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Rocket Fuel

Use Ammonium Perchlorate as an oxygenator
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Since Ammonium Perchlorate has an oxygen content that is much higher than air (50% as opposed to 30%)why not use it as an oxygenator for internal combustion engines.
mhuppertz, Jun 15 2005

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       Why not just use pure O2? Expensive, but sounds cheaper than ammonium perchlorate.
Adze, Jun 15 2005
  

       //50% as opposed to 30%// Air has around 21% oxygen - where did you get the other 9%? What [adze] said. Anyway, what has this got to do with rockets, which are not, technically speaking, internal combustion engines?
coprocephalous, Jun 15 2005
  

       //why not use it as an oxygenator for internal combustion engines.//   

       - It has to be manufactured / transported / stored at a cost. Air is ‘free’.
- It has to be carried onboard.
- It is a significant environmental problem already, just from current uses.
  

       I think you will find a long list of reasons ‘why not’. Car bombers would love it, though.
Shz, Jun 15 2005
  

       Are normal engines limited by the amount of oxygen they can take in? (I know turbochargers drive air in, but I thought this was to increase the compression ratio rather than to enhance the combustion?

WHich triggers a thought: presumably, if you injected nothing but a small amount of petrol and small pellet (or other form) of solid oxidant, but no air, the compression ratio would be huge: you'd have almost zero volume to begin with, and the normal post-combustion amount of gas afterwards, no?
Basepair, Jun 15 2005
  

       As long as you’re throwing solids in there, add some coal and do away with the gasoline.
ldischler, Jun 15 2005
  

       Hmmm. There were engines modified to run on coal dust, I think, and possibly on gunpowder.
Basepair, Jun 15 2005
  

       Yes, Rudolf Diesel, of all people. One little explosion, and he gave up.
ldischler, Jun 15 2005
  

       Some people are such wimps.
Basepair, Jun 15 2005
  

       The engine would probably overheat.
quantum_flux, Oct 01 2007
  

       //I know turbochargers drive air in, but I thought this was to increase the compression ratio rather than to enhance the combustion? //
The extra pressure is used to drive in more air (and hence more oxygen) to allow more fuel to be burned and so increase the amount of power produced.
The compression ratio is always fixed by the geometry of the cylinder.
AbsintheWithoutLeave, Oct 05 2007
  

       Pretty much whatever reasons you come up with for using Ammonium perchlorate in an engine, NOS will do a better job.   

       I imagine you'd need all 316SS-or-higher, perhaps even some exotic nickel based superalloy engine components to survive the corrosive fuel, too.
Custardguts, Jan 20 2008
  

       well, dunno about ammonium whatsis, but what about using plain old O2 ? if you happen to have a source, that is. I suppose you could fractionally distill the n2 and co2 out of air and be left with mostly o2. You'd need a different engine design I'm guessing, and a "failover" mode for running on air, but you wouldn't be left pumping (endothermic?) nitrogen compounds into the air.
FlyingToaster, Jan 21 2008
  

       An investment in play in this direction (oxygenator for combustion) could allow the ubiquitous internal combustion engine beneath the ocean waves[the under investigated horizon] .
wjt, Jan 22 2008
  

       [wjt] - was that straight out of a babelfish "chinese whispers" exercise? What was the original comment?
Custardguts, Jan 22 2008
  
      
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