I don’t know if Russ Blink still reads the list, but I think he was the
person who mentioned to me that they had tried getting nitrous to thermally
decompose running it through a glowing hot stainless tube and it wouldn’t
do it. If nitrous was more predictable about when it decomposed it would
probably get used more.
Catalysts should make that easier, but it’s rare to see anyone do a
catalytic project and really enjoy it, whether nitrous, peroxide, or
hydrogen. They’re made out of expensive metals by nature and generally
prefer to mechanically fail, deactivate over time, or be ejected with the
reactants. There’s a lot to be said for just lighting things on fire.
Hypergolic nitrous sounds like one of those projects that should be done
just for the weirdness. Ideally just as a starting slug before switching to
something that doesn’t come in tiny expensive bottles.
I will say that you can light nitrous/alcohol biprop with a normal spark
torch igniter, it wasn’t unusually difficult. I would expect a pyro igniter
to work well too. Open your nitrous valves slowly, especially if you hammer
from a pre to run valve, or you’ll end up with supersonic plumbing debris.
On Friday, February 24, 2023, Hagen Hübner <Hagen.Huebner@xxxxxx> wrote:
Bruno,
another path to a (igniter-less) ignition of a motor with N2O as an
oxidizer may be the catalytic decomposition of N2O. However, it looks like
there is still a lot of research to be done: https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.
2514/1.B38204
Hagen
*Gesendet:* Freitag, 24. Februar 2023 um 07:04 Uhr
*Von:* "Bruno Berger" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*An:* arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Betreff:* [AR] Hypergolics with N2O?
Does anybody know about chemicals which are hypergolic with N2O? I know
TEA and TEB are, but that's nasty stuff. Someone told me that Silane (SiH4
and the heavier molecules) may be hypergolic as well. That's also nasty
stuff, but more available that TEA. It might be soluble in conventional
fuels like Ethane/Ethene/Propane etc. But I haven't found much about the
hypergolic behavior...
Cheers Bruno