help electromagnetics and sand

[robotgangsta]

is it possible to use elctrto magnets to compact snd i mean with crushing force and keeping it compacted with ions or someone while away from the magnet is there a way to make it magnetic working off of several really big caps and coils maybe more stuff

 

[dknguyen]

??

...I so have no idea what you are trying to say. A little punctuation, spelling, and maybe a few more words, please?

 

[zachtheterrible]

For an electromagnet to maintain crushing force youre going to be using a lot of power. A little more explanation would help a lot.

 

[Oznog]

Sand isn't magnetic in general. There are typically iron particles in there which can be drawn out with a magnet, but the magnet can't shape the sand. The iron particles can be made magnetic, but not in any "impressive" way. Very faint effect.

Maybe you're thinking about how sand sculptures are made? Hard work. They build a frame around the area and pound the sand hard to pack it down into a true solid.

 

[robotgangsta]

no i mean by melting it together with metals then seperating into granular peices and i want to use very very high voltage to pull it maybe from 5 feet away

 

[john1]

Hi Robotgangsta,

This is very interesting.


no i mean by melting it together with metals then seperating into
granular peices and i want to use very very high voltage to pull
it maybe from 5 feet away

interesting, but difficult to comprehend.

So, no you don't mean by squeezing sand into a lump, as they do in
moulds like making sand sculptures and the like.
You mean by melting it together with metals ...

Well, ive seen all sorts of metals, and can't imagine any of them
doing anything like that. Unless they are very hot metals, and they
are squeezing together, that might make sand melt.

Maybe you mean that you want to melt both sand and metals together,
if so then it would cool into lumps of granular pieces, which could
be broken up by a hammer into little bits.

But as to pulling something with a high voltage,
thats called electrostatic attraction.
Its normally very weak. It can lift hairs at short distances, a TV
screen can move hairs on your head if you put your head near the
screen. And a TV screen can pull dust toward itself, dust that
is floating in the air.

I don't think that electrostatics would make any measurable pull on
granules of sand or metals from five feet away.

Unless of course you dont mean voltage, maybe you mean magnetic
attraction. Very strong magnetic fields can pull from a few feet,
but because the pull is inversely proportional to the square of the
distance multiplied by the square of the attracted mass (in K-gramme
Maxwells) then any movement of the attracted mass towards the
source increases the pull
drastically. This leads to very rapid accelerating movement of the
attracted mass being pulled, in the case of the new powerfull ceramic
magnets it can result in badly damaged fingers, or if fingers are
lucky enough to be brushed aside, often broken magnets.

I would suggest that an electro magnet of this power should be under
electronic control such that sensors would respond to any unintended
movement.

However i doubt that an electromagnet could be made to produce very
much pull from five feet away. I could imagine that it just might
make a ball bearing roll on a flat surface.
Unless anyone here knows any different ....

Regards, John

 

[Oznog]

no i mean by melting it together with metals then seperating into granular peices and i want to use very very high voltage to pull it maybe from 5 feet away

And I'm saying there's no way to do that. No magnet, tesla coil, capacitor, microwave gun, battery, high voltage electrode, diode, etc with magically do this any more than you can will it to move via telekinesis. There are rules here and wanting to do it does not make it possible.

Well, an electric arc with the energy of a bolt of lightning can heat sand to a point where it fuses into glass. This is extremely difficult and wouldn't achieve what you describe. Electrostatic attraction does not work well on sand and especially over significant distances (great than say 1").

You can move sand with a battery hooked up to a motor and shovel too.

 

[justDIY]

I read in the datasheet, a flux capacitor can be used to magnetize non-ferrous materials ... it's one of the alternative applications, aside from the primary purpose of course.

 

[Papabravo]

Yeah! but everybody knows it takes 1.21 Jigawatts to make the flux-capacitor do its thing. Does anybody know where I can find a DeLorean? Cheap?

 

[dknguyen]

Smelt

Beyond the other obvious limitations everyone else has already mentioned, if you are trying to smelt some sand to extract metals from it...the ore itself will not be magnetic. In the same way that you cannot use a magnet to pull rust off your car just because the rust contains iron ions in it. The ore must undergo a chemical reaction to produce iron in order for it to be moved by magnetic fields.

Ions aren't affected by magnetic fields. (Has anyone ever wondered how Magneto was able to suck the iron out of the prison guard's blood in X-Men 2? The iron in the blood had to be dissolved as ions...not solid iron).

NOTE: now that I think about it, I am not so sure iron ions and iron-compounds are not magnetic...I have never seen proof of it either way all I know is just that I have never seen it happen.

Is what I said right?

 

[Oznog]

Beyond the other obvious limitations everyone else has already mentioned, if you are trying to smelt some sand to extract metals from it...the ore itself will not be magnetic. In the same way that you cannot use a magnet to pull rust off your car just because the rust contains iron ions in it. The ore must undergo a chemical reaction to produce iron in order for it to be moved by magnetic fields.

I was just at the beach. An important screw got lost in the sand. I tried to find it with a neodymium magnet and ended up picking up a TON of fine magnetic iron powder in searching even a fairly small area. Pretty shiny actually, not rust-colored at all. I was surprised as well that it was in that state and not iron oxide in a corrosive environment, perhaps some chemical reaction reduced it back to iron?

 

[dknguyen]

???

You were taking apart stuff at the beach? ANd you just happen to have brought a neodymium magnet with you? You sure know how to have a good time

Seriously now, that's weird. Iron dust everywhere.

 

[RODALCO]

Come over for a holiday to Piha, West Auckland, New Zealand.

We have partial black sand beaches here which are full of iron sands.
Very heavy, fine very iron rich sand which is used for the local melter in Waiuku, South Auckland.
With a magnet, Bingo loaded with clean black iron particles.

Probably a strip of beaches West of the greater Auckland area of ± 200 kms are loaded with it.

Pity that you are limited to take max. of 20 Kilo's aboard a plane.

Regards

Raymond

 

[john1]

The screw was probably stainless, or brass.
No mention of finding it.
The metal detector probably needed that screw to make it work.

John