This Machine Liquifies Human Bodies

When you die, do you want to be buried, cremated, frozen and vibrated into dust, or liquified? If you want to do the latter you need… The Resomator!

It sounds like a Roger Corman movie, but this machine is real and better than cremation.

The Resomator is a steel chamber that gets filled with a) a human body and b) a solution of water and potassium hydroxide. The chamber increases the pressure to 10 atmospheres, pushing the temperature up to 180C for “between two-and-half and three hours”. I guess that depends on the size of the body or how you like the meat.

The process — which is called alkaline hydrolysis — dissolves all the body tissue except the bones, separating the liquid from the solid remains. The solid remains then get and put into something called… The Cremulator! — this crushes the bones into ash.

The whole thing sounds like the Nazis melting in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but apparently it is much better for the environment than cremation because it doesn’t produce toxic waste and it consumes less energy.

Frozen into dust

If liquefaction doesn’t appeal to you, then you may want to consider being frozen and turned into compost. That’s what Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Masak wants to do with her Promession method. Basically, her machine first freezes the dead body with liquid nitrogen and then it subjects it to vibration, creating body fragments that get further dried and refined, filtered to remove any prothesis in the body and then packaged into a biodegradable coffin.

It’s all so romantic. [Resomation via BBC]


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