer and get a life but....

A couple of things i thought it might be:

- He's just pulling my leg. Could be, but usually this guy has something he's really considering.

- Low cost water heating? How well would that work in a flow through system? Is there anything like that out there? Why specifically 'tunable' microwaves?

- Sterilizer? Use of UV is pretty common, what advantages would using TM have?

- Clarifyer? Maybe tune microwaves to efficiently kill off algae? Not sure how much of an issue that would be...

- Drying waste in prep for burning? Not sure how effiecient that would be... I know, i am reaching.

One of the larger costs is filtering and clarifying the water. Any thoughts how TM would help there?

hmmmm... O2 generation? Degassing CO2 from the water? mumble mumble... What the dang is he up to?

Thanks!
Poppa
 
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Many years ago when I was a university student, I worked on a research project where a bistatic swept frequency reflectometer arrangement was setup to measure soil moisture (translation - a microwave horn aimed at the soil ~45 degree angle reflects a signal off the ground to another receiveing horn antenna with the signal loss and phase over frequency measured). The frequency range was 1 to 10+ GHz. This research project was headed up by two PHd candidates - one in the Electrical engineering department and one in the Agricultural engineering department with the research grant comming from NASA as part of satellite remote sensing research. The soil moisture was weighted through the normal sample-weigh-dry-weigh again method and compared with the microwave test setup results. A moisture layer from a wetting event could be easily be remotely sensed as it moved down through the soil over several days.

Is this what 'tunable microwaves' refers to?

Otherwise, one of the oddest titles I have seen for a technical paper presentation was someting to the effect "Measurement of the dielectric constant of rice weevels' presented at a microwave symposium.

Otherwise, check thread239-145266 which references a recent RF magazine publication "An Improved Microwave Weed Killer"

Of course this guy could be part of a covert goverment group trying to read the secret thoughts of cabbage. Maybe the cabbage need aluminum foil covers over their heads to keep the goverment from reading their minds!
 
Thanks ComkoKid for the reply...

I am not sure of the exact definition of a "tunable" microwave... i assumed it meant that a specific frequency was used depending on the results needed. FOr example, if you wanted to heat oil you might use a diferent frequency than if you wanted to heat water? Just a swag!

I did suggest the mind reading thing which was just as popular on the net as using TM for any legit purposes.

The weed killer thing would fit along the algacide thought i had. Doesnt' seem worth the effort tho.

I tend to lean towards the water heating or something to do with waste treatment, but i fail to see how it could apply to the latter.

It'll probably get lost here, but an interesting thought regarding the weedkiller. One of the recent big news items recently in the agri world is the recent (Worldwide?)banning of certain chemicals (Methyl-Bromide?) used to streilize soil for strawberries. Could somebody run a microwve machine down the row that could kill insects but not the plants? Hmmmmm. Seems some kid won i science fair to kill mosquito larvae without disturbing the rest of the pond life... but i think he used tuned ultrasonics... i wonder if that could be used to sterilize the soil without harming the plants? Hmmmmmm.....

 
Only thing I've seen is the notion that some sort of tunable microwave would allow you to cook different foods with different requirements simultaneously.

TTFN



 
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