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New Rocket Fuel: A Pinch of Salt

Posted by michael on from the pepper-to-taste dept.

samjam writes "'Rodney Bartlett devised a new form of solid nitrogen salt' says Ananova reporting on an article in Nature. 'Scientists at the University of Florida say it should be possible to make nitrogen with atoms linked in groups of five.' 'If their calculations are correct, the new form will have twice as much energy as the same volume of hydrazine which is the compound propelling many spacecraft today.' This new fuel could be a boon for home-brew rocket builders?" Note that by "salt", they don't mean table salt, just a compound of ions. Nitrogen compounds are important in explosives because the formation of nitrogen gas (which is very stable) can give off a lot of energy - so whatever you can do to create new and crazy nitrogen structures can potentially increase the energy density of your explosives.

12 of 15 comments (clear)

  1. obvious joke by tps12 · · Score: 1

    Don't take this article at face value.

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  2. 10 atoms... not 5 by pythorlh · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article talks about linking two (2) five-atom nitrogen molecules with opposite charges to form N5+N5-. Incidentally, the older slashdot article referenced talks about using 6 of these 10-atom molecules to form a buckminsterfullerene.

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    1. Re:10 atoms... not 5 by jechoe · · Score: 1

      Would the nitrogen bucky-ball be called a nucky-ball - or better yet a nooky-bally?

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  3. Rocket fuel as warhead propellant by ObviousGuy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Missiles that go longer and farther for cheaper are good. They reduce the total number of missles necessary to carry out full-scale destruction of the planet. They are certainly worth their SALT.

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    1. Re:Rocket fuel as warhead propellant by americanFatCat · · Score: 1

      Was that an allusion to the treaty as well? If so, then that may be the best, or worst, pun ever.

    2. Re:Rocket fuel as warhead propellant by ObviousGuy · · Score: 1

      Thank you, I think.

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  4. Time travel by dingo · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    This article is a bit like time travel conjecture
    The media has just latched onto some scientists who (probably very guardedly) admitted that if we could get N5- (subscript 5, - at top) then maybee we could make better rocket fuel. Big if. like maybee if we could travel faster than light blah blah blah. Guys were probably gotten drunk by a journo who needed a "revolutionary exclusive".

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  5. Not time travel by samjam · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't think so, read the nature article;

    It says that half the compound was made two years ago, and that to make the other half:

    Metal compounds might offer a route to synthesizing N5-, suggest Laura Gagliardi of the University of Bologna in Italy and Pekka Pyykko of the University of Helsinki in Finland.

    They think that the N5- ring could be made, along with a ring of seven nitrogen atoms (N73-), in a compound with a metal atom, such as titanium or zirconium, sandwiched between the rings3. Carbon-ring compounds like this already exist; ferrocene, for example, is an iron atom sandwiched between two five-atom carbon rings.

    So we're partway there and with recent developments in chemical synthesis without use of heavy engineering plants we have good hope of getting a decent rocket fuel!
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    1. Re:Not time travel by Eccles · · Score: 2, Funny

      So we're partway there and with recent developments in chemical synthesis without use of heavy engineering plants we have good hope of getting a decent rocket fuel!

      Yeah, it shouldn't be too difficult. After all, it's not rocket sci -- err, never mind.

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    2. Re:Not time travel by spike+hay · · Score: 2

      This looks like it may have greater efficiency than hydrogen or hydrazine. However, how much does it cost? There are a lot of rocket fuel combinations (ozone+h2, o2+h2 with berillium) that offer greater effieciency than the standard O2 H2 fuel. They are not used because they are too expensive. I wonder if this N5 fuel would cost a lot, also.

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  6. Re:Salt... by shrikel · · Score: 2, Informative
    If "a bunch of ions" is now a salt, then what's a bunch of atoms?

    Well, the technical chemical definition of a salt is a lattice of atoms which are ionically bound together. A bunch of atoms is still a molecule. :)

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  7. Propellantless Mass Space Propulsion Engine ! by geekster_2000 · · Score: 1

    Space Propulsion Engine for Flying Saucer - New Physics Rumor in Silicon Valley - Inventor of 3D volume holographic optical storage shopping his concept for Space Propulsion Engine to US and other countries. for further look at biography background goto www.colossalstorage.net he is working in top secret and will not patent, publish or share concepts as he says no physicist or scientist he has ever studied or researched had this approach and knows his concept will work to give near light speed travel thru Galaxy. he says it is a mankind first concept !!