Well done video. I'm definitely NOT a chemist and your explanation breaks it down so that a lay person can understands the difference in fuels and why nitro with it oxygen content within the fuels works in these vehicles. Similarly, I understand rocket fuel has oxygen within it's component to fuel the burn as there is limited or no oxygen in high attitude or outer space.
Great job Bill! I really appreciate your diagrams and explanations. Makes me wonder why big oil won't supply us a better fuel than gasoline, which has remained unchanged since 1868. But where can we possibly get extra nitrogen and oxygen to formulate with lowely octane? Have to breathe on that for a moment.
That is why in my Harley Davidson motorcycle, in order to realize a great performance boost All's I had to do was add a half teaspoon or 1/2 ounce of nitro methane fuel (no more than that) to a full 5 gallon gas tank of High Octane .....
When you say nitro the first thing that comes to mind for me is nitroglycerin but I don't think these guys would be running down the road with drums of nitro glycerin in their race trailers,so this nitro is still an explosive but it is safe to handle??
Lawrence, you have taken the analogy too far. Explosives are dangerous, and if you don't understand them fully it's best to stay away from the altogether.
@@BillMouldWheels that's why I put question marks because I don't know however I have worked with Dynamite my father had a blasting permit and in my professional career I had several occasions working with explosives
The oxygen present into the molecule is not the factor that explains the power... this is too simplistic. The oxygen has to be available...and not already fixed to an atom with what it forms a stable compound. For example ammonium hydrogenocarbonate contains a lot of oxygen but it is already fixed as water and carbon dioxide. NH4HCO3(s) --> NH3(g) + H2O(g) + CO2 (g) Behind the power of a fuel/explosive... there is the energy of making/formation from its atomic elements (heat of formation or enthalpy of formation) and its energy of combustion (heat of combustion or enthalpy of combustion). The heat of formation is an expression of the chemical bonding energy... if it is positive while building the molecule you store energy into it... some very powerful and unstable explosives and super fuels do display that property (acetylene burning at 3100°C, cyanogen burning at 4500°C and dicyanoacetylen burning at close to 5000°C with oxygen). Most systems are stabler if they loose a bit of energy to make... thus displaying a negative heat of formation. Heat of combustion is negative because combustion set energy free to generate stabler molecules. If the difference between heat of combustion and heat of formation is negative you will get heat from burning... the bigger the number the best (exothermicity). In practice oxygenated explosive display less energy per weight than fuels... but they can burn (deflagrate or detonate) much faster (between 3 and 11 km/s) especially when confined and without additional air from their inner available oxygen... if air or external oxygen is allowed usual fuels display much more energy but this calls for intimate mixing (see fuel air explosives (FAE)). In your table to compare apples with apples... you would need to add oxygen on the left side of your equation for TNT... you would then realize that what you show into your table is simply the oxygen balance. Nitromethane has a better OB than TNT and those than octane. If you must supply oxygen to burn completely to CO2, H2O, N2, SO2,... the OB is negative... if there is exces oxygen present on the right side OB would be positive (ammonium perchlorate, tetranitromethane, etc.) An ideal mix or explosive will display the most energy output when close to zero OB... not overfueled nor overoxygenated... this is then a perfect OB explosive/fuel. For propulsion and engine you must play with the resistance of the machine to heat, pressure and shockwave... you cannot use the more powerful fuels or explosives... you need stable, unsensitive compounds and below the critical mass of detonation into the cylinder. For example CTAP (cyclo tri aceton peroxyde wrongly named TATP) or HNIW (hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane CL-20) will never be usefull for dragster fuel... maybe HNIW with unsensitizers could be used in moderate size rockets but never in space shuttles propulsion. I hope this helps a bit. PHZ (PHILOU Zrealone from Science Madness forum and from Alt. Engr. Explosives newsgroup (A.O.L.))
@@littlelarry2912 What do you mean - what is your question? Compression if it happens fast enough is considered adiabadic (thus with no exchange with the surrounding (motor walls and external system... heat diffusion is slow vs time of compression)... this means the enclosed fuel and air generates heat during compression (by increase of molecular friction and agitation in a tinier volume for the same amount of molecules) that can initiate the decomposition/cracking and oxydation/combustion of the fuel. This process works best when a gas is present due to the bigger compression factor... it works that way for diesel oil motors... it could work also for benzine but being much more flammable... it initiate too early in the compression what is counterproductive...so benzine is driven by a spark gap/plug to start the initiation at the right moment. If it goes about an explosive it is already liquid or solid so compressibility is too low for initiation by compression unless very sensitive explosive or compression is a single event close to a shock wave (hammer blow or detonation wave (from detonator) or electric arc of high energy (thus high voltage and intensity (hot plasma generating)). When it initiates its decomposition (inflamation, deflagration and maybe detonation) the explosive usually display a shockwave front of detonation (pressure wave of several Giga Pascals that heats the fuel to such a heat that molecules breaks to atoms that rearrange into gaseous stabler molecules in the post detonation zone just behind the detonation wave. If the explosive is sensitive enough it doesnt need a lot of confinement and may detonate by self-confinement under its own mass (linked to critical mass, critical diameter or volume of detonation... each depending onto the explosive, the experimental conditions (history, temperature, storage, density, type of confinement container, ...) unsensitive explosive may display quite large critical mass. Sometimes even the ground under it or a corner can be enough to confine a pile... or the walls of a two side opened pipe. If the explosive acheive a detonation wave of 7km/s it is able to cut or heavily dent iron steel by simple contact due to compression wave/action-reaction pressure, heat (above 5000°C),... To avoid motor from breaking appart like a grenade... you need a mass much below the critical mass or a way to dilute/temper the explosive... this is done with smokeless powder by granulation, inhibitor coating, very little gun powder in each bullet casing, a lot of air in the bullet casing... bullet crimped smoothly into the casing to allow smooth delivery/take off of the bullet from the casing and reduce as much as possible the confinement during inflammation...
Well done video. I'm definitely NOT a chemist and your explanation breaks it down so that a lay person can understands the difference in fuels and why nitro with it oxygen content within the fuels works in these vehicles. Similarly, I understand rocket fuel has oxygen within it's component to fuel the burn as there is limited or no oxygen in high attitude or outer space.
Great job Bill! I really appreciate your diagrams and explanations. Makes me wonder why big oil won't supply us a better fuel than gasoline, which has remained unchanged since 1868. But where can we possibly get extra nitrogen and oxygen to formulate with lowely octane? Have to breathe on that for a moment.
Yale chemist for sure. how cool you are on chemistry. Hats off
That is why in my Harley Davidson motorcycle, in order to realize a great performance boost All's I had to do was add a half teaspoon or 1/2 ounce of nitro methane fuel (no more than that) to a full 5 gallon gas tank of High Octane .....
Interesting!
When you say nitro the first thing that comes to mind for me is nitroglycerin but I don't think these guys would be running down the road with drums of nitro glycerin in their race trailers,so this nitro is still an explosive but it is safe to handle??
Lawrence, you have taken the analogy too far. Explosives are dangerous, and if you don't understand them fully it's best to stay away from the altogether.
@@BillMouldWheels that's why I put question marks because I don't know however I have worked with Dynamite my father had a blasting permit and in my professional career I had several occasions working with explosives
The oxygen present into the molecule is not the factor that explains the power... this is too simplistic.
The oxygen has to be available...and not already fixed to an atom with what it forms a stable compound.
For example ammonium hydrogenocarbonate contains a lot of oxygen but it is already fixed as water and carbon dioxide. NH4HCO3(s) --> NH3(g) + H2O(g) + CO2 (g)
Behind the power of a fuel/explosive... there is the energy of making/formation from its atomic elements (heat of formation or enthalpy of formation) and its energy of combustion (heat of combustion or enthalpy of combustion).
The heat of formation is an expression of the chemical bonding energy... if it is positive while building the molecule you store energy into it... some very powerful and unstable explosives and super fuels do display that property (acetylene burning at 3100°C, cyanogen burning at 4500°C and dicyanoacetylen burning at close to 5000°C with oxygen).
Most systems are stabler if they loose a bit of energy to make... thus displaying a negative heat of formation.
Heat of combustion is negative because combustion set energy free to generate stabler molecules.
If the difference between heat of combustion and heat of formation is negative you will get heat from burning... the bigger the number the best (exothermicity).
In practice oxygenated explosive display less energy per weight than fuels... but they can burn (deflagrate or detonate) much faster (between 3 and 11 km/s) especially when confined and without additional air from their inner available oxygen... if air or external oxygen is allowed usual fuels display much more energy but this calls for intimate mixing (see fuel air explosives (FAE)).
In your table to compare apples with apples... you would need to add oxygen on the left side of your equation for TNT... you would then realize that what you show into your table is simply the oxygen balance.
Nitromethane has a better OB than TNT and those than octane.
If you must supply oxygen to burn completely to CO2, H2O, N2, SO2,... the OB is negative... if there is exces oxygen present on the right side OB would be positive (ammonium perchlorate, tetranitromethane, etc.)
An ideal mix or explosive will display the most energy output when close to zero OB... not overfueled nor overoxygenated... this is then a perfect OB explosive/fuel.
For propulsion and engine you must play with the resistance of the machine to heat, pressure and shockwave... you cannot use the more powerful fuels or explosives... you need stable, unsensitive compounds and below the critical mass of detonation into the cylinder.
For example CTAP (cyclo tri aceton peroxyde wrongly named TATP) or HNIW (hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane CL-20) will never be usefull for dragster fuel... maybe HNIW with unsensitizers could be used in moderate size rockets but never in space shuttles propulsion.
I hope this helps a bit.
PHZ (PHILOU Zrealone from Science Madness forum and from Alt. Engr. Explosives newsgroup (A.O.L.))
Compression or pressure ?
@@littlelarry2912
What do you mean - what is your question?
Compression if it happens fast enough is considered adiabadic (thus with no exchange with the surrounding (motor walls and external system... heat diffusion is slow vs time of compression)... this means the enclosed fuel and air generates heat during compression (by increase of molecular friction and agitation in a tinier volume for the same amount of molecules) that can initiate the decomposition/cracking and oxydation/combustion of the fuel. This process works best when a gas is present due to the bigger compression factor... it works that way for diesel oil motors... it could work also for benzine but being much more flammable... it initiate too early in the compression what is counterproductive...so benzine is driven by a spark gap/plug to start the initiation at the right moment.
If it goes about an explosive it is already liquid or solid so compressibility is too low for initiation by compression unless very sensitive explosive or compression is a single event close to a shock wave (hammer blow or detonation wave (from detonator) or electric arc of high energy (thus high voltage and intensity (hot plasma generating)).
When it initiates its decomposition (inflamation, deflagration and maybe detonation) the explosive usually display a shockwave front of detonation (pressure wave of several Giga Pascals that heats the fuel to such a heat that molecules breaks to atoms that rearrange into gaseous stabler molecules in the post detonation zone just behind the detonation wave. If the explosive is sensitive enough it doesnt need a lot of confinement and may detonate by self-confinement under its own mass (linked to critical mass, critical diameter or volume of detonation... each depending onto the explosive, the experimental conditions (history, temperature, storage, density, type of confinement container, ...) unsensitive explosive may display quite large critical mass.
Sometimes even the ground under it or a corner can be enough to confine a pile... or the walls of a two side opened pipe. If the explosive acheive a detonation wave of 7km/s it is able to cut or heavily dent iron steel by simple contact due to compression wave/action-reaction pressure, heat (above 5000°C),...
To avoid motor from breaking appart like a grenade... you need a mass much below the critical mass or a way to dilute/temper the explosive... this is done with smokeless powder by granulation, inhibitor coating, very little gun powder in each bullet casing, a lot of air in the bullet casing... bullet crimped smoothly into the casing to allow smooth delivery/take off of the bullet from the casing and reduce as much as possible the confinement during inflammation...
Dam