Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Running current through wine

Nectarine - 2-5-2014 at 10:47

http://people.math.aau.dk/~cornean/index.html/ACwine.pdf

"An optimum treatment, with electric field 600 V/cm and treatment time 3 min, was identified to
accelerate wine aging, which made the harsh and pungent raw wine become harmonious and dainty."

I'm not a great chemist, which is why I've come here. What equipment would I need to set an experiment up for this - on a 750mL scale?

Would this require platinum electrodes?
Does electro-chemistry require stirring (sorry, must ask).
What is a good power-supply for the above rating?

What does it mean 600V/cm - cm of electrode?

Apologies, I have never read about electro-chemistry before, but I do like making wine, and this seems very interesting to me.

hissingnoise - 2-5-2014 at 12:02

Quote:
What equipment would I need to set an experiment up for this - on a 750mL scale?

A high tension cable and a bottle to contain the wine, basically . . .

The attached paper describes accelerated maturation by placing wine in an intense electric field ─ it has nothing whatever to do with electrolysis!

The output (~10kV) from an NST should suffice but I'd imagine quite a bit of tweaking field-strenght would be necessary . . .

If you have the transformer and know the safety measures required, go for it?

Metacelsus - 2-5-2014 at 12:57

[sarcasm]No, you should try electrolyzing wine with a 10-15 kV neon sign transformer![/sarcasm]

A 600 V/cm field would correspond to (for example) a difference of 12 kV across 20 cm.

Nectarine - 2-5-2014 at 12:58

WHAT? This is just from the electric field?!

... Ok. I have some background in chemistry and physics, but without donating any electrons how are they lowering aldehyde and higher alcohol concentrations?

They have two electrode plates, which are on either side of an insulated pipe. They then put out 600V/cm at a distance between electrodes of 20cm, which is 12kV. In order to do this with a 10kV NST, I would need the wine to pass through the electrodes which would be separated at 16.7 cm.

I'll brain storm some kind of setup for this, but if anyone has any ideas I'm all ears.

Metacelsus - 2-5-2014 at 13:14

I'm not entirely sure how it works (if it works at all) but I think it has to do with the electric field providing energy for reactions. Honestly, I'm pretty skeptical.

WGTR - 2-5-2014 at 16:36

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_barrier_discharge

...Also known as the "silent electric discharge".

http://books.google.com/books?id=9Jw9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA261&a...

a wine capacitor

quantumchromodynamics - 2-5-2014 at 16:40

Seems like they are using the wine as a capacitor dielectric. The volts/cm will vary depending on the dielectric constant of the wine. That is very weird. Are you suppose to use a constant DC field, or use an AC field? I wonder what effect frequency would have on your wine. Very curious about that.

Morgan - 2-5-2014 at 17:42

Just another result.
The effects of alternating electric fields on wine
http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10292/5702

IrC - 2-5-2014 at 17:58

Wouldn't it be wise to mention to those not skilled in the arts that some metals are harmful if the wine is ingested? Considering the fact many metals will be dissolved to some degree in the wine especially with an applied voltage. Wine will dissolve at least traces of many metals even without an applied voltage. Ag, Au, Pt would be fairly safe electrodes. Drinking a strong solution of Cu not so much. Or am I just being overly cautious? I realize hissingnoise you are not talking about direct electrolysis but beginners might be inclined to think it was OK unless at least some mention is made of possibly bad outcomes if they go sticking electrodes in the wine cavalierly. I don't think it is stated clearly enough that a field is created with high tension electrodes placed around (outside) the bottle. The impression of direct electrolysis comes from the thread title "Running current through wine".

In Rome they often sweetened wine with lead, I do not recall the outcome being all that helpful. Seems it drove some to fiddling while burning down the neighborhood.

Nectarine - 2-5-2014 at 19:28

Quote: Originally posted by IrC  
Wouldn't it be wise to mention to those not skilled in the arts that some metals are harmful if the wine is ingested? Considering the fact many metals will be dissolved to some degree in the wine especially with an applied voltage. Wine will dissolve at least traces of many metals even without an applied voltage. Ag, Au, Pt would be fairly safe electrodes. Drinking a strong solution of Cu not so much. Or am I just being overly cautious? I realize hissingnoise you are not talking about direct electrolysis but beginners might be inclined to think it was OK unless at least some mention is made of possibly bad outcomes if they go sticking electrodes in the wine cavalierly. I don't think it is stated clearly enough that a field is created with high tension electrodes placed around (outside) the bottle. The impression of direct electrolysis comes from the thread title "Running current through wine".

In Rome they often sweetened wine with lead, I do not recall the outcome being all that helpful. Seems it drove some to fiddling while burning down the neighborhood.


Like they said - the electrodes never come in contact with the wine..

IrC - 2-5-2014 at 21:58

I realize this. I was merely thinking about beginners going by the choice of wording used in the topic heading, trying the experiment by sticking electrodes directly in the wine. Just thought someone should mention the danger of doing it using a bad choice of electrode material. You just never know who is reading these pages so clarification is important. Obviously if an NST was used doubtful any wine would be left in the bottle.

deltaH - 3-5-2014 at 03:16

I too was sceptical, but I'm trying to be neutral. I agree with WGTR, this is most likely the effect from a silent discharge, if anything. Silent discharge is a standard method for making ozone in air :o

hissingnoise - 3-5-2014 at 05:19

Quote:
WHAT? This is just from the electric field?!

To be honest, I can't see how an EF could affect wine in any way.
The researchers may though, have found a further incidence of the 'placebo effect' . . .


subsecret - 3-5-2014 at 09:19

IIRC, ballasts from fluorescent fixtures give an output voltage of about 600 V. If you're willing, you may want to cut the secondary winding out of a microwave oven transformer, and rewind with the proper number of turns.

Metacelsus - 3-5-2014 at 10:13

One thing to note: The paper mentions using 3 kHz AC. Frequency could potentially have a big effect.

Nectarine - 4-5-2014 at 09:04

Upon further reading I don't think this holds any water - there could be some type of SOMETHING going on (as method would ionize things - it can make ozone after all) I won't be trying it.

I do wonder if electrical hydrolysis/esterification could have a beneficial effect on wine though. Stir w/ platinum electrodes at a few mA

IrC - 4-5-2014 at 14:04

Quote: Originally posted by Nectarine  
Upon further reading I don't think this holds any water - there could be some type of SOMETHING going on (as method would ionize things - it can make ozone after all) I won't be trying it.

I do wonder if electrical hydrolysis/esterification could have a beneficial effect on wine though. Stir w/ platinum electrodes at a few mA


Cheddite Cheese "One thing to note: The paper mentions using 3 kHz AC. Frequency could potentially have a big effect."

In the 80's Savin and IBM were in big competition to get the best Gamma in their copies by increasing charge to mass ratio of toner particles. They were trying for copies which would look like they were printed on an IBM Selectric. Problem was the charge around each particle was very anisotropic meaning in short order the darkest inks would begin clumping together and settling to the bottom. Many methods were tried involving circulation, bottom scrapers, and so on. I believe a similar approach is being used here, a 3 KHZ AC field applied at high voltage with electrodes tightly against the bottle would in effect cause a vibration in the particles in the Wine, reducing sedimentation. As particles clump together (no doubt from similar anisotropic electric fields in the particles as my toner example) sediments fall out of suspension ruining the flavor of the Wine. If I had to guess not only is this what they are doing, I believe this would actually work to improve the Wine.

Nectarine - 5-5-2014 at 19:45

Eh, I disagree IrC - wine flavor improves dramatically when settling - as particulates of tannins and yeast auto-lysis drop out of solution, the overall quality improves. This can take up to a year for some wines.

Aging, on the other hand, is often attributed to the esterification of higher alcohols, quenching (reduction) of sulfurous compounds and the removal of aldehydes.

I believe that the general hypothesis was that this would increase esterification and reduction in wine, and thus accelerate the aging process. I doubt it has to do with precipitation or sedimentation.

But who really knows!

IrC - 5-5-2014 at 21:52

Very interesting and informative thoughts. I still must wonder though, it seems the greatest effect a 3KHZ electrostatic field would have the way it is being applied is to keep smaller particles from growing into larger ones. How about this then. Assume anisotropic field configurations to the particles allow them to chemically react or combine in some way (or say 'remove' unwanted components by grabbing them as they grow and settle out). As they clumped (+ ends to - ends), these fields would be neutralized (as particles grew in size) reducing reactions such as you hypothesize by elimination of the smaller particles of higher charge to mass ratio. Mind you I am not a chemist and know little about wine. I did however for years work on making the best liquid toners copy machines used in the latter half of the 20th century and I find some interesting parallels in this subject. My work was in the electronics as well as the theory behind keeping highly charged toner particles in suspension and I did have to study the chemistry well enough to come up with ideas. On that subject, knowing what I learned about the destructive effects alternating high tension fields have on chemical systems, would it not make more sense to use piezo elements at lower voltages? Of course this assumes I am right about the vibration being the goal as opposed to some kind of electrochemical approach. Just guessing here, even though I never drink and know little about wine I still find this subject most interesting.

Nectarine - 6-5-2014 at 09:12

The major 'off' flavors of wine include;
Higher alcohols
Aldehydes
Sulfurous compounds (H2S being the biggest culprit, mercapto's [thiols] being slightly less common)
and
Tannins which produce astringency and bitterness

Your theory could work with tannins, which tend to be larger, semi-charged molecules. These can be removed by easier methods, such as adding gelatin, casein, or albumin.

Alcohols and aldehydes, which tend to be the off flavors for 'young' wines and age out easily (the purpose of the whole experiment) are slightly less easy to explain by settling out and ion-pairing precipitation.

But again - I really don't know, and every paper seems to conflict with the last!

Morgan - 6-5-2014 at 12:01

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_wine

immersion de bouteilles de vin dans le bassin d'Arcachon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvpI0b6EBfA

deltaH - 6-5-2014 at 12:45

What about using a small amount of pharma grade H2O2 to oxidise those off flavours instead of fussing with electric fields? Has it been done before? Just don't bottle it before you've given it enough time to decompose :P

***

I've read on Wikipedia that micro-oxygenation can age the wine, so a small amount of H2O2 might work.


[Edited on 6-5-2014 by deltaH]

Nectarine - 6-5-2014 at 14:36

Quote: Originally posted by deltaH  
What about using a small amount of pharma grade H2O2 to oxidise those off flavours instead of fussing with electric fields? Has it been done before? Just don't bottle it before you've given it enough time to decompose :P

***

I've read on Wikipedia that micro-oxygenation can age the wine, so a small amount of H2O2 might work.


[Edited on 6-5-2014 by deltaH]


Oxidation is something you strongly try to avoid in aging process - all bottles need to be very tightly sealed (hence things that are aged in bulk years are coated with wax).

But, I have to say the chemo-selectivity of H2O2 is probably going to be much different than O2. So I can't say whether or not your idea holds water.

deltaH - 7-5-2014 at 03:13

I see... then probably not a good idea, except maybe to deal with the sulfur compounds.

Wine aging is a fascinating topic, but I think also heavily tainted by much pseudo-scientific approaches that strongly resemble alchemy, for example, things like a "Clef du Vin" an claims that "one second immersion = 1 year aging" :D

macckone - 7-5-2014 at 09:29

This method of aging wine appears to use silent discharge.
In theory this could be used to treat wine in the bottle.
When I brew my next batch of mead I may try this,
since I have all the required equipment. The evaluation
methodology is definitely not influenced by a 'placebo effect'
since it used 12 testers in a double blind test. The physical
changes are also indicative of standard aging. ie. increased
esters and a break down or settling of higher alcohols.
Interestingly the amino acids increased indicating lysing of
yeast hulls remaining in solution. Also indicative of the aging
process. I wonder if this would also work on liquors.
If this works on multiple alcoholic beverages this could
revolutionized the brewing and wine making industries.

Nectarine - 8-5-2014 at 08:11

Quote: Originally posted by macckone  
This method of aging wine appears to use silent discharge.
In theory this could be used to treat wine in the bottle.
When I brew my next batch of mead I may try this,
since I have all the required equipment. The evaluation
methodology is definitely not influenced by a 'placebo effect'
since it used 12 testers in a double blind test. The physical
changes are also indicative of standard aging. ie. increased
esters and a break down or settling of higher alcohols.
Interestingly the amino acids increased indicating lysing of
yeast hulls remaining in solution. Also indicative of the aging
process. I wonder if this would also work on liquors.
If this works on multiple alcoholic beverages this could
revolutionized the brewing and wine making industries.


Apparently its common in China.