TheRadiochemist

On 10/8/2017 at 8:10 PM, Raider5678 said:

I already realized that trying to split it up on the fly wasn't going to work. However, when you guys mentioned it, it sparked my curiosity again and I wondered once again if I could use it.

Right now I'm working on a way to keep liquid oxygen cold enough inside of a small rocket.

Don’t bother keeping it cold. Just put the oxygen under very high pressure.

2 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Sorry for taking so long, been busy.

 

 

I'm trying to achieve a way to continuously and quickly separate hydrogen peroxide into Hydrogen and Oxygen so that I can create a sustained burn for a liquid fuel rocket engine.

Yes, I know it's dangerous.

Yes, I know it's most likely easier to use a different liquid fuel.

However, I'm just kinda messing around here.

So the idea is to have the tank run the hydrogen peroxide over a catalyst and immediately following either do electrolysis OR start running it through the engine.

However, so far, water and Hydrogen don't burn well.

This creates hydrogen and water.

If you use pure H2O2, it’s much much much much more dangerous than liquid oxygen or hydrogen. You would probably be better off using just both, and even if you are only using this system to simplify the whole oxidizer/fuel setup to make a rocket more efficient, it’s not going to work. Just like doing algebra a bit differently to get a different answer doesn’t work, this is only causing more trouble than it is fixing. You need just the right ratio of fuel to oxidizer, and the most common problem in early liquid fuel rockets were the fuel mixers. You need to get it going in a perfect proportion, and that proportion is not 1/1 like you would get from splitting H2O2. Besides, the proportion changes throughout the rocket flight for different thrust adjustments. You’re only causing more problems if you want to split it on the spot      like in a rocket. And like I said, it’s a much more volatile fuel anyway. 

Manganese dioxide (MnO2) is a useful catalyst that can break down H2O2 continuously forever (I am conducting in depth research on this reaction, so I have a system that has been running for a very long time now on only a little nugget of MnO2. 

On 9/24/2017 at 9:31 PM, Externet said:

That clear compound used to cover porcelain, pottery, yielding a very hard surface after the kiln process...  What is it made of ? 

It is sold as a thick liquid ?

Many artists call glaze “liquid glass”, but I can’t quite understand the chemistry that this statement references. Glaze is essentially a liquid mixture of metal oxides, such as silica (silicon dioxide) and, in the 1940’s, uranium oxides.

I’m listening to David Bowie’s Life On Mars.

19 hours ago, Moreno said:

Messy reaction and hard to produce? Why exactly? More problems than with Lithium-Sulfur or Sodium-Sulfur? 

 

Well all that I mean is that inside the battery it might be a rather clumsy setup and would be very hard to hook up the contacts without an internal short. If the reaction does do much at all, you would have to have a very clever internal setup. If the battery punctured or suffered even a tiny blow then all hell would break loose and the battery would likely stop working and would be impossible to fix.

Essentially, yes. The human mind is a complex electrochemical balance system that can very easily be shifted simply by your own willpower. If the group puts auxiliary pressure on you to do those good habits it helps as well. All you have to do is say to yourself "Self! I want to be like these people! Lets do this!" It's actually quite a clever and mature way to set a goal for yourself, one that makes you one of the most mature users I have ever encountered before on this site. Hope you got your answer!

Sincerely,

Radiochemist

56 minutes ago, Janus said:

Assuming an ISP in the order of Our best present day rockets,  and a typical relative velocity for a near-Earth asteroid,  Your asteroid would have to have ~3/4 of its mass to be made up of volatiles capable of being used as fuel.   An asteroid with that high a volatile percentage make-up is unlikely to contain a great deal of precious metals.   Rail guns need power to run, which would most likely be Solar, which would require building huge solar farms on the asteroid.  And the amount of asteroid you would need to "chuck" away would depend on much power you can generate for your rail gun.    For any of this to be anyway feasible or economically viable, we would need to have a much greater space presence than we have now or are expected to have in the foreseeable future. 

I don't know where you got that 50% figure from, as the typical iridium content is in the order of 0.5 ppm (parts per million).  This is relatively rich compared to the Earth's crust, but still fairly rare.

I meant that 50% of asteroids with precious metals contain iridium. If you had enough iridium to make 1,000 pounds of it, it would be worth 15.5 million dollars. I phrased it funny sorry.

56 minutes ago, Janus said:

Assuming an ISP in the order of Our best present day rockets,  and a typical relative velocity for a near-Earth asteroid,  Your asteroid would have to have ~3/4 of its mass to be made up of volatiles capable of being used as fuel.   An asteroid with that high a volatile percentage make-up is unlikely to contain a great deal of precious metals.   Rail guns need power to run, which would most likely be Solar, which would require building huge solar farms on the asteroid.  And the amount of asteroid you would need to "chuck" away would depend on much power you can generate for your rail gun.    For any of this to be anyway feasible or economically viable, we would need to have a much greater space presence than we have now or are expected to have in the foreseeable future. 

I don't know where you got that 50% figure from, as the typical iridium content is in the order of 0.5 ppm (parts per million).  This is relatively rich compared to the Earth's crust, but still fairly rare.

On 9/15/2017 at 11:06 AM, Airbrush said:

This question came to me reading about "Worth of the sun?".

It is possible that we could discover an asteroid nearby that is very rich in valuable metals.  It could be so valuable that a mission might be sent to the asteroid to attach rockets to it to move it closer to Earth.  Then it could be mined in Earth orbit for decades or hundreds of years.  Suppose it is worth quadrillions of US dollars worth of rare earth metals, gold, silver, uranium, you name it.  According to supply and demand, the value of such precious metals will plummet to a lower value.  But it could still be worth Trillions of dollars after deducting the costs of moving the asteroid and mining operations, right?

 

Asteroids are also unusually rich in iridium, and all of the iridium on earth was deposited by asteroids. A tiny chunk of iridium is incredibly expensive, and since most asteroids that contain metal contain about 50% iridium, imagine a thick 1-ton asteroid made of 1,000 pounds of iridium and 1,000 pounds of other stuff. It would be worth 15.5 million dollars on today's market price.

18 hours ago, Silvestru said:

By that "theory" these parallel universes would be very tiny. Not really Universes but more patches of different reality I guess.

*I say "tiny" compared to the actual Universe. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

By Universe, you obviously mean ours???

Hey guys,

I tried to perform the hydrogen peroxide splitting reaction that is catalysed by manganese dioxide but I noticed some really unusual results. I had a small beaker with 25 mg of 3%H2O2 and 97%H2O and added 2 1/2g chunks of manganese dioxide I obtained from splitting open a lithium battery. Everything looked fine, and I even got the hydrogen and oxygen gas into an ideal little airtight jar for my element collection. After I obtained sufficient hydrogen and oxygen and made a cool little film of the reaction I left it in a cool ventilated area to prevent the flammable gas mixture from leaking into the house. I must confess I forgot about it for 3 or so hours and when I came back I found the reaction taking place at the same rate, with more hydrogen peroxide splitting around the manganese dioxide every minute without ever appearing to decrease. And now, to bring us to the second oddity I noticed- The 2 separated manganese dioxide chunks were doing an odd sort of dance. They always seemed to be bumping into each other in what appeared to be a very weak positive-negative repulsion. I know the manganese present in MnO2 has ionic properties, but I fail to see why they would both attract rather than repel. What's more, I repeated this in pure H2O and they did not do this at all. Tomorrow I intend to set out the reaction all day to see how long it will last, but until then I would like an explanation to why the reaction catalyst (the MnO2) behaves this way, and why it does this only in this reaction. Does anybody have a theory or answer explaining the phenomena I discovered in my experimental data? Also, if anyone can repeat this reaction finding the same results please let me know your procedures and other data so I can put together a few more pieces of the puzzle.

Thanks!

-RadioChemist

Hello everybody!

I prefer not to reveal my name (nothing personal, just a policy of mine) so I go by Cloud Variable, a nickname given to me by my friends for my understanding of quantum computing and other electronic tomfoolery. I have always been interested in the way things work, and I know a lot about philosophical physics, electroplasmaic engineering (building fusion reactors) and chemistry. I really like the site so far and am looking forward to answering questions and asking a few myself.

Sincerely

-Cloud Variable (RadioChemist)

I had a similar theory to this which also explains the matter/antimatter asymmetry. I shared it on physics forums, but it got banned by admin because they didn't like theories. I'm not going to post it here, but I definitely think you are on to something, and perhaps we can work together to explain a possible split in the dimensions of our universe.  Also, although I am a chemistry know-it-all, I still have a large background knowledge in nuclear and particle physics, as well as a huge knowledge of fusion research and electroplasmaic engineering.

-RadioChemist

On 7/31/2017 at 4:39 PM, Andre_212 said:

Hi,

In a water that contains manganese, iron and ammonium, I wondered what interaction they have with each other in terms of oxidation? I understand that they all oxidise but which element would oxidise first? Is it as simple as looking at the element and the shells to see which would lose an electron first?

Thanks

Regards,

Andre

Hello Andre!

The manganese would convert into a black, chunky, powdery, sometimes pastlike oxide known as manganese dioxide (MnO2). The iron would form a red, metallic, flaky oxide which will quickly fall of the metal exposing it to further oxidation. Eventually the iron will all be turned into this iron oxide (rust). The aluminum needn't get that far. It doesn't need water to oxidize, it forms an oxide in air. It forms a very thin and very tough ceramic layering of oxide that is only about one bond thick. It prevents further oxidation so well that you can keep it on the water for billions of years without much of a change. However, pure aluminum oxide is usually a powder. It is a ceramic material with very good heat resistance. To completely oxidize the aluminum, you need to make atom-thick shavings out of the aluminum rod which is essentially impossible. Bottom line: iron would rust away, manganese would convert into a loose chunky black pigment, and the aluminum would go through no visible reaction. Thanks for asking!

-RadioChemist

A good electrolyte might be Manganese dioxide, but that is usually used with an ionic fuel such as lithium ions. I think the entire mixture is simply too safe and inert to do much at all. Designing and speculating a more efficient and safe battery is a very noble and fun thing to do, but sadly there is a barrier. A perfectly safe battery would never work. The whole purpose is to be slightly dangerous, and while I commend your work here I think that the reaction would be rather messy and the battery hard to produce. But keep working! Battery technology is improved every day, and you might just be the one to find the right combo of efficiency and safety.

On 9/12/2017 at 6:06 PM, Moreno said:

There are plenty of electrolytes which are capable to conduct aluminum ions such as salt water, alkaline, molten aluminum chloride-sodium chloride electrolyte (which was tested in aluminum chlorine batteries) http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/747775.pdf

and recently - ionic liquids.

The aluminum- chlorine batteries tested by nasa in 1970-th required elevated temperatures to be operational (around 175 C). It seems related to molten electrolyte but there should be plenty of other electrolytes which stay conducting at room temperature. Ionic liquids may be perspective.

Negative mass just seems really weird to think about. I'm sure quantum mechanics gives it a bit of leverage, but it doesn't seem to be understandable. Yes, quantum theory is really really weird, but you can still basically understand what is going on and why, but negative mass has no sense of logic whatsoever. It just seems so hard to comprehend.

What's the electrolyte? 

Hydrogen- Thryrotron switch, electrolysis on saltwater

Helium- Balloon filling tank

Lithium- Battery

Beryllium- Old missile gyroscopes (or eBay)

Boron- Boric acid, you can easily extract boron from it

Carbon- Pencil graphite

Nitrogen- liquid nitrogen is commonly available for cooling things

Oxygen- Disposable oxygen tanks are commercially available, or use electrolysis to make your own from saltwater

Fluorine- Special types of bleach

Neon- Neon sign made with ACTUAL NEON

Sodium- You can order this through amazon, or you can separate it from salt if you are a particularly skilled chemist

Magnesium- Powder is commonly available for burning, solid blocks are available for shaving into ribbons for fire starters

Aluminum- Aluminum foil, or solid blocks are commonly available for light weight testers

Silicon- Computer chips and laser diode filament

Phosphorus- MATCHES!!!

Sulfur- 90% sulfur is available in garden centers for fertilizers

Chlorine- See Sodium, or make your own from bleach, or if you work in a pool you might have a powder based form of nearly pure chlorine

Argon- Wine oxidation preventives.

Contact me for more element info

Zinc forms quite a few oxides and hydroxides under these described conditions, and nearly all of them are toxic.

That would be unlikely. Remember, in the ionic bond formed by salt, the sodium gives the chlorine an extra electron, and then they are attracted to each other immediately. If they are disassociated, the electron configurations still remain stable. It would have a filled shell, and therefore be, in a way, a sort of noble gas. But, as it is positively charged, it would still behave like a sort of single atom magnet. But, bottom line, it would barely be volatile at all.

If you do it right, you could possibly use the energetic oxidation of white phosphorus into red form, but it will be extremely dangerous, unreliable, and possibly toxic if broken. The real tricky part is trying to coax the red phosphorus back into white form without spontaneously igniting it. This could work if you only released oxygen into the tube AFTER the conversion is complete, but it would require fancy pumping mechanisms and gas canisters. The fuel would only need to be a bit of power for the pumps, a tube full of phosphorus powder (better to make it red and THEN convert it into white in the chamber), and a few small oxygen canisters. Of course, this is completely hypothetical and a complete waste of time, but I am bringing it to the table. Also, look into the reactions provided by fluorescein. This chemical is extremely easy and hassle free to obtain, and even in it's usual state it produces a green-yellow glow under a UV light. Also research SrAl₂O_4, (strontium aluminate).

Remember however that uranium content is dropping exponentially , NOT at a linear rate. And the rate of loss does not change because of human interference, we can only decrease the amount of uranium that exists, not the rate at which is does decay. The rate is still an exponential half loss every x amount of years, no matter how much uranium has been taken out.

I also happen to be a radiochemist, so i might be able to help with problems that involve radioactive elements and their chemical properties.