I'd expect that anything that is usefully hypergolic with oxidizers
like LOX or nitrous has to be pyrophoric as well. TEA/TEB will
autoignite in air. Anything that can strip oxygen off liquid nitrous
is probably going to be happy to burn in 21% oxygen gas.
How does a silane leak demolish a building, rather than burning at the
leak location?
I wonder if white phosphorus is hypergolic with nitrous. Also quite
unpleasant and difficult to get. There is the classic chemistry demo
of cooking iron oxalate powder to form extremely fine iron dust that
will ignite in air, I've wondered if it would still burn if mixed with
a fuel. Probably difficult to keep it suspended in a liquid. NaK?
Relatively easy to make, liquid, great density, slightly crazy to work
with.
On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 1:51 PM Jim <jmrosson@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Beware – Silane gas is pyrophoric, I.E. explodes on contact with oxygen. It
is also toxic too.
Silane is nasty, NASTY, stuff; and never recommended for DIY.
Silane stories:
Fill a 2-3” water balloon with silane, and pop the balloon (3 feet away);
sounds like a M-80, and feels like it too. 😉
A single silane cylinder with a leak; removed an entire 1000sqft 2nd story
laboratory, from a top of the building I worked in during late 80’s. This
was a newly built professional chemical/biological lab facility, built as
blocks of self-contained, fully isolated concrete safety boxes for each lab;
surrounded by employee cubicles on outside of lab core. After the
explosion, there was nothing left of the top corner of the building. All of
the adjacent labs were damaged as well. Thankfully, explosion happened
several hours after everyone left for the day; and janitorial staff was
cleaning in another building at time.
Indoor storage of silane gas for semiconductor processing, is generally done
with a solid concrete/steel vault like blast cabinet box with open top to
vent the blast pressure. Bottle change is a scary affair; requiring
nitrogen purge, and proper PPE. One fine day at work: a pallet rack of
silane storage bottles in a cabinet, had a valve leak that blew up. The rain
cover structure for blast cabinet was found in a parking lot ¼ mile away.
The concrete/steel blast box was destroyed and had to be replaced too. Blast
registered on University seismographs 30 miles away.
Most of the liquid silicon derivative’s available are flammable liquids,
reasonably stable with oxygen; and only go boom when heated dramatically
above boiling point and mixed with catalyst. IMHO would be better just using
a known poisonous catalyst instead.
YMMV
Cheers,
Jim
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf
Of Bruno Berger ("bruno.berger")
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2023 11:04 PM
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [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