Brainwave - feel free to expand on it.

[Bushwhacker]

This is how simple the CONCEPT is.

My original post was musing whether it could be applied to firelighting.
I appreciate that not everybody has had the experience of taking a concept into realisation, but every single object you have in front of you today began life in such a way.
I have enough experience to know when to let an idea go and also how to explore the avenues properly beforehand.
As the original post suggests, it's an idea based upon a concrete scientific fact.

 

[Adze]

As the original post suggests, it's an idea based upon a concrete scientific fact.

Absolutely, however for ease of use and portability it would require access to petrochemical based manufactured plastics (eg polythene sheet) or an excessive amount of time is required to collect enough gas to make the idea workable in the real world.

Contrast the required effort to wrap the ember you've just created in a tinder bundle and blow it into flame with the effort required to crawl around in a pond up to your teats in, potentially, freezing water shaking elodea fronds underneath a tarp. It's not that it won't work... it's just not worth the effort.

By the time you've gathered enough oxygen to 'easily' turn an ember into a flame, everyone else has already had a brew and has got dinner on. If you're after a way to quickly light a fire and you're not averse to using modern tech (e.g. polythene tarp / glass beaker/test tube etc.) then why not carry a kitchen blow lamp with a piezo starter? It's easier, lighter and you get to stay dry into the bargain.

 

[relfy]

Wow, a tarp Adze? That much oxygen would blow your hair and clothes off before your ember got within a foot of it.
Nevertheless, I think probably people aren't going to support you much in this if you can't have a giggle along the way Bushwhacker. The science is accepted, pretty much everyone understands it, but like Adze says some people think its impractical too. Perhaps the best thing would be to go out to a pond somewhere on a nice sunny day and experiment with your ideas. You'll find out much quicker what is plausible and what isn't that way, than conjecturing with us bunch of buffoons Anyway, I know I'd like to hear about what you do...

 

[Bushwhacker]

I think probably people aren't going to support you much in this if you can't have a giggle along the way..

I can have a giggle with the best of 'em Relf, there's not many times when I don't. I just don't like to see a knee-jerk instant dismissal of something without due consideration.

I'd like to say 'back to the drawing board' but there's hardly a time when I'm not at it. Perhaps I need to step away.

 

[ged]

... probably people aren't going to support you much in this if you can't have a giggle along the way...

You're right, most of us have a tendency to get defensive about things, and this really is supposed to be fun.

Speaking of giggles, there's a jay hanging upside-down on one of the peanut feeders outside.
Now who'd have thought it possible?

I was thinking of where the oxygen goes in this thread. Suppose there was a plant, or a rock formation, or _something_ that just happened to collect the oxygen? All you'd need then is to learn how to find it, a hollow stem and you'd be in business.

Still musing.

 

[armie]

It's not that it won't work... it's just not worth the effort.

Mmm... Is lugging around camping kit worth the effort, when you can stay at home in your insulated brick house?
Sometimes it's just the fun of doing things differently - with a little added un-comfort.
By the time you're done hand-drilling, everyone else has already had a brew and has got dinner on. Still doen't stop some people using this method.
But I do agree that it's important to keep an eye on efficiency, so you know what to expect. (Example: solar stills are not worth the sweat that goes into making them.)

 

[wattsy]

And this from a man who quotes Voltaire in his sig?

We're just asking the questions. I'm looking at your answers and seeing little encouragement.

Cut us some slack, will ya?

what does voltaire have to do with this subject?
its not a practical idea i think a lot of people have no idea just how dangerous pure o2 is if you've just put some glowing charcloth into a tinder bundle then pour o2 all over it, then yeah it will ignite but then so will your hand, almost anything will burn in an oxygen rich environment. if there was 3% more oxygen in the air you'd be able to rub your hands together and start a fire.
the reason we blow on fires is because its easy to control you start pouring o2 everywhere and control goes out of the window. there's little encouragement because its a fools errand.

 

[wattsy]

I was thinking of where the oxygen goes in this thread. Suppose there was a plant, or a rock formation, or _something_ that just happened to collect the oxygen? All you'd need then is to learn how to find it, a hollow stem and you'd be in business.

Still musing.

all you'd need? you're relying on the off chance that there'll be a natural deposit of o2 somewhere, and then that you'll find it and be able to access it?
OR you could just blow on it?

 

[Bushwhacker]

what does voltaire have to do with this subject?
its not a practical idea i think a lot of people have no idea just how dangerous pure o2 is if you've just put some glowing charcloth into a tinder bundle then pour o2 all over it, then yeah it will ignite but then so will your hand, almost anything will burn in an oxygen rich environment. if there was 3% more oxygen in the air you'd be able to rub your hands together and start a fire.
the reason we blow on fires is because its easy to control you start pouring o2 everywhere and control goes out of the window. there's little encouragement because its a fools errand.

Ok calm down.

The amount I was alluding to was the same amount that would light a glowing splint as per science class, a thimble full, not industrial quantities.

 

[armie]

Calm down, calm down alright!

 

[smoggy]

I congratulate you on thinking outside the box.....I would also like to point out to those who choose to ridicule that using friction or compression methods to produce an ember is as ludicrus as putting wheels on a tomato in this day and age, as futile as putting a man on the moon in fact....but we do not do it because it is easy, we do it because we can.....(now where did I here that)...!

the original conception.....

Is it possible? Yes, school kids do it!

Is it usefull? Could well be, if say one did not have the best of tinder available in damp conditions....an oxygen enriched micro atmosphere could possibly provide an instant "blast" ignition in conjunction with a meagre spark to produce the ember which wafting or blowing would not achieve..

Is it practicle? That would depend, if you were prepaired to take the kit with you...(plastic sheet, tube, syringe complete with tap...you can work out it would be used) ....and you prepaired in good time prior to lighting your fire....exactly as you did when you made your fire drill or filled your tinder box last week.

I was scoffed at when I suggested that we need not purchase charcoal for the whole week when camping, I ignored them and now have a simple process by which I produce more charcoal on my BBQ than I use in a weeks camping....they scoff no longer!

The only reason we have had the benefit of fire by flint is because someone recognised a potential technology, a technology that is still in everyday use today some thousands of years later,I bet the rest of the tribe laughed at him too! Pity he didn't invent the patent first!!!!

Smoggy.

 

[apj1974]

Boo to all the naysayers!

I think this thread is great and who knows might come in useful. Its not practical as a day to day method. but if you find yourself lost with nothing but a couple of empty pop bottles and a small container it might just be a useful thing to know.

Re the Clive Sinclair reference, lets be honest the C5 was just a thing before its time. In the 80's there were no cycle lanes etc and no-one cared about green stuff - I bet if it had been invented now it would be a lot more popular.

So who knows one day we might all carry our micro oxygen generators in our kit and swear by them thanks to something someone picked up from this thread. (super fire piston anyone?)

Lets be honest, if you really want to light a fire, a lighter and some petrol is probably the best thing to carry, but that's not the point.

 

[Chinkapin]

Instead of attempting to obtain methane from cows--a heavy and difficult bit of kit--, a much simpler (albeit, somewhat less "elegant" solution) would be to have a camping buddy provide the methane. It is a well known fact that camping buddies are notorious sources of an almost inexhaustible supply of methane. In the past, tents have proven themselves at quite capable of gathering and storing Methane for long periods of time.

I leave the engineering of the delivery system to you.