A pair of engineering students from George Mason University in Virginia have created a device that can put out a blaze using only a blast of sound.
In this demonstration video, Viet Tran and Seth Robertson use their portable extinguisher to douse flames in seconds by blasting low-frequency sound waves at it.
They told the Washington Post the invention was conceived for a final year undergraduate project after the pair were inspired by research on how sound waves could disrupt flames, and spotted a gap in the market for a no-mess fire extinguisher.
The resulting hand-held sound generator and amplifier works by blasting a fire with low frequencies between 30 and 60 hertz range.
"The extinguisher separates oxygen from fuel", Tran explains. “The pressure wave is going back and forth, and that agitates where the air is. That specific space is enough to keep the fire from reigniting.”
So far they have put out only fires started with surgical spirit, but the students have applied for a provisional patent, which gives them a year to do further testing on other flammable chemicals.
Although conceived with small kitchen fires in mind, Tran and Robertson believe that with some modifications, their invention could be used in other environments, such as forest fires, or even in space.
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