The Cheope hydrogen

@Pharaoh

Published in 

Egypt

 · 14 Jun 2024

What did the ancient Egyptians have to do with hydrogen and electricity?
Did they use fuel cells to produce electricity?
Did they burn oxygen and hydrogen to melt metals?

A compelling and documented thesis, the result of years of research by Dr. Aldo Adanti, will reveal the secret or true purpose of the Egyptian pyramids.

Flammable swamp air

"...I believe that water will one day be used as a fuel because the hydrogen and oxygen that constitute it, used separately or together, will provide an inexhaustible source of heat and light......"

Jules Verne: The Mysterious Island

I believe that man, in the past, has already developed the technology necessary to separate the two gases and the Cheops pyramid is merely an example of a biotechnology plant.

I am perfectly aware that a statement of this kind seriously risks compromising the reputation of any rational person, but I am willing to take this risk, indeed I would appreciate the collaboration of anyone who wants to question the theses I am about to present in order to be able to remove myself this little pebble that continues to torture me.

Let me start by saying that I am a repentant agronomist of traditional agriculture (meaning the agriculture of the last 50 years) who has tried to investigate some contradictory aspects of an agricultural practice that is now collapsing. During my research on the web I came across the myriad of pages dedicated to the Cheops pyramid (perhaps the first wonder of the ancient world) and I was literally shocked by its size and the various theories on its construction and function.

"The pyramid of Cheops is made up of 2,300,000 stones weighing on average 2.5 tons each. If it was built by 15,000 slaves over twenty years, this means that the blocks were cut at the rate of three per minute…!"

Extremely hard materials to work such as granite and diorite were used in such a perfect way as to hypothesize the use of exceptional tools and techniques.

Among the objects found there are jewels in gold and stones (diorite vases) worked with unknown techniques. Engineers and craftsmen have been working for some time to explain the different construction techniques without being able to provide convincing evidence, but perhaps the weak point is precisely in the evaluation of the type of energy used, i.e. the muscular energy of slaves and animals.

So, what energy source did the ancient Egyptians have at their disposal? The Egyptians practiced the cult of the sun as a source of energy and knew sophisticated cultivation techniques capable of satisfying food energy needs.

According to what Herodotus reports, the Nile valley was submerged by the river's waters from June to September, leaving a layer of silt where the Egyptians sowed winter cereals harvested before the next flood.

From an agronomic point of view, we know that cereals produce a large quantity of unused biomass (straw) very rich in cellulose and we can hypothesize a large number of animals (birds, pigs, snakes, etc.) after harvesting the crop. Herodotus even speaks of the breeding of geese and pigs on the residues left by the crops.

Now let's imagine all that biomass composed of straw and excrement submerged by the silt-laden Nile water and the temperature reached in the summer months at that latitude. It is easy to assume an anaerobic fermentation process in which a biomass rich in carbon and enriched by nitrogenous substances from manure produces biogas or "flammable swamp air".

In the autumn of 1776, Alessandro Volta discovered the flammable property of this gas by studying a bend of stagnant river water in the Cremona area. At that time the phenomenon was explained, like will-o'-the-wisps, with little "science" and a lot of superstition. There were even those who considered it the "devil's breath".

Is it possible in your opinion that the Egyptians who knew some biotechnologies such as the fermentation of bread, beer and wine were so blind that they did not see what was happening under the waters of the sacred river?

First of all we must remember that the exploitation of an energy source allows the development of technologies that optimize its use and make the tools and energy available to explore other energy systems. The Egyptian pyramids, while remaining faithful to the shape, with some variations in inclination, have evolved with respect to the construction materials, going from clay bricks to 20 quintal limestone boulders, demonstrating that greater energy and technological availability was invested in optimizing the process productive. What if the Giza complex was nothing more than an industrial biotechnology plant?

The Giza complex: a large biotechnological facility?

Today we know that biogas is a mixture of methane (65%), carbon dioxide (30%), water vapor (1.9%), nitrogen (1.8%), hydrogen sulphide (0.6), oxygen (0.5) , mercaptans (0.2%) with variable component values ​​depending on the starting fermentable material and the conditions in which the fermentation takes place. The main technologies for its use are aimed at purification and storage: the first allows us to have pure methane gas with the highest calorific value (8,000 kcal/m³), the second allows storage in limited volumes. If the pyramids were not funerary monuments then they could have been biodigesters where appropriate temperatures and pressures allowed convenient storage of biogas.

Some aspects validate this thesis:

1. The pyramidal shape with a square base has a high ratio between the external surface and the volume in order to allow heat dispersion of the mass.
2. The external walls were covered with very white limestone which reflected the sun's rays.
3. The perfectly inclined walls could allow a water film cooling system which, by exploiting the heat necessary for its evaporation, lowered the temperature of the mass (system used in agriculture in greenhouses).
4. The walls of the internal rooms are made of different materials and in particular red granite, perfectly fitting and watertight diorite, almost tailor-made to contain gas.
5. The pyramid is oriented with the side where the main entrance is to the north and this wall is also the one that always remains in the shade during the day creating a thermal gradient.
6. In the year 820 AD Caliph Ma'mun was the first to enter the king's chamber and he only found an empty granite sarcophagus, but he said he found flammable material that made the air inside unbreathable. It was sulfur dust.
7. The last and perhaps trivial observation is the symbolic one: we know that the methane molecule is composed of five atoms (CH₄) like the five corners of the pyramid, four equal at the base and a different one at the top, but the methane molecule has a shape space pyramid with triangular base and the carbon molecule in the center.

The anaerobic biodigester transforms the fermentable biomass into biogas and by-products which must be periodically removed from the process as they are toxic to the microorganisms used. These are compounds very rich in nitrogenous substances and based on their consistency they are divided into sewage (liquid part) and sludge (solid part). Usually today they are used for the fertilization of agricultural crops after controlling some polluting elements such as heavy metals or dangerous microbial flora as most biodigesters were built to dispose of zootechnical and urban wastewater.

During my research I accidentally came across this Egyptian painting in the Heruben papyrus:

Painting in the Heruben papyrus

Excuse my naive interpretation:

1. The two figures with the head of a serpent and feline on the left carry the sewage represented by the black snake (the movement of a liquid on a flat surface) to a female figure representing fertility.
2. On the bottom right, the vases containing black material could represent the sludge buried before the sowing of wheat represented by a bundle of ears.
3. The woman irrigates the already grown crop with sewage (cover fertilization) represented by the greenery that covers the bundle of ears.
4. The upper images represent the transformation of the energy contained in the nitrogenous compounds of the wastewater into fruits.
5. The vase containing lotus flowers could mean the pre-treatment of sewage to make it usable as fertiigation.

The coincidences increase with two other agronomic considerations:

1. Cereals are the cultivated plant species that most use nitrogen fertilizers for their growth and production.
2. Some plant species, including the lotus, are today used to improve the quality of water containing reduced nitrogen compounds (ammonia, etc.) which are toxic if used directly on crops.

In modern plants the treatment of nitrogenous water takes place in collection tanks equipped with mass aeration systems in order to accelerate the oxidation process of the nitrogenous compounds, so where were these waters stored in the Giza complex?

Yes, you have seen well, it is precisely in the tank surrounding the sphinx that the ancient Egyptians stored the nitrogenous waters coming from anaerobic fermentation for the production of biogas awaiting their possible reuse and putting the energy contained in its compounds back into the biological cycle. Also in this case there are two facts that lead us to this conclusion:

1. The sphinx is located at a lower height than the temple and is connected to it via a duct that allows the flow of liquids.
2. The horizontal and vertical erosion of the limestone rock due to the nitrogen compounds in which the sewage is rich.

Anaerobic fermentation, biomass and biogas.

We know that the Egyptians knew the process of anaerobic fermentation of biomass for the production of biogas as an energy source, but this is not enough to explain the enormous use of energy for the construction of plants as large as the pyramids.

According to the energy profitability formula:

To build the pyramids, an enormous amount of energy (Eu) was used which would have needed many years (T) to be produced by the fermentation of biomass (Ep). The limit lies in the intrinsic energetic quality of the biogas containing 60% methane with a quantity of energy, generated by combustion, of approximately 802 kJ/mol and the space (cubic meters) necessary for storage.

Above all, the construction time is not compatible with the modest energy content of methane because if energy is the ability to carry out work for a given time (E = L x T) the work done will be equal to the quantity of energy released in a time interval (L = E / T).

The enormous work necessary for the construction of the Cheops pyramid over a period of 20 to 30 years requires a quantity of energy available in a very short time which cannot be justified with the use of biogas and even less with the muscular energy of thousands of workers. So if there was no energy convenience for the construction of such monumental plants, what purpose was the production of biogas?

In the Cheops pyramid the highest room is the so-called "king's chamber" built with red granite slabs where there is a sarcophagus of the same material and right there the concentration of energy occurs from the transformation of biogas into a much richer energetically compound through a new and revolutionary biotechnology.

The Dendera temple covers an area of ​​approximately 40,000 m² and is entirely surrounded by a dry brick wall. The oldest structures could date back to the reign of Pepi I (around 2250 BC) while the remains of a temple built during the XVIII dynasty are evident. Among the many bas-reliefs that decorate the temple, two have attracted particular attention, they come from the decorations of the temple crypt. These are symbolic representations of the lotus flower associated with the image of the serpent, traditionally linked to the Egyptian myths of creation.

In 1894 Joseph Norman Lockyer claimed that these were representations of incandescent electric lamps similar to Crookes' tubes and that this documented the ancient Egyptians' knowledge of electricity. The Swedish engineer Henry Kjellson, in his book "Forvunen Teknik" (disappeared technology) pointed out that in hieroglyphics those snakes are described as "seref", which means to illuminate, and he believes that it refers to some form of electric current.

In the scene, on the far right, a box appears on which sits an image of the Egyptian God Atum-Ra, identifying the box as the source of energy.

Attached to the box is a braided cable that engineer Alfred D. Bielek identifies as an exact copy of today's illustrations depicting a bundle of electrical wires. The cables start from the box and run all over the floor, reaching the bases of the tubular objects, each of which rests on a support called "djed" (the Zed) which Bielek identified with a high voltage insulator.

Although no other discovery has subsequently confirmed this hypothesis, the lamps are often included in the lists of archaeological finds, or presumed such, for which it is not possible to provide a satisfactory explanation. But the question that arises spontaneously is if they used electricity for lamps, how were they able to produce it?

Inside the temple we find another enigmatic bas-relief which represents a strange device that could represent an original model of a fuel cell.

The last two cords come out of the container on the left, connected to the first two entrance doors to the device represented by 7 semicircle decorations (two identical ones depicting a flower with 8 petals). To the right of the semicircle, the two poles, with the exit doors at the top and the respective cords that return to the container, are contained in a stylized boat with a sphere in the center engraved with a lightning bolt symbolizing electricity.

A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that allows electricity to be obtained directly from certain substances, typically hydrogen and oxygen, without any thermal combustion process taking place.

The cords returning to the container represent the cyclical nature of the process, i.e. the splitting of the water molecule through electrolysis with the formation of Brown's gas (oxyhydrogen).

This gas uses atoms and not molecules and the flame that emerges manages to vaporize the substances placed in front of it because it interacts with the substance of the object it is treating. Even though it develops a heat of 130°C, the gas manages to vaporize the tungsten which melts at around 6,000°C, it does not emit harmful radiation and its flame can be watched without protective masks; it is odorless and does not harm if inhaled, it does not exhaust the oxygen near the flame because this is where it comes from.

Metallurgy experts, analyzing some Egyptian tools, have established that in Egypt a process of heating metal to high temperatures was in use which led to its evaporation and subsequent condensation into powder; this process is known as "ceramic metallurgy" or "powder metallurgy".

But how was this mixture of hydrogen and oxygen produced in an energetically advantageous process (Re= ((Ep-Eu)/S)/T)?

From the Dendera temple we must return to the Cheops pyramid and precisely to the "King's Chamber" where, through sophisticated biotechnology, biogas was transformed into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Even though they did not have a microscope at their disposal, the Egyptians were aware of a group of bacteria called Archaebacteria characterized by the possibility of adapting to the most extreme living conditions. In particular, to draw energy from the oxidation of methane and transform carbon dioxide to form its own biological constituents.

Some of these species have recently been isolated in the seabed rich in biogas produced by the anaerobic fermentation of organic substance. But how do these bacteria oxidize methane underwater in the absence of oxygen? Very simple, like all bacteria, using a particular enzyme capable of splitting the water molecule into oxygen to be used for the oxidation of methane and hydrogen to reduce carbon dioxide into more complex products.

Many groups of bacteria have the characteristic of producing hydrogen through the enzymatic action which breaks the hydrogen bonds of numerous organic compounds, but the originality of this species lies in the hydrolysis of the water molecule and the production of a mixture of oxyhydrogen.

But where had the ancient Egyptians isolated this bacterium, certainly not under the seabed? Knowledge belonged to the priests, religion merged with science, while today we experience a clear separation between religion and science and this perhaps prevents us from understanding the true meaning of the documents that some ancient civilizations left us.

On November 4, 1922, a surprising and exceptional discovery occurred in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt which crowned the efforts of an Egyptologist, the English Howard Carter, (Kensington, 1873 - London 1939). It was the walled entrance to the tomb of a Pharaoh of the XVIII Dynasty, Tutankhamun (who died at the age of eighteen in his ninth year of reign, approximately 1318 years before Christ), the only tomb in Thebes (present-day Luxor) found intact with the his funerary objects, with the exception of limited damage caused by the incursion of some looters who, disturbed, were unable to complete their work.

A few years ago, a researcher from Milan, Giancarlo Negro, visiting the Cairo museum, put forward the hypothesis that the dung beetle (Scarabaeus sacer), symbol of solar rebirth (which the Egyptians called Kheper or Kapri) set in the center of a pectoral of Tutankhamun, was not made of "chalcedony" (as was believed), but had been carved in a rarer and more precious material: "Silica Glass".

This very rare and pure natural glass, composed of 98% pure silicon, with colors ranging from white, to green-yellow, to green-blue, is the product of the fusion at very high temperatures of the quartz contained in the sand until boiling with subsequent slow cooling.

Scarabeus sacer is probably the best-known species of skua; this insect was venerated in Ancient Egypt, and its pictorial representations or in other forms constitute a typical and well-known element of Egyptian art. The scarab was in fact connected to Khepri, the god of the rising Sun, who was supposed to create the Sun every day in a similar way to how the scarab creates the dung pellet.

The expression dung beetle, attributed to Scarabeus sacer, refers to different species of beetles that feed on feces and that collect their food (to store it or lay eggs) by making characteristic pellets and rolling them on the ground. This type of behavior is exhibited by several species of the Scarabaeidae and Geotrupidae families.

A characteristic of some families of Coleoptera is that they live in symbiosis with species of bacteria and fungi from which they benefit from the modifications made to the environment in which the insect completes its life cycle. In bark beetles (Coleoptera Scolytidae) the females dig long tunnels deep into the wood which branch out or dilate to form actual chambers within which the eggs will be laid. The larvae do not feed directly on wood, a very poor nourishment, but on symbiotic fungi introduced into the host tree by the mother. Inside the wood there are in fact the optimal conditions of darkness, temperature and humidity for the development of the fungi that cover the walls of the bark beetle galleries.

In this way, by nourishing themselves on the fungal mycelium present, in addition to completing the maturation of the gonads, they become contaminated with spores which they will then transport to a new host tree. The dung beetle lays its eggs inside balls of fresh dung produced by numerous herbivores which are carefully buried as nourishment for future larvae, but contact with the soil exposes them to contamination by unwanted fungi and bacteria, compromising the life of the larvae.

Then the skua carefully builds the ball of dung by continuously spraying it with a particular enzyme produced by symbiotic bacteria present in the anal glands. The characteristic of this enzyme is to strongly dehydrate the dung in order to make it resistant to microbial contamination and guarantee its stability in the soil until the development of the larva.

You have understood correctly, it is an enzyme capable of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, volatile gases that disperse in the air. The propagation of the bacterium occurs through the production of spores and contamination of the ball of dung nourishment for the young larvae, ensuring the colonization of the digestive system of the new insect. Due to this particular characteristic, the scarab was used by the ancient Egyptians in the mummification process which requires deep and drastic dehydration of the tissues to allow their preservation over the centuries.

The Cheops pyramid was built to recreate the physical conditions (temperature and pressure) necessary for the development of this particular microorganism nourished with the biogas of the anaerobic fermentation of biomass for the production of hydrogen used to generate electric current and heat in a biologically and energetically compatible with the development of a splendid civilization, without the need to occupy and exploit new territories and populations.

Microbial fuel cells: environmentally friendly fuel cells.

Armed with the scientific knowledge acquired today, let's try to see how the biotechnological plant of the Cheops pyramid worked. Electrolysis is a process that transforms electrical energy into chemical energy, the reverse of that of the battery. In fact, with the battery a chemical reaction is exploited to produce electrical energy, with electrolysis however electrical energy is used to start a chemical reaction that would not occur spontaneously. Its name comes from Greek and means "to break with electricity", given that in most cases subjecting a substance to electrolysis means breaking it down into its constituent elements.

By applying a direct electric current, all those substances which, in solution or melted, break down into ions, i.e. acids, bases and salts, as well as water itself, undergo electrolysis.

The electrolysis of water produces oxygen and hydrogen gas which in turn can be used in the fuel cell to produce electricity.

A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that allows electricity to be obtained directly from certain substances, typically from hydrogen and oxygen, without any thermal combustion process taking place. It was discovered by chance in 1839 by William Grove, a curious lawyer from Wales with a hobby of chemistry. During an electrolysis experiment, a process through which hydrogen and oxygen can be separated from water, he noticed that, when the batteries that powered the electrolytic cells were excluded, the process started in reverse; that is, hydrogen and oxygen came together to generate electricity.

The scientific community, although interested, initially preferred to opt for the dynamo, discovered shortly after by Werner Siemens, as a generator of electrical energy. 120 years passed before NASA adopted fuel cells for the Apollo project. Since the 1960s, fuel cells have been used for all space missions, both Apollo and Shuttle.

Interest in the possible development of a hydrogen economy has accelerated the development of less expensive methods for its large-scale production. In addition to electrolysis, hydrogen can be extracted from water by thermolysis using heat which is commonly implemented by hydrocarbons and fossil fuels through chemical processes. Large-scale production of hydrogen usually occurs through the steam reforming of natural gas (methane).

At high temperatures (700–1100 °C), steam (H₂O) reacts with methane (CH₄) to produce syngas (mixture of gases, essentially carbon monoxide CO and hydrogen H₂ ) with an efficiency of approximately 80%.

CH₄ + H₂O = CO + 3H₂ – 191.7 kJ/mol

The heat required to activate the reaction is generally provided by burning some of the methane. Some biochemical processes also allow the production of hydrogen through enzymatic action with notable energy savings, but are still in the experimental phase to increase their efficiency:

WATER GAS SHIFT

Some photoheterotrophic bacteria, belonging to the Rhodospirillaceae family and in particular Rubrivivax gelatinosus, they can grow in the dark, using CO as the sole carbon source, to generate ATP, hydrogen and CO via a “water gas shift” reaction.

BIOPHOTOLYSIS OF WATER

The generation of hydrogen by fermentative bacteria was already known since 1930, the first scientific studies for its production began in 1942 with the use of microalgae and in 1949 with photosynthetic bacteria. Today we know that some algae and bacteria, in particular microalgae and cyanobacteria, are capable of producing hydrogen under specific conditions. Algae pigments absorb solar energy, and enzymes in the cell act as catalysts to split water into its hydrogen and oxygen components.

PHOTOFERMENTATION

Some photosynthetic bacteria, the “purple-non sulfur” ones, (Rhodobacter spheroides) are considered very effective producers of hydrogen. The photosynthetic apparatus of this type of bacteria, in anaerobic conditions, is able to use organic acids (lactic, butyric) or alcohols as electron donors, for the production of H₂.

NON-PHOTOTROPIC BACTERIA

The production of hydrogen with fermentation in the dark occurs with the aid of non-phototropic, anaerobic or facultative bacteria capable of transforming the carbohydrates and proteins of the substrate into hydrogen gas:

Enteroccoccus durans;

Enterobacter cloacae lives in water, soil, plants, sewage, human and animal feces. Enterobacter aerogenes lives in the same environment.

Bacillus licheniformis

Clostridium butyricum lives in marine sediments, cheeses, calf rumen, feces, snake venom. Clostridium tyrobutyricum lives in soil, cheese, bovine and human feces.

Clostridium pasteurianum

Lactobacillus casei lives in milk, cheese, manure, fodder in silos, human intestine. If the maxim "the truth is always in the middle" is true, the combination of the principles of electrolysis and the enzymatic action of microorganisms has produced the ingenious microbial fuel cell (MFC) of a group of Penn State researchers led by Dr. Bruce Logan.

The starch from the biomass is transformed, through anaerobic fermentation, into acetic acid, necessary for the metabolism of the bacteria inside the cell. The bacteria inserted in the anode chamber, devoid of oxygen, use acetic acid as an energy source for their metabolism by catalyzing its oxidation.

CH₃COOH + 2H₂O = 2CO₂ + 8H⁺ + e^-

By adding a small amount of voltage (0.25 V) to that produced by the bacteria and not using oxygen at the cathode we have an electrolytic cell to produce hydrogen.

But what does all this have to do with the Cheops pyramid?

The word pyramid itself comes from Greek and can be translated as fire (pyr) in the middle. that is, the energy concentrated in the center represented by the so-called king's burial chamber (5.20 x 10.40 m, 5.85 m high), in Aswan granite with an empty sarcophagus without a lid. The ceiling of the room is made up of nine granite blocks weighing approximately 400 tonnes and is protected by a device made up of five compartments arranged one above the other (exhaust chambers) and each separated by flat blocks of granite, the last of which covered by limestone blocks arranged "in contrast" in order to distribute the pressure forces of the mass.

The ventilation of the room is ensured by two air vents, the north and south ducts.

This diagram very simply represents the microbiological electrolytic cell of the pharaoh Cheops.

The operation is the same as the Penn State microbiological electrolytic cell with the difference of methane instead of acetic acid and the use of archaea for the production of enzymes. The formula of the reaction catalyzed by microbiological enzymes is the following:

CH₄ + 2H₂0 = CO₂ + 8H⁺ + 8e^-

Methane is oxidized using the oxygen contained in the water, the electrodes, anode and cathode remove the metabolites: the CO₂ exits into the anode duct where the electrons migrate and the H₂ passes through the cathode, duct north. The potential difference between the two electrodes is guaranteed by exploiting the earth's polarity (north-south orientation of the ducts) and by the monolithic gold pyramidal cusp (pyramidion) that connects the anode to the cathode. We know that the oxidation of methane develops energy in the form of heat which increases the temperature of the water compromising the survival of archaea, but the structure (zed) formed by granite slabs and air chambers above the king's chamber allowed cooling of the solution with the dispersion of heat in the mass of the pyramid.