Wand That Puts Out Fires

 

Electric wands could allow future firefighters to extinguish flames with a wave of the hand, recent experiments suggest. “Currently, firefighters use water, foam, powder, and other substances to tame flames. But a team from Harvard University's Whitesides Research Group has shown that electric fields can snuff out fires too—potentially reducing water damage as well as environmental threats posed by fire retardants.” The wand is a thin wire that is connected to a 600-watt amplifier that is plugged into the wall. The wand can generate an electric field with the “strength of a million volts per meter.” Even though it creates so much energy, the voltage is not enough to harm someone. 

When the wand is brought near a fire, the flames went out almost imminently.  The ions, electrons, and soot inside a flame can respond to electric fields. Based off this, the wand uses electricity to push the flame away, “detaching it from the fuel source, so it goes out.” The scientists now want to move to “suppressing fires both farther away and wider in scope by experimenting with the shape of the electrode and altering the current, frequency, and voltage involved.” Experiments are being conducted to see if the wand can be expanded to prevent forest fires. Similar devices could be “installed in the ceilings of buildings or ships—much as water sprinklers are now—or carried, backpack style, by firefighters”

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110329-electric-wands-fire-firefighters-extinguish-science-harvard-chemical/