Debunked: Triton Artificial Gills (Indigogo Campaign)

Warren Godfrey said:

just received Indiegogo's non reply to my request to take down the Triton campaign, for which they are currently holding the better part of a million dollars, as follows:

"Hi there,

Thank you for sharing your concern with us. At this time, the campaign is under review to ensure that it adheres to our Terms of Use (http://www.indiegogo.com/about/terms). We will follow up with you if we have any further questions.

So what happens now? We will include the information you have provided along with all other information at our disposal in our review of the campaign. In some cases, we will contact the campaign owner to have them edit their campaign and it will remain on our platform. If the project doesn't follow our rules, we may remove the campaign. We may also restrict the campaign owner's future activities on Indiegogo.

To protect our users' privacy, we're unable to share the action we take. At Indiegogo, we take the trust and safety of our community very seriously, and we greatly appreciate your patience and understanding throughout this review process. To learn more about Indiegogo’s Trust & Safety effort, please visit: www.indiegogo.com/trust

Please note that you do not need to contact us again. Doing so would create a new ticket and prolong the process. Thank you again for taking the time to get in touch with us and for helping to keep Indiegogo a safe and secure platform."

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You must have received the new campaign post and links to the new video. What do you think?

Yes, they write they refunded all backers and started a new campaing, because the gills are no gills afterall. They claim now it is a breathing apparatus using liquid oxygen:

EDIT: quote removed - already posted on page #1

You watched the video.
Semantics semantics semantics.
It does not matter what name they call the device.
In your opinion, is it fake or not?
Was the guy breathing underwater or was it being faked?

Not liquid oxygen, it's "liquid oxygen", which would have to be some new state of matter, as you can't have liquid oxygen at room temperature.

The video is almost certainly fake. He's sitting in a bizarrely fixed position, hardly turning his head. This suggests there's an air tube running down his back to some scuba gear (or possibly just to the surface). At one point he turns his head, and you get a glimpse of a possible part of the tube.

Before making any conclusions or debunking attempts of the new claim, I'd wait a day or two to see if it does not turn out to be just an April fool joke. It might be perhaps also an exit route they chose, because the Swedish Finansepolisen started to investigate them.

Mick West said:

Not liquid oxygen, it's "liquid oxygen", which would have to be some new state of matter, as you can't have liquid oxygen at room temperature.

The video is almost certainly fake. He's sitting in a bizarrely fixed position, hardly turning his head. This suggests there's an air tube running down his back to some scuba gear (or possibly just to the surface). At one point he turns his head, and you get a glimpse of a possible part of the tube.

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It is good to see others with a critical eye. The camera should have moved slowly round the swimmer in one take and shown the background behind him to eliminate any hint of fakery via an air intake tube as you suggest.

txt29 said:

Before making any conclusions or debunking attempts of the new claim, I'd wait a day or two to see if it does not turn out to be just an April fool joke. It might be perhaps also an exit route they chose, because the Swedish Finansepolisen started to investigate them.

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It seems a stretch too far to go to such lengths merely for an April Fools' joke.

Based on his seating position, the air tube would most likely go round his right side (left side on the image), and down his back.

kokobin said:

It seems a stretch too far to go to such lengths merely for an April Fools' joke.

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It is not what I told. The original scam was not meant to be an April fool. But they might wanted to turn it into a April Fools' joke to avoid criminal persecution, now when the Finasepolisen was alerted. However, if they do not tell it clearly and do not refund in a day or two all those who started immediately to give them money again for the new scam, we can bar this option.

A

Mick West said:

Based on his seating position, the air tube would most likely go round his right side (left side on the image), and down his back.

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A 360 degree video camera or an overhead camera shot would have helped their case. But it is a human folly to keep digging in after being caught out n a lie.
So are the creators claiming that this device is only to be used in a static position as the guy in the video illustrates? It makes no sense at all. What is the point? Maybe it is just me but I fail to see the point of such an elaborate ruse.

Wait!

So the magic "artificial gills" are now magic "liquid oxygen cylinders"?

Then why did they advertise them as "artificial gills"??


I don't know much about LOX, but could enough possibly be loaded into such a small contraption
to be worthwhile? And wouldn't it be dangerous (too volatile) for a bumpy adventure like snorkeling?
And wouldn't it require a (underwater!) heating device of some sort, to prepare the LOX
for human lungs?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not buying for a second that their new story is legit...
I'm just thinking of some potential ways in which it might be swiftly disproven...

I'm betting a lawyer told them: "Issue refunds immediately, and run!!!"



p.s.: Just saw this on (Wednesday's) Digital Trends...their take?
"...we’re 99.9 percent certain that Triton is complete and total bullshit."
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/triton-scuba-mask-indiegogo-possibly-hoax/

Every video can be phony. Much simpler would be a test by an independent 3rd party. I proposed them to come and test the device, two weeks ago, but they never bothered to answer.

NoParty said:

I don't know much about LOX, but could enough possibly be loaded into such a small contraption to be worthwhile?

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Together with the necessary cryogenic insulation, there is no chance to get it that small. Besides it, you would need some power to heat the oxygen before you could breathe it. This was always a hurdle with all breathing apparatuses using LOX. That's also one of reasons why they are not commonly used.

NoParty said:

I don't know much about LOX, but could enough possibly be loaded into such a small contraption
to be worthwhile?

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For oxygen to be liquid it needs to be below -119°C (-182°F). Liquid oxygen is a temporary thing that needs lots of insulation (typically a vacuum flask). Liquid oxygen is used for delivery of medical supplemental oxygen, but it's a very short term thing, and something that size would evaporate in hours (if that).

http://www.chartindustries.com/Resp...uid-Oxygen-Systems/Portables/Helios-Portables



So it's just nonsense to suggest LOX is in any way practical for this application.

This is a photo of a Russian LOX breathing apparatus Kryolang (taken from http://www.therebreathersite.nl/03_Historical/cryo_pjotrr.htm). It had to be refilled immediately before the dive. There is no way you could keep LOX stocked home for days.

Mick West said:

For oxygen to be liquid it needs to be below -119°C (-182°F). Liquid oxygen is a temporary thing that needs lots of insulation (typically a vacuum flask). Liquid oxygen is used for delivery of medical supplemental oxygen, but it's a very short term thing, and something that size would evaporate in hours (if that).

http://www.chartindustries.com/Resp...uid-Oxygen-Systems/Portables/Helios-Portables



So it's just nonsense to suggest LOX is in any way practical for this application.

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Yeah...I don't doubt that Mick...I just need you sciency guys to help me understand the why sometimes...

kokobin said:

You watched the video.
Semantics semantics semantics.
It does not matter what name they call the device.
In your opinion, is it fake or not?
Was the guy breathing underwater or was it being faked?

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but why do you still have the "gill filter" technology on the campaign site? where would the oxygen tank go?

deirdre said:

but why do you still have the "gill filter" technology on the campaign site? where would the oxygen tank go?

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Let's also note that the pore would need to be at least .28nm across, but not more than .29nm, to admit O2 and not H2O. .01nm is a simply absurd tolerance, given an atom of hydrogen is .106nm in diameter.

http://www.mc3cb.com/pdf_chemistry/What is the diameter of a water molecule.pdf

kokobin said:

I fail to see the point of such an elaborate ruse.

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Two consecutive crowdfunding campaigns without a fixed goal should demonstrate the point quite well.

When somebody fakes something on the internet for no apparent gain, it can be hard to decide why they did it - just for the attention? Bored? Maybe viral marketing for a more recognizable brand? But when they're asking you for money - up front with no binding guarantee of delivery I might add - there should never be any doubt what the point of the ruse is, because they're asking you for money.

I can't believe all this happened while I was asleep and I've missed the fun!

So, to recap, not only have "Triton" debunked their own claim (the previous claim was clearly that the artificial gills themselves allowed a person to breathe comfortably, no mention of single use consumeable canisters), but they have doubled down on bizarre claims (liquid oxygen!), and you guys have already debunked the new video.

For another factual debunk of the latest permutation of the claim, we can calculate the volume of liquid oxygen that would be required to allow a human to breathe for 45 minutes. Firstly remember that the volume of gas required to "allow a human to breathe comfortably" is in the region of 15 litres a minute (driven by the need to flush CO2 from the lungs). Over 45 minutes, that totals to 675 litres.

The expansion ratio of liquid oxygen to oxygen gas at one atmosphere pressure is 1:861, so you would need just under 0.78 litres of LOx to create 675 litres of oxygen gas. The brand new campaign page claims the canisters are useable for two 45 minute dives, so double the LOx to 1.6 litres.

The triton page gives the dimensions of the device as 29cm x 12cm. It doesn't give a height, but 4cm might be reasonable, given that it easily fits between the nose and chin of the subject in the video. That gives a total envelope volume of roughly 1,400 cubic centimetres or 1.4 litres. The device itself is much smaller than the total envelope, as most of the length is taken up by the 'gills' part of the design which are slim tubes.

So you'd need a volume of liquid oxygen at least a couple of times larger than the entire device to allow breathing, before adding any other components - such as, you know, the pressurised, insulated container to allow the liquid oxygen to be stored in the first place, and the 'micro compressor' and gills that they are STILL maintaining that the device contains AND uses.

So the brand new campaign is up to US$115,000 already after just a few hours... I could go on and on, including that this device would be much more dangerous to the untrained than even normal SCUBA gear due to the delivery of pure oxygen (see above for the risks of central nervous system toxicity) even though they are still claiming it doesn't require any training, the challenges of warming that liquid oxygen to a point where it wouldn't instantly cryogenically freeze your lungs as soon as you breathe in, the sheer impracticality of the canisters (there is no way you are getting one of those on a plane. They haven't clarified how much the canisters might cost - which might be why they had to refund and restart the campaign?) etc etc but I'm not sure it would make any difference.

kokobin said:

A

A 360 degree video camera or an overhead camera shot would have helped their case. But it is a human folly to keep digging in after being caught out n a lie.
So are the creators claiming that this device is only to be used in a static position as the guy in the video illustrates? It makes no sense at all. What is the point? Maybe it is just me but I fail to see the point of such an elaborate ruse.

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In the first video, the subject swam around continuously (and vigorously) - in this one he doesn't move his torso at all, his head only very slightly and his arms in a very limited range. No explanation offered for the difference..

huwp said:

I can't believe all this happened while I was asleep and I've missed the fun!

For another factual debunk of the latest permutation of the claim, we can calculate the volume of liquid oxygen that would be required to allow a human to breathe for 45 minutes. Firstly remember that the volume of gas required to "allow a human to breathe comfortably" is in the region of 15 litres a minute (driven by the need to flush CO2 from the lungs). Over 45 minutes, that totals to 675 litres.

The expansion ratio of liquid oxygen to oxygen gas at one atmosphere pressure is 1:861, so you would need just under 0.78 litres of LOx to create 675 litres of oxygen gas. The brand new campaign page claims the canisters are useable for two 45 minute dives, so double the LOx to 1.6 litres.

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I'd go with 20l/min to also account for activity while diving; that's also the value usualy used for calculating air requirements for scuba diving. Also, air requirement increases with depth/ambient pressure. At the max operating depth of 15ft, you'd have to add a factor of 1.45, so LOx requirement would be about 3 litres

Spectrar Ghost said:

Let's also note that the pore would need to be at least .28nm across, but not more than .29nm, to admit O2 and not H2O. .01nm is a simply absurd tolerance, given an atom of hydrogen is .106nm in diameter.

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From https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/molecule-size-of-water-and-oxygen.358340/:

to find the material for osmosis purpose, calculating the 'sizes' of the molecules is not the right approach because they are of comparable volume but different geometrical shapes - oxygen molecule like a dumbbell and water molecule like a V shape. If a material have holes slightly bigger than an oxygen atom it should theoretically allow the passage of oxygen molecules but not water, but actually very few oxygen molecules are aligned in the right direction to get through. Also atom and molecules have fuzzy boundaries and the electron cloud of oxygen/water molecules will interact with that of the material around the hole, making passage difficult. If some or all holes are any larger, both molecules can get through. So a traditional approach of finding the membrane material may not work.

So Triton claims they do use both the molecular filter gills and the liquid oxygen too. That is even less credible than using only one of the technologies (not that any of them is credible), because it lets no space for the cryogenic liquid oxygen storage, and it would double the manufacturing complexity and cost.

From Indiegogo:

Francesco Santini - 3 hours ago
So just to be clear, the microporous membrane and the extracting O2 from water was just a straight LIE that you told?

Saeed Khademi - Campaigner - 1 hour ago
Hi Francesco, it is not a lie, we said that we use our artificial gills with the liquid oxygen, not the liquid oxygen by itself, this is the way we produce enough oxygen for a human to breath.​

Anyway, as written already earlier, there is no chance a cryogenic container of this size could keep the LOX for more than couple of hours. Shipping oxygen storage is nonsense, it would have to be refilled minutes before the dive.

​

txt29 said:

Content from external source Francesco Santini3 hours ago
So just to be clear, the microporous membrane and the extracting O2 from water was just a straight LIE that you told?

Saeed KhademiCampaigner1 hour agoHi Francesco, it is not a lie, we said that we use our artificial gills with the liquid oxygen, not the liquid oxygen by itself, this is the way we produce enough oxygen for a human to

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Sounds eerily similar to the free engergy devices - which always requires an external power source.

Found it! I knew this problem had already been cracked. Anyone heard of Oxy-gum? https://oxygum.wikispaces.com/

Mabene said:

I'd go with 20l/min to also account for activity while diving; that's also the value usualy used for calculating air requirements for scuba diving. Also, air requirement increases with depth/ambient pressure. At the max operating depth of 15ft, you'd have to add a factor of 1.45, so LOx requirement would be about 3 litres

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Yes, I totally agree - but we can bend over backwards to give them the benefit of the doubt (they do write "up to 45 minutes up to 15 feet" As well as "use for 45 minutes" on the page) and still show in multiple ways that even if you sit stock still just beneath the surface like in the second video it's still completely impossible that the device could work as claimed.

Despite all this, the rebooted campaign is well over $200k already. The word seemed to be getting out that the original gills claim was nonsense, but I think that due to the internet's short attention span and story fatigue there won't be as much reporting on the ludicrousness of the second permutation of the claim.

Just to be sure that Indiegogo does not consider the case closed by the simple rebooting, I reported Trigon again immediately after the restart. I hope Indiegogo does not allow the scammers to steal the money, although I already also start thinking that the people who gave them money again, would in fact deserve it.

kokobin said:

A 360 degree video camera or an overhead camera shot would have helped their case. But it is a human folly to keep digging in after being caught out n a lie.
So are the creators claiming that this device is only to be used in a static position as the guy in the video illustrates? It makes no sense at all. What is the point? Maybe it is just me but I fail to see the point of such an elaborate ruse.

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@kokobin do you work for or represent Triton at all, or are associated with Saeed Khademi and the crowdfunding campaign? I ask because of the following comment on the youtube clip Triton insomnia: ( http://archive.is/xUCFB )

kokobin2 days ago
It’s important to us that our backers are fully informed about our product before contributing. If you’re excited about Triton and want to be a part of our movement, you can contribute to our new campaign here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/triton-world-s-first-artificial-gills-re-breather/x/13262121#/ Our campaign will be down for about an hour while all the refunds are being processed.

Thats the same user name as yours, is that you too? My interpretation of the above comment implies that the kokobin user on youtube is part of Triton in some capacity. Or have I missed the part in this thread where this has already been addressed?

Interested to hear your clarification on this.

On another website a user advocated the Trigon gills by suggesting that perhaps they in fact still protect their IP by hiding the true technology, and that they may be using special material binding oxygen in very high rate. Many pop-science websites wrote about such material in 2014, claiming a spoonful of the material can absorb "all oxygen from a room".

One of such articles is for example at Gizmag, but you can find them all over the web.

Below is my (slightly edited) answer from the other website, debunking the claim:

Posted By: Trim said:

'Aquaman crystal' could see humans breathe underwater.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci...stal-could-see-humans-breathe-underwater.html

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You should finally stop posting all the BS you find in pop-science magazines, or even worse, in ordinary newspapers. The vast majority of it is written by journalists who have no idea about science at all, and all what interests them is how to trigger any sensation that will attract readers. The reality or the truth do not interest them at all. They rarely verify any facts, and do not even bother to try to understand what the scientists explain when they interview them. Let alone reading the actual paper describing the work - that's far above their capability. Not that they do not even bother about the misinterpretation of what they heard, they also do not hesitate one second when changing units, orders of magnitude, or simply inventing outright lies.

And so it was exactly also in the case of the Danish research of the crystalline oxygen absorbing matter. When you've read the actual paper, you would quickly see what nonsense the incompetent journalists were spreading all over the Internet.

The paper clearly states, that the matter can absorb oxygen by the equivalent of 160 bars of air (1 liter of the matter binds 32 liters of oxygen = 42g of O₂) - see the introduction paragraph. Further below it is confirmed, expressed in weight - the matter is able to absorb oxygen at 7.1% of its own weight. It means 1 kg of the matter can bind 71g of oxygen. That's about the expected value, and it also tells us the matter has the specific weight of about 1.7 kg/l or ~1700 kg/m³.

So from these values you can easily calculate the amount of the matter needed for absorbing all oxygen from a room. Let's assume a small room of 50m³ (5 x 4 x 2.5 m). The 50m³ contain 21% of O₂, which is 10.5m³. At the absorption ratio of 1:32 (O₂-based), you get that you need 0.33m³ of the matter to absorb all that amount of oxygen. So not a few grams like those journalists were spreading in their hoaxes, but 560 kg of it! And not even a bucketful as Tinker wrote, but rather two or three full tubs (330 liters).

Now, when you want to use it for a breathing apparatus, let's assume the Trigon gills can hold 0.5 liter of the matter (largely exaggerated) - that would be enough to hold 21g of O₂. That would be good for 4 minutes of breathing. Personally I prefer freediving - much safer, and I can hold my breath longer.

At the absorption ratio of 1:160 (air-based), the matter is still below the capacity of common diving pressurized tanks, that can stock air with the ratio of 1:200 to 1:300. No point doing some stupid complicated and unsafe apparatus using absorption material needing external power for the dissorption.

huwp said:

Yes, I totally agree - but we can bend over backwards to give them the benefit of the doubt (they do write "up to 45 minutes up to 15 feet" As well as "use for 45 minutes" on the page) and still show in multiple ways that even if you sit stock still just beneath the surface like in the second video it's still completely impossible that the device could work as claimed.

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OK, let's try to go for the best possible interpretation of that product and see where that gets us. We'll have to disregard a couple of of existing facts and pieces of information that preclude the possibility of an actual working product:

• I'd say forget the statement that both gill and liquid oxygen are used by the product - either those protruding bike handles are gills or they contain the liquid oxygen; you can't have it both ways.
• The product is consistently called a rebreather, even though the video(s) show bubbles escaping at a rate consistent with regular breathing. A rebreather wouldn't show bubbles.
• if oxygen is just used as a breathing gas, what's the compressor and additional internal gas tank for?

Assume the device actually is a rebreather, the modified double compressor is used to reclaim exhaled air for scrubbing into an internal storage.

Side note: assume vital capacity of 5 liters and internal store pressurized to 200 bar; the internal store would only have to be about 25 cm³, that could actually match the depicted storage in the models.

Side note 2: perhaps they can use the cryogenic properties of LOx to remove the C02 from the loop by freezing it out?

Anyway: Calculating for a rebreather reduces the required volume of O2 to about 1l/min at surface pressure of O2

Edit:
1l/min*45 min*2 uses*1,45 ==> 150cm³
1l/min*45 min*2 uses / 860 ==> 105cm³
expansion ratio for liquid oxygen to gaseous at 1bar 20°C is about 860.

Damn, these numbers look way better than any explanation/facts we've seen from triton so far.

Sadly, it's still completely impractical:

• Energy required for compressing each breath into internal storage
• containment / shipping / storage for liquid oxygen
• magic scrubbing of CO2 without chemical scrubber
• stated lack of requirements / certification for operation of such a device. You'd actually need training and certification for advanced rebreather diver before being allowed to operate this.
• thermal constraints. Compressing the exhaled oxygen into the internal store at 200 bar would heat it way up - I most certainly wouldn't want extremely hot compressed oxygen in a couple of inches from my face.

huwp said:

Despite all this, the rebooted campaign is well over $200k already. The word seemed to be getting out that the original gills claim was nonsense, but I think that due to the internet's short attention span and story fatigue there won't be as much reporting on the ludicrousness of the second permutation of the claim.

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That's something I really fail to understand. Just spending a couple of minutes to google this project should throw up enough red flags to keep ANYONE from seriously considering a contribution. If something looks to be too good to be true....

Mabene said:

Anyway: Calculating for a rebreather reduces the required volume of O2 to about 1l/min at surface pressure of O2
1l/min*45 min*2 uses*1,45 ==> 150cm³

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I am not sure what the 1,45 stands for, but if you calculate the storage for 2x45 minutes of breathing at the surface in rest, calculating with one liter of O₂ per min, then you get 90 liters of oxygen, which is 90,000 cm³ uncompressed and 450cm³ when compressed to 200 bar. If stored as liquid (ratio 1:861), then ~100cm³ would be needed (without counting in the rapid evaporation rate, and the space for the cryogenic insulation).

BTW, if a rebreather was truly used (which is nonsense), then the oxygen consumption at rest on surface would be even lower than 1 l/min - approximately a quarter liter per minute (no swimming and no depth possible at this value). There is 21% of O₂ in air, and additionally only a smaller part of it is metabolized at each breath. More precisely the basal oxygen consumption at humans is 3.5 ml/min/kg (VO2 resting) [source].

Another problem, not mentioned, is the compressor - it would have to be able to compress approximately 1 liter per second to 200 bars - there is no buffer container for the exhaled air, so it would have to be compressed in the same rate as you exhale. One liter per second is 60 l/min - you need a 2kW compressor of the size of a big luggage for that (see for example the 80 l/min portable compressor below). No way to shrink it into a few cm³ and to supply it from a miniature battery for 45 minutes. Besides it, such compressor has high maintenance demands, and requires regular revisions. It is even worse at pure oxygen compressors. Anyway, if they invented such compressor, they would get rich very quickly only by selling them alone.

txt29 said:

I am not sure what the 1,45 stands for,

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My bad. That was left over from the calculation for an open system to adjust for increased air consumption at 15 ft. Has to be omitted for a rebreather.

txt29 said:

but if you calculate the storage for 2x45 minutes of breathing at the surface in rest, calculating with one liter of O₂ per min, then you get 90 liters of oxygen, which is 90,000 cm³ uncompressed and 450cm³ when compressed to 200 bar.

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The 1l/min would be the equivalent of 20l/min for an open system; not at rest and not all-out exertion. It's a good conservative (read: save) base value to use when estimation air consumption for dives. Most likely you'll actually need less.
Oxygen consumption at rest would be about 3.5ml/min/kg or about 0.3l for a 85kg diver. At full exertion it would go up to about 1.5l/min.

I'm taking their claim to be using liquid oxygen at face value [no that isn't reasonable], which would give a compression factor of ~860:1 or 105cm³ of liquid oxygen

txt29 said:

Another problem, not mentioned, is the compressor - it would have to be able to compress approximately 1 liter per second - there is no buffer container for the exhaled air, so it would have to be compressed in the same rate as you exhale. One liter per second is 60 l/min - you need a 2kW compressor of the size of a big luggage for that (see for example this 80 l/min portable compressor). No way to get it into a few cm³ and to supply it from a mini battery.

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[sarcasm]But it's a Modified Dual Compressor powered by their Modified LiIon Battery.[/sarcasm] Ok, admittedly - unless they got their hands on some magic pixie dust for the modification there's no way that could ever work.

txt29 said:

by suggesting that perhaps they in fact still protect their IP by hiding the true technology,

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well then they shouldnt be mentioning technology at all. False advertising is false advertising and a big no-no.
I'm not sure why they feel they hae to explain the technology... if they just showed it actually working that would work for me.

Mabene said:

Just spending a couple of minutes to google this project should throw up enough red flags to keep ANYONE from seriously considering a contribution. If something looks to be too good to be true....

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I wonder if people think they can get their money back if no item is delivered, because the 'campaign' really does look like a "pre-order". It doesnt look like a 'contribution' or 'investment', it looks like i am prepaying FOR the product.
But I'm confused by that... if you are offering me a perk of a working product for my 'contribution', do i get my money back if you can't deliver the perk (the product) offered?

deirdre said:

well then they shouldnt be mentioning technology at all. False advertising is false advertising and a big no-no.

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Yes, I think so too, but as you see, their backers do not mind at all they were lied to - within 3 days over 600 of them paid them $250k in total again. The simple wish they'd like to have such product is a sufficient reason for them to believe anyone who promises them the impossible, and they go even so far that they search excuses and explanation themselves, instead of the crooks. It is not unfamiliar - I observe the same behavior at Free Energy fans, who are able to defend the scammers with an incredible ferocity, ignoring all facts (including court judgments).

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/triton-world-s-first-artificial-gills-re-breather#/comments

Mark Johnson2 days ago
A couple of sincere questions that really must be answered:

1) For oxygen to be liquid it needs to be below -119°C (-182°F). How are you providing this cooling during use?

2) The requirements for safe transport, storage and use of liquid oxygen are daunting and very stringent. How are you going to deal with these concerns? See:
http://www.praxair.com/~/media/prax... Gas O2 Safety Data Sheet SDS P4637.pdf?la=en



Saeed KhademiCampaigner4 hours ago
Hi Mark, the liquid oxygen is kept in insulated containers (called dewars). These keep the oxygen in liquid form at a temperature of -170 degrees Celius. The container consists of a lower portion where the oxygen is in a liquid state and a smaller upper portion where the liquid has evaporated creating a gas. if you follow the regulations DOT then you can send them by air, and sorry we did delete you new message but that was a misstake, so i hope you are happy with my answer, have a great day


Mark Johnson3 hours ago
Thank you for answering, Saeed. Really appreciate you answering questions people ask. Could you tell us how long you can store the containers? In other words, if my friends and I order the Triton how long can we wait before we have to go use them before the liquid oxygen gets too warm? THANKS!

This clarifies that they are actually claiming to use liquid oxygen (LOX), and not some magic "liquid oxygen" (they originally used the quotes around it).

It also clarifies just how fake this is, as already discussed:

• The amount of LOX in such a small insulated container would be a few cubic centimeters at most.
• Dewars warm up, no matter how well insulated. That tiny amount of oxygen would evaporate within hours. It would be all gone by the time it arrived.

deirdre said:

I wonder if people think they can get their money back if no item is delivered, because the 'campaign' really does look like a "pre-order". It doesnt look like a 'contribution' or 'investment', it looks like i am prepaying FOR the product.
But I'm confused by that... if you are offering me a perk of a working product for my 'contribution', do i get my money back if you can't deliver the perk (the product) offered?

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That depends on the kind of campaign: the Triton campaign has a "flexible goal". Quoting from the campaign: "This campaign will receive all funds raised even if does not reach its goal". So: No, you do NOT get your money back when they can't deliver the perk. It's perfectly fine by the rules of the platform for them to spend all the funds researching the problem and then telling the backers:"Sorry, that didn't work. Also, we're now out of money. So long and thanks for all the fish"

Theyve been busted, have admitted as much and are refunding:

On March 25, GearJunkie reported on the Triton, the “world’s first artificial gills rebreather.” Our first post about the Triton “Gills” goes into great detail to explain why the company’s claims were simply impossible.



Today, Triton came clean and refunded nearly $900,000 to Indiegogo supporters. The company then explained in an update that the Triton will use expendable “liquid oxygen” cylinders to supply air to breathe.

GearJunkie had contacted both Triton and Indieogogo about the impossible claims made by the fund-raising campaign. There was no response from Triton, but Indiegogo did respond with brief messages.

After a canned response, we forwarded our published story to a customer service team. On March 31, we received word that “at this time, the campaign is under review to ensure that it adheres to our Terms of Use.”

https://gearjunkie.com/refunded-triton-artificial-gills-campaign-update

Svartbjørn said:

Theyve been busted, have admitted as much and are refunding:

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This is covered above, starting at post #40. they closed one campaign, and have opened another. The liquid oxygen claim is also physically impossible.

Mick West said:

This is covered above, starting at post #40. they closed one campaign, and have opened another. The liquid oxygen claim is also physically impossible.

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Oh.. well crap, I must have missed it.. Sorry Mick.