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Rocket Thrusters Used To Treat Sewage
Zothecula writes "Rocket engines are generally not thought of as being environmentally-friendly, but thanks to a newly-developed process, we may someday see them neutralizing the emissions from wastewater treatment plants. The same process would also see those plants generating their own power, thus meaning they would be both energy-neutral and emissions-free. Developed by two engineers at Stanford University, the system starts with the formation of nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane gas — something that treatment plants traditionally try to avoid."
Is it like... Rocket science?
On a hot day the Lowell, MA water treatment facility can me smelled for a good mile plus in every direction, strongly. And there's a low-incoming housing complex right next to it. How those poor people can live there is a mystery. Although I guess I just answered that. Ok, so not a mystery.
At any rate, it would be a great candidate for this sort of technology. And I wonder how this tech could be applied to space travel and such self-contained environments or poor areas such as submarines, underwater facilities, small third world countries/towns, etc.
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Why all the complication of a rocket engine (aerodynamic flow, high thrust to weight ratio, ignition problems, injector stability/howling issues, injector clogging issues, high pressure fuel pumps) when they could just pipe it into a nice boring fluidized bed?
Sounds more like a stunt, to "get kids interested in science", than a solid technical engineering decision.
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The shit will hit the fan with this in numerous ways:
* Most likely raise shit with the EPA
* Environmentalists will shit when they see the carbon produced in the process
* Oil companies will continue not giving a shit about fossil fuel consumption
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I just had my main sewer line rooted a couple of weeks ago. If I had known I could use one of my spare rocket thrusters for that, I might have saved a bundle of money...
Why not read the article and see which part is new.
Yes, but this process produces more methane along with nitrous oxide fuel. It then adds a method to reduce N2O to N2 and O2, producing more power in the process. In this way, the primary treatment plant produces 110% of its power requirements without increasing emissions simply by adding a piece of equipment the size of a basketball and removing a waste aeration system.
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Well I RTFA and there are some parts of the process that seem lacking. Essentially, a few rocket engineers said they could take the output gas from waste water plants (NO2) and use it to fire and burn a rocket engine. The emissions from the rocket engine would be oxygen enriched air. The power from the rocket engine is supposed to be used to generate electricity for the plant to allow it to continue processing waste water and producing rocket fuel, thus completing a fully self-contained power cycle and allowing the waste water plant to be self-sufficient.
What's left out, however, is how the rocket engines are supposed to be used to generate electricity. Rocket engines are optimized to produce thrust. While liquid engines have turbine machinery in them, this engine would be burning gas with it's own oxidizer in the fuel (NO2). Without the separate fuel and oxidizer plumbing, I am not sure how much pump/turbine machinery would be in the design of the rocket engine. That said, I don't know what kind of spinning motion would be used to generate the electricity for the waste water plant. It would be nice to see some details on how the engine design will be used to actually produce electricity. Don't get me wrong, rocket motors are great sources of energy, but they very rarely, if ever, are used to drive electricity into a circuit. So I am curious if they are simply planning to use the nozzle flame to heat water for a steam turbine, or if they have an internal turbine that is driven by the NO2 (preburn) to drive a magnet surrounded by copper, or if they intend to stick a turbine in the thrust column of the engine (expensive materials).
It's an interesting idea, but some technical details would be nice. Typically rockets attempt to minimize spinning components and, thus, are not nearly as good electricity produces as other types of engines that have spinning components as a fundamental part of their design (ICEs, Diesels, etc.).
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Also, they mention that usually waste water plants try and limit NO2 and methane production by pumping air into the waste water.
The benefits of this approach:
1.) It reduces power needs substantially by removing the requirement to pump air.
2.) It removes more nitrogen from the water in the process.(Hooray for not killing our oceans!)
3.) The thruster can be as small as a basketball and handle all of the gas generated.
You really should just read TFA; it's short, informative, and to the point.
Urine is the body's way of disposing of excess nitrogen: Urea (one of the components of Urine) has the chemical formula: (NH_2)_2CO.
Thus, there's plenty of nitrogen in the 'other organic materials' in waste water. Not every hydrocarbon is exclusively hydrogen and carbon - other elements can be present too.