[Beowulf] [OT] MPI-haters

[Nathan Pimental]

I happen to be an amateur chemist of sorts (my beowulf interest stemming
from analytical chemistry). I totally missed the first post. In regards to
separation, I'm fairly certain dioxane dissolves sugar (easily made from
dehydrating ethylene glycol in antifreeze). Since it doesn't dissolve salt,
you could perform an extraction from the water solution, as long as there
was a high enough percentage of salt in the water to keep the dioxane from
dissolving in it.

This is now highly off-topic, but I've always wanted to have an email list
for chemistry, something like Usenet, better than a forum, and with a more
close community than a forum; what software does this board use? Perhaps
there are some members interested in chemistry...?

Thanks,
Nathan

On Friday, March 11, 2016, Lux, Jim (337C) <james.p.lux at jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:

> Salt will react with some things that sugar will not react with: Dissolved
> salt is sodium ions and chloride ions, while sugar remains a nice intact
> molecule.  So you get your molecular sieve (filtering does work, you just
> need a finer filter).
>
> If you could find something that reacts with salt to produce an insoluble
> precipitate, that would work. Sodium salts, though are notoriously soluble,
> as are chloride salts.
>
> Or, you electrolyze the mixture: the chlorine comes off as a gas, the
> sodium turns into sodium hydroxide (hydrogen comes off the other
> electrode): the sugar just stays there.  Now you have a mixture of sodium
> hydroxide and sugar, and maybe that's more easily separable.
>
> Or, you use the fact that they crystalize out of solution at different
> concentrations.. you evaporate it in a thin dish, and the resulting solids
> will be partially separated.
>
> Or you use differential freezing (same as evaporating, really)
>
> If you don't need to actually recover the sugar, you could heat it up
> until the salt melts: the sugar will decompose and leave carbon behind,
> bubble oxygen through the molten mixture and the C will get burned off as
> CO2.
>
> And, then, there's another approach: add yeast to the solution, which will
> digest the sugar making alcohol.  And wouldn't you really rather have
> alcohol with salt?  Add lime juice and you're all set.
>
>
>
> Jim
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Hearns [mailto:John.Hearns at xma.co.uk <javascript:;>]
> Sent: Friday, March 11, 2016 7:59 AM
> To: 'C Bergström' <cbergstrom at pathscale.com <javascript:;>>; Justin Y.
> Shi <shi at temple.edu <javascript:;>>
> Cc: Lux, Jim (337C) <james.p.lux at jpl.nasa.gov <javascript:;>>;
> beowulf at beowulf.org <javascript:;>
> Subject: RE: [Beowulf] [OT] MPI-haters
>
> > - either magically inside the compiler and or explicitly via source
> > syntax sugar.. However, resolving them is only half the battle
> > - keep it all high performance is the other half. (reducing data
> > movement/locality) so lets not mistake salt for sugar..
>
>
> Disclaimer - I am not a chemist.
> How WOULD one separate salt from sugar?  Let's have some inventive ideas.
> Forgive me of this is in Chemistry 101 and is an easy undergraduate
> problem.
>
> Both are water soluble, so there is no point in dissolving one and
> filtering out the solid part.
> Is there a solute which acts on sugar but not on salt  (let's say common
> table salt and sucrose crystals for arguments sake).
>
> Or do we ned a sophisticated Rube Goldberg machine which sends drops a
> stream of single crystals through a laser scanner which is then followed by
> an ultrafast air-blast kicker to sort the crystals into separate hoppers.
>
>
>
> #####################################################################################
> Scanned by MailMarshal - M86 Security's comprehensive email content
> security solution.
>
> #####################################################################################
> Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the
> author and do not necessarily represent those of the company. Employees of
> XMA Ltd are expressly required not to make defamatory statements and not to
> infringe or authorise any infringement of copyright or any other legal
> right by email communications. Any such communication is contrary to
> company policy and outside the scope of the employment of the individual
> concerned. The company will not accept any liability in respect of such
> communication, and the employee responsible will be personally liable for
> any damages or other liability arising. XMA Limited is registered in
> England and Wales (registered no. 2051703). Registered Office: Wilford
> Industrial Estate, Ruddington Lane, Wilford, Nottingham, NG11 7EP
> _______________________________________________
> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org <javascript:;> sponsored by
> Penguin Computing
> To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit
> http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
>


-- 
--Nathan Pimental,
--Peppertree Labs (http://ptp.x10.mx)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.beowulf.org/pipermail/beowulf/attachments/20160311/31963e14/attachment.html>