Inventor "burns" salt water with radio waves?-Truth!

Inventor “Burns” Salt Water with Radio Waves-Truth!

 
Summary of eRumor:
 
This eRumor is mostly circulated in the form of a video.  It is a recording of a report from WKYC-TV 3 in Cleveland, Ohio.  It tells of television broadcast engineer John Kanzius’ discovery that he could use radio waves to make salt water burn.  Is this a new source of energy?

The Truth:
 
The television report is true.  Whether John Kanzius’ discovery is revolutionary or not remains to be seen.

Kanzius is a former television station owner and broadcast engineer from Pennsylvania who now lives in Florida.
According to the report, Kanzius came up with an idea for using radio waves to kill cancer cells.  It involved injecting tiny bits of certain metals into cancer patients—metals that would be attracted by the cancer cells.  Since radio waves can make certain metals hotter, the thought was that the radiated pieces of metal might make the cancer cells die.
Kanzius has a personal interest in the quest.  He has been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.
Along the way Kanzius made an accidental discovery of a different nature.  He found that when salt water was placed into the radio waves, it would burst into flame—an incredibly hot flame.  He said it was because the hydrogen and the oxygen were being released from the salt water.

A company in Akron has checked out Kanzius’ discovery and says it’s quite remarkable.  A small steam engine has been constructed to demonstrate the potential.
There is work to be done, though, before the radio wave-salt water device will be powering cars or generating plants.  A lot of energy goes into creating the radio waves in the first place so there needs to be some assessment as to whether the energy that comes from it is worth it.

Meanwhile, his original goal of fighting cancer is being looked into.  In January, 2007, researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston say they reached a milestone by killing pancreatic cancer cells in the laboratory using Kanzius’ method.  Next will be animal experimentation then human.

TV report on YouTube

Posted 07/09/07   Last updated 05/25/13