Holy moly, this is huge. For 2L azeotropic in 12 hours at 5000W, that comes out to 32g/kWh. The professional process makes 61g/kWh. So that's really impressive.
@@andreasthealchemist9446 This is just as cool as joining NurdRage on his OTC sodium process without glassware destruction and his chem synth on Pyrimethamine This, Applied Science, Hyugens Optics - absolutely amazing stuff. Sub'd.
@@f4grxsebastien483 He could probably get easy wins on that cooling system. Right now, the power supply with the black heat sink fans on them all have the fins oriented 90 degrees off. Just physically changing the placement will give him a free win. If he wound the magnet into a toroidal coil, he could control the plasma swirl flow path. Or he could use a cheap polypropylene,polyethylene or PTFE computer fan and modulate the flow that way. Replace the wires with RG178 coax which has a ground and a shield (I think...). The ball bearings usually are encased so you should be fine. The most interesting part, for me, would be to fully characterize everything. Put a mag flow sensor on the pump for water flow, along with a VFD drive or pressure reducing valve or what have you. I'd put mass flow sensors and thermocouples at each stage, too. Then replace the power supplies with SMU's and have a schmick setup. (Maybe just get some precision Vishay 4-wire resistors and an instrumentation amp, but you need something super accurate to instrument the I-V settings, especially during plasma dissociation). Then crack open a Process Control textbook and get ready to have some fun tuning! But the fact that he's generating O_3,NOX and probably a lot of other junk that's being off-gassed (from the tubing and such, at the PPM or PPB level) means there are certainly gains to make. In fact, most of the stages are mass-spec compatible, so he could likely pick up some (really bulky, but accurate) old HP gear from a uni and bypass the mass flow sensor necessity.
Yeah twice the power consumption but no natural gas input cost or the need for a full haber Bosch process to made NH3 and then oxidise it over a catalyst to make the NO2, I agree very impressive (as a professional chemical engineer). We’ll done good luck in your commercialisation phase!
This thing is incredible!! Truly an industrial scale nitric acid production machine.... Thank you for sharing with us....also thank you for the great ideas at the end. Truly time saving for those of us actually contemplating building a similar machine...
This is how farmers are gonna have to clandestinely make fertilizer in barns now that the nitrogen regulations are coming in. They'll need a heck of a lot of cheap ground mounted solar
There OTHER ways like nitrogen fixer plants. We have subterranean clover here in Australia which does that well. But there's a bunch of others. Another one they do here because of the local chicken industry and that's buy truck fulls of manure and run a rotary hoe on a tractor to put it in the soil. The place stinks for a week.
Very well designed set up. 50% yield is quite impressive for a homebuild unit. However, you can certainly improve the yield by doing what commercial producers are doing. As is, you're loosing a huge part of your NOx by venting the "surplus" outside. This should have been turned into nitric acid too! Not even commercial plants can convert all NO2 into HNO3 in just one pass through water, therefore in such plants the gas is recirculated through the water absober several times, thus substantially improving the yield of nitric acid. If you can't recirculate the NO2 while running the unit, you can instead collect it in a gas back and later recirculate it a few more times. Several manufacturers in Germany make gas bags for specific purposes; i.e. resistance to different types of gasses. Another way to improve your yield is to oxidize the hot gas leaving the arc chamber by adding either air, or far better a small continous addition of oxygen enriched air. The gas leaving the arc chamber consists of NO and NO2. The NO must be oxygenated into NO2 before entering the water absorption column. Again German manufacturers make excellent membrane filters for seperating air into nitrogen and oxygen. You'll need a small compressor as filtration of common air into individual components requires a pressure of between 5 to 10 bar. These two gasses can be stored unpressurized in respective gas bags; or, if more advanced, be cryo-cooled to liquid form for storage in high pressure gas bottles. With those two additional improvements your yield will likely be over 90%. It's worth noting that commercial producers don't just bubble the NO2 through a water column. They spray water into it in order to create a full contact surface between water and NO2. This might be a little complicated in a homebuilt unit, but installing an electric driven high speed mixer in the water column would further enhance your yield by establishing a better contact between NO2 and water. With all these improvements your yield will increase; perhaps even close to 100%.
Hello! Thank you for this information. Actually I made some experiments by injecting some O3 before the scrubber columns. I did not see a significan increase in yield. But maybe I should have added an additional chamber to give the O3 more time to react the NO to NO2, N2O4 and N2O5 etc.. Using membrans and recirculate is for sure a good way to go.
@superdream58 - You can't liquify O2 or N2 merely by compressing them; long before you have enough pressure, they enter the *supercritical phase.* The only way that works is cooling them to very low temperatures while keeping some pressure on them. That is usually accomplished by compressing them to around 300 bar, cooling back to ambient, then gradually expanding the compressed gas in a regenerative deLeval tube.
@@YodaWhat. Yes, I know most gasses must be cryo-cooled to liquify. English is not my native tongue and my comment has been corrected. When using my air separator filter I just make in situ what I need for a specific chemical reaction. No need to store gases under pressure; gas bags are adequate for such a purpose. The only gas I pressurize is from my anaerobic digester. The raw biogas is lead through a chamber capturing the poisonous H2S, from which elementary sulfur is recovered to be used for making SO2 and free sulphuric acid. The desulfurized biogas is then pumped through the air separator membrane filter to remove the CO2. The filtered gas, consisting mostly of pure Methane, is compressed using a homemade high pressure compressor, and stored in gas bottles. Later a lesser part of it is used for my gas torch, but the majority of it is consumed by my large gas burner when heating up the 130 liter stainless steel cooking pot when doing chemical reactions; like recovering lead from 8 tons of crystal glass. Currently I have no use for the CO2, it's just a biproduct generated when filtrating the biogas. However, it's collected in a gas bag and then slowly released inside my greenhouse to enhance the growth of vegetables. When using my air separator membrane filter I rarely use all the Nitrogen; only part of it as an inert gas for purging oxygen out from the reaction vessels in my pyrolysis units. The purpose of pressure filtration of air is primarily to get Oxygen for chemical processes and for calcining. I wonder if this N2 can be used to make Nitric Acid?
@@zero-waste > I wonder if this N2 can be used to make Nitric Acid? < Yes, but a lot of electrical energy is required. There are several videos which go into it. Air does not have the idea ratio of O2/N2, so some adjustment there would help. *Likely more profitable:* get ammonia from the breakdown of urea in urine, then oxidize it partially. Your systems for getting methane, compressing it, and other things sound interesting. Do you make videos of all that? If not, I encourage you to do so, and to upload the English version of your scripts as well, so more people can understand by turning on the Closed Captions.
Wow I have been thinking about building something like this but no ware near as fancy lol. I love the skill and disciplines in different trades you use to put this together you are truly a brilliant man. I myself am a welder and machinist by trade and an electronics and chemistry hobbyist so I love your videos please keep them coming!
This is incredibly impressive. I’d be very interested in talking to you about your design if you’d be willing. With a dedicated oxidation chamber following your cooling column, you could seriously get in the range of industry.
@@prakharmishra3000 Show me your degree in chemical process engineering. There's some nitric acid produced in every thunderstorm. See the Birkeland-Eyde Industrial process (patent 1903)... and probably experimented with well before that.
You can use your waste heat to run the distillation process. Also in your bubbling tube, if you fill it with spiral prismatic packing, or bubble trays, you should be able to increase the contact and reaction area of the NOx/water.
5mm*3kv/mm should be 15kv breakdown at the igniter. Each microwave transformer (MT) should be ~4kv peak-to-peak so if you tied 2 MT outputs in series (center tapped ground) with parallel inputs from mains you should reach 8kvpp then you could treat this module as a single transformer and do the same to reach 16kv while maintaining only 4kv across the individual transformer. Ensure everything's in phase and submerged in oil. Then you wouldn't need the HV flyback or inverter (full-bridge) circuit which could substantially reduce the cost. Did you try this? If so, what issues did you have?
In india one can buy a sack of 45 kilos of urea for like 3.60 us dollars. I wonder if we can use urea to make something besides causing eutrophication.
Micro bubbles may be formed by placing an airstone bubbler inside a tube and pumping water through the tube. Water will have to speed up to get around the airstone bubbler. The speed of the water creates a venturi like effect with a local low pressure at the surface and rips tiny air bubbles off the airstone that latter collaps under pressure when there is no more ventri effect turning the bubbles into mkcro and micron sized bubbles that stay submerged far far far longer. have a much greater surface area to volume ratio ensuring greater gas adsorption. The airstone would be even better and more resistant if it were porous graphite like used in graphite air bearing.
@@djdrack4681hrm, I don't know. I'm not sure of the similarities. One uses the ventrie effect with fluid flow causing a low pressure zone. While the other uses surface irregularities to prevent encourage a phase change and avoid superheated bumping in the fluid. One tries to put a gass into a fluid and the other phase changes a fluid into a gas.
Hello. Very nice ! Microwave transformer overheating : No ! Why are they overheating ? It’s because for copper and iron savings they are very saturated (understand made way too small as should) and this drives to huge losses in iron and in copper. 2 solutions : 1/ take a strong and good transformer and wind it yourself a higher voltage coil (just more winding, on a big transformer voltage grows quickly) 2/ use the microwave transformer in serial. 2 transformer in serial will draw only 20 watts at no load and can be kept turn on overnight. (Primary in serial, and secondary in serial too, so 2 times more transformer and same output but efficient transforming)
@Andreas Staudinger - Your server power supplies are already generating high frequency, high power at 300 to 400 volts and likely 100 kHz or more, which they feed into ferrite transformers to reduce the voltage and up the amps. It seems like you could just tap off the high voltage side of those internal transformers and feed it into your own step-up transformer, skipping the entire difficulty and cost of the full bridge. Did you consider that? If so, was there some other issue?
Nice winter time project. Heat your lab over winter while make enough nitric acid to last a year. or scale the lab production up to use all the nitric acid made while heating it over the winter. 😊
That's right. Hydrogen peroxide 12% should be enough. I wouldn't advise higher concentrations because of the inflammability AND the explosion hazard! In that trajectory, you could also place a series of Erlenmeyer flasks, with caps with a two-hole lid on them. One hole for supply of HNO3 gas by means of a tube coming out below the liquid level (distilled water with or without H2O2), and the other hole serving as an outlet with a tube and a hose to connect to a next erlemeyer flask. This way, the nitric acid gets more contact with the water. The result is a decreasing concentration in the successive erlenmeyer flasks. You can also use a reverse gas scrubber, but this requires air pressure. Under not too high pressure, you then feed the HNO3 gas into a vertical tube filled with marbles (to enlarge the contact area), for example. The higher the tube, the more nitric acid will be absorbed. The liquid in the tube is circulated using a small pump that sprays the liquid back over the contents of the tube at the top. All this is easy to make DIY using a transparent polycarbonate tube. If you fit a tap at the bottom, you can easily drain the product when it reaches the right concentration. Just an idea.
@@djdrack4681 this process is an obscenely energy intensive method for producing nitrate salts. Doing it from urea where literal tons of water would have to be evaporated first makes it even worse.
@@Grak70true...but in 3rd world, where you're basically punching trees to build a house: any option may be better than no option. Also, remember a desert is good for one thing, evaporating the hell out of liquids passively.
Johnny was a chemist Johnny is no more what Johnny thought was H2O was H2SO4 This has nothing to do with your deal here but it was funner than hell to type. Enjoy.
I learned a slightly different version: Johnny was a chemist But Johnny is no more For what he thought was H2O Was H2SO4. All the lines have 6 syllables except the 3rd - which can be made that way by dropping the "For". 😛
Lovely system. I love the refinement of the arc ignition and magnetic capturing system. Did you build it mostly for fun with a side effect of having a nice supply of HNO3, or do you have no good source of HNO3 because of legal reasons? I've been thinking about building a setup like this too, but a lot smaller. So i can nitrate a piece of cotton on occasion just for fun.
Well, when I started to build the first version, I could not buy HNO3. Meanwhile I can buy it legaly... So I build the second version just for finishing the project and to see if I can bring it to work.
I would congratulate you on your achievement but it has already been done. Instead, I will congratulate you for it's beauty ! :) It's neat and tidy. Just by looking at it I can alreay appreciate the man who made it. I'd love to someday do something similar to make NH3 (hence my nickname).
Wait, you grow through a full bridge, then go through a transformer? Is it a half-bridge rather than a full bridge? The transformer requires alternating current to induce the "wave" from the primary to the secondary winding. The full bridge eliminates the ("flattening") the AC power into DC. DC will go through an inductor but not a transformer. You lose me when you go to the power supply output (the two power supplies generating 96 volts at 3,000 watts) (do these output DC? Do you mean already rectified? Then why would you need the rectification afterward? If you are going into a switching GBT to make pulsed DC at 50 Hz as you stated it seems like you started with 50 Hz 220 volts before you even entered the power supplies. Basically a lot of messing around just to get back to less voltage to enter the transformer to step up the power to "high-voltage" to create the plasma.
12:50 Why are your radiators perpendicular to the flow of air? You should have the fins of your heat sinks in parallel to the direction of the movement of air.
I think I could get a 7,200 volt 60hz service from my electrical company, and eliminate the need for the microwave transformers. Do you get better efficiency with dc? Or is it for the Lorentz force magnets? The Wikipedia on the original commercial reactors says they were ac. Also, wouldn't it require less energy for distillation if the hot gas stream were just mixed with steam or a fine spray of water such that it could react at around 120° and simply condense at azeotropic concentration?
I appreciate your innovation. I have a question: Is it practical to skip the step with water and apply the nitric acid directly to liquid or gassious methane in order to produce Nitromethane? Nitromethane is expensive compared to regular petrol products. I am looking for a way to mass produce Nitromethane from methane and I wonder if all the steps are necessary. Good luck with your channel.
Why didn't you use a 1 or 2 million volt TESLA COIL!? You can achieve the same effect with a Tesla Coil by consuming 1 KW of energy! Oh, of course, I forgot, you cannot go beyond the boundaries of today's scientific world!
To improve your yield you should consider two facts. First: NO does not easily react with Oxygen. In commercial reactors the hot NO leaving the arc chamber is only partially cooled. The oxidation chamber holds a temperature between 150 C to 400 C depending on the plants' set up. Second: Even in the best constructed absorption chamber where fully oxygenated NOx is sprayed with a mist of water to create full contact between the two, far from all NOx becomes Nitric Acid; several passes through the water absorber are required. Further, when NOx reacts with water a lesser part of it actually converts itself back to NO! This is why it is so important to recirculate the created NO and the remaining unreacted NOx to the oxidation chamber, thus achieving a near 100 % conversion to HNO3.
Thanks! this concept is doable but requires much more parts. On an industrial scale I would build it as suggested, for an hobbyist scale to get enough HNO3 to work with it is not neccesary in my opinion.
Highly informative! I viewed initially on my phone but will view again on big screen so that I can see in more detail. Have you considered using a neon sign transformer to produce the high voltage? While crude and not nearly as cool as your high frequency solution it would be orders of magnitude less expensive.
Hello, yes I have initially considered using neon singn transformers - however you want an arc that burns as hot as possible. Neon sign transformers usually come with 100-250W per unit - with this wattage you can't burn a arc hot enough to make you happy with the NO2 yield at the end of the day. In my opinion it is the best to build or buy a large ferrit core HV transformer and a full bridge. I did not spend more than 450€ for the entire full bridge - however it did cost significant amounts of time till it was running as it should.
@@andreasstaudinger2313- Your server power supplies are already generating high frequency, high power at 300 to 400 volts and likely 100 kHz or more, which they feed into ferrite transformers to reduce the voltage and up the amps. It seems like you could just tap off the high voltage side of those internal transformers and feed it into your own step-up transformer, skipping the entire difficulty and cost of the full bridge. Did you consider that? If so, was there some other issue?
plz make a detailed pdf on how to construct this machine and where to get the parts etc. the stupid eu regulation is preventing me from getting nitric acid strogner than 3%
Not only preventing you from getting it. Owning anything over 3% as a privat citizen can get you massive fines or even up to three years of jail if I understand correctly.
It would be interesting to see how much energy can be saved distilling a first batch with heat from the second batch. Or maybe you may forgo seperate cooling and have 5 bubble columns. bubble the hot gases strait into water column with another 4 trailing water colums to collect condensates and unreacted gasses. The first column will be highest concentrate and radiate most of the heat and subsequent columns may eventually be cycled into the one before it. You might be able to achieve near continouse operation, excepting the down time to cycle fluids from one bubble column to the one closer to the hot gas bubbler.
Have you ever thought of spraying the water in the gas chamber you can recirculate the water in the column end continue spraying it through the gas chamber until all or most the nitrogen dioxide is absorbed. I say this because I seen that this was done years ago to make sulfuric acid. Just an idea? Beautiful work sir. Highest marks. AAAA+++++🤗🤓🥂
Really impressive! A masterpiece of chemical process engineering into the home kitchen! One question....it's technically possible to built a reactor that convert natural gas (CH4) into methanol?
I can never get straight what people are actually talking about when they say "plasma." It seems that there is a significant difference between a high voltage arc and a true ionized plasma. (ua-cam.com/video/vZ9taMGHm58/v-deo.html&ab_channel=GrischaKahlen) Here is a link to what is essentially an amazingly overpowered plasma torch. To get a sustained plasma in air, it is not straightforward. From what I have gathered, to get ignition in a plasma cutter the tip of the electrode has a nugget of Hafnium attached (apparently its more willing to give up electrons). The obvious problem with generating a true plasma is how extremely hot it is. You would have to be blowing an incredible amount of air through the thing with a very aggressive water cooling strategy to keep the whole thing from becoming a puddle of slag.
Roger that, I can never seem to get some of these concepts straight, everyone is kind of speaking their own language. Thanks for the reply. @@urgot-bo1lz
Why don't you scrounge an old medical oxygen concentrator and add that to the gas stream in the absorbing column? Then instead of a huge and wasteful brown cloud in a barrel, you'll increase your yield.
@@buggsy5 no it seem about right, the pipes, aluminium extrusions, water pumps air pumps, rods etc are all the cheap stuff, the expensive things were the electronics and time.
Your machine consumes 5 kW for 12 hours to produce 2 liters of acid. If we do the math, it would give us that 30 kWh are consumed for each liter of acid produced. According to the Birkeland-Eyde method, which is over 100 years old, his process consumed 15 kWh for every liter of acid produced. Tell me what is wrong in my calculations or if the information I have is incorrect, but as I stated above, your machine consumes twice as much as the Birkeland-Eyde process. I hope that what he has done is just a prototype that the planes continue to improve. I appreciate your work.
According your data I assume that you get initially a 6% HNO3 solution, so to boil it dow costs also time and energy and you are still limited to the 68%. Maybe it might be an interesting path to ozonize the N2O4 further to N2O5 which can easily be dissolved in water and you can make nitric acid in any desired concentration without further absorption losses. In respect of the scale of your device a relative powerful ozonisator is needed. If a small scale ozonizer only is available, there come up the need of storing the created N2O4 as liquid in a pressure tank. If it‘s dry, stainless steel will work. Then its easier to control the flow for the further oxidation with ozone. Years ago I did a try in very small scale and the reaction of NOx with O3 in oxygen is quite fast. I mixed the gases in a rbf in a warm water bath. The colour of the NOx disappears nearly instantaneous. To deal with the NOx amounts created by this apparatus needs some extra effort for an efficient O3 production. O2 concentrator, because high oxygen concentrations give high ozone yields and also the dryness of the oxygen contributes to the yield. Good cooling is a must not to loose too much ozone until its in the reaction chamber. Also a good miture of ozone and NOx is needed. This can be done with a small diy venturi glass nozzle…..maybe its worth to consider this pathway, what do you think?
Das Kochen von den 20 Liter dauert recht lange - der Titel ist daher nicht ganz korrekt... Wenn ich das Runterkochen mit hineinrechne, müsste der Titel "2 liter 68% HNO3 in 24 hours" heißen... Die Idee mit dem N2O5 + H2O = HNO3 ist eine gute Idee. Ich hatte vor Jahren einen großen Ozongenerator gebaut (etwa 500g pro Stunde). Ich hatte in dem System ein großes Problem mit dem generierten N2O5, da es mein Endprodukt kontaminiert hatte. Selbst wenn ich technischen Sauerstoff verwendet hatte wurde etwas N2O5 generiert. Ich hatte das Problem damals auch mit Gaswaschsäulen gelöst um das Zeug weg zu filtern. Das N2O5 war ein oranges Pulver, welches das Wasser in den Säulen auch orange gefärbt hatte - nach etlichen Stunden hat das N2O5 jedoch zu HNO3 reagiert. Um so etwas zu machen wird man 2 Generatoren benötigen: a) NOX Generator (sehr heißes Plasma) b) Ozongenerator (möglichst kühle Corona Entladung + trockene Luft) und vermutlich eine große Reaktionskammer...
@@andreasthealchemist9446 Ja, für gute Ozonkonzentration ist möglichst reiner Sauerstoff vorallem trocken wichtig. Ich hab mir dazu aber einen medizinischen Sauerstoffkonzentrator auf Willhaben besorgt, die 95% die der schafft reichen gut. Das orange Pulver von dem du schreibst ist sicher kein N2O5, hab jetzt auch keine Idee was das sein soll, aber grundsätzlich würde ich das sofort nach der Entstehung mit Wasser zu Salpetersäure umsetzen, da das Anhydrid nicht stabil ist und rel. schnell wieder zerfällt, ca. 10-20min. Bei Raumtemperatur, daher muss das nach der Entstehung sofort ausgefroren werden, bei ca -70 ist es haltbar, oder eben schnell in Wasser lösen, das geht auch verdammt schnell und quantitativ. Achtung es entsteht da ordentlich Lösungswärme. Ich glaube, das das auch im Heimlabor beherrschbar ist wenn man weiß was die Knackpunkte sind. Ich bin davon überzeugt, das man ein Gerät bauen kann, das völlig automatisiert ohne Destillation aus Luft und Strom und Wasser 98% ige HNO3 machen kann, mit vernünftiger Anschlussleistung und mehr als 20-30g pro Tag brauchst eh nicht, wenn das vollautomatisch geht, dann brauch ich auch nicht so viel Power im Lichtbogen verbraten,dami auch weniger kühlen, ausser du heizt im Winter dein Haus damit. Dein Plasmabrenner ist beeindruckend und da waren sicher viele Details zu beherrschen um 5kW über Stunden in einem Lichtbogen zu beherrschen, ist aber über 100 Jahre alte Technik und da is nix mehr zu holen. Wennst Lust auf etwas Forschungsarbeit hast, dann könnten wir da aus meiner Sicht ordentlich was verbessern, ich würde als NOx Reaktor auf Kaltplasma setzen, sobald es mir die Zeit erlaubt nehme ich das in Angriff, wenn ich jemand hätte der da mit Ideen und Diskussionen mitwirken möchte wäre das sehr willkommen. Wie du an meinem traurigen Funken Video gesehen hast arbeite ich gerade daran mir ein entsprechendes Hochspannungs Netzgerät zu bauen, das im Bereich von 13-25kHz arbeitet. das ist das zentrale Teil der Anlage um eben Kaltplasma mit entsprechendem Volumen zu erzeugen.
@@andreasthealchemist9446 There was another early approach to ozone generation (late 1800s early 1900s) that essentially consisted of electrolysis of 10% aq. H2SO4 using either platinum ribbon anode or lead dioxide anode and high current density (massive, up to 80 A/cm^2 at 7.5 V) and water-cooling of the anode (Pt ribbon embedded in glass tube, one side exposed to the anolyte) and ice/water cooling of the anolyte. Anolyte and catholyte were the same (cathode was lead btw), simple glasswool was used as cell divider. Typical ozone concentration generated at the anode was 10-15%, but could be made as high as ~20%. Another interesting approach from those days uses AC superimposed on DC, apparently this increases the yield of ozone well above what can be produced using DC alone. An experimental run superimposed an AC of 6 amps upon a DC of 25 amps and current density of 33 A/dm^2. Check "The manufacture of chemicals by electrolysis" by Arthur J. Hale and the references therein. Ozone generated this way should be free of nitrogen oxides, as the oxygen is generated from acidic water.
Great job. I have a question if you don't mind, I am on 220v mains power, if I wire the primary coils of 2 identical MOT transformers in series which would mean 110v on each MOT, and wire the secondary coils in parallel to effectively double my output current. Then further cool them in Transformer oil. Will they be able to run continuously. Will I run into a problem in this configuration? I'm hoping the cores will not be saturated this way and current should be limited
The post plasma hot air tube is copper? Aside from maybe cost, or to quickly dissipate heat, is there a reason why you chose copper over using a stainless steel tube, like say car break fluid line?
try using fridge air compressor or air compressors to supply it with air. it will drop the loudness down by 99%. this is a beautiful unit. good project sir
Since you are using microwave oven transformers, why not use microwave energy by itself to make your plasma? The plasma fireballs in a microwave oven can get very hot making visible reddish smoke of nitrogen oxides. Also a post treatment with ozone would convert the gas to N2O5. Then react this with oxygen water mist from a fine atomizer array.
Regarding microwave plasma. There are a lot of drawbacks - here are the 2 biggest ones: 1) Possible leakage of microwaves in a self made system 2) Magnetrons are not buildt to run 24/7 heating plasma
NO - the reason is to bypass the low frequency power supplys (MOT) the HV HF would destory it otherwise. I used a system with two power supplys to pump more energy in the arc
the magnets are to make the plasma a flat disc for optimal surface area, the preheating, i do not know but it is probably to increase efficiency as the air wouldnt need to get heated as much in the plasma chamber
you spelled guide wrong in the pop text shown in the first 20 seconds. also forgot the space between how & to. im guessing it a was rushed or late at night edit?
"Why does the arc rise" three reasons. 1) Air flowing up. 2) Boyancy, heat rises. 3) when current is fed through the electrodes from below? current in the arc pushes against the magnetic fields generated from the current in the inner and outer electrodes, exactly the same as in a rail gun. It's just that the current is substantially reduced from what you'd see in a magnetic rail gun.
@@andreasthealchemist9446 yup. As you said, airflow and boyancy. My third point was that their is a rail gun effect where current and its resulting magbetic fiekds create a railgun like effect that pushes the on the current path. 😁
Super Aufbau! Liebevoll gemacht. Output aus meiner Sicht relativ hoch dafür das man keinen besonderen Aufwand für die Nachoxidation von NO zu NO2 sieht (keine großen Volumina sichtbar wo diese Oxidation stattfinden könnte, ebenso keine aufwände Absorptionskolonne (Scrubber) sichtbar. Da wäre sicher mehr herauszuholen. Nachoxidationszeit unter Normalbedingungen sind laut Literatur ca. 30 sec. bei deinen geschätzten Luftdurchsatz brauchst einen orderntlichen "Ballon" zur Nachoxidation. Keine Ahnung, ob du mit dem aktuellen Status schon zufrieden bist, oder noch weiter an einer Verbesserung interessiert bist (vorallem die Energiekosten senken) ich hätte da schon einige Ideen. Wenn du möchtest können wir gerne mailen. Wenn ja, dann lass ich dir meine Mail zukommen. LG
Servus Michael! Ich denke auch, dass man da noch einiges herausholen kann. Allerdings brauche ich etwa 1 Liter HNO3 im Monat - das ist nicht sonderlich viel, daher werde ich einstweilen das Projekt so lassen wie es ist. Deine Infos sind mir trotzdem sehr willkommen :-) Das mit den 30 Sekunden Nachoxidationszeit ist eine gute Info - ich wusste zwar, dass es zur Nachoxidation von NO kommt - jedoch hatte ich keine Ahnung wie lange diese ist.
@@andreasthealchemist9446 was noch wichtig in dem Zusammenhang ist, ist der % Anteil von NO2 bzw N2O4 im Abgas, der bestimmt nämlich in gewissen Grenzen die erreichbare HNO3 Konzentration in der Absorptionskolonne. Da gibt es nämlich ein Gleichgewicht das sich einstellt und mit zb nur 3% NOx Gehalt kannst du nur eine gewisse Konzentration HNO3 erreichen, da hilft auch kein längeres Durchgasen. Daher ist ein initial hoher NOx Gehalt wichtig um weniger Aufwand bei der Aufkonzentrierung zu haben. Grundsätzlich kannst du deinen NOx Anteil erhöhen, wenn die Speiseluft für den Plasmateil trocken ist, also durch einen Trockenzylinder mit Silikagel leiten, das du wieder regenerieren kannst durch ausheizen. Bei deinem geschätzen Luftverbrauch wird das schon ein ordentliches Teil sein…. Ca. 10cm Durchmesser und 120cm lang. Wenn du mit deinem Setup eh zufrieden bist, vermute ich du hast keine Lust da noch weitere Schritte zu gehen, aber ich schreib gerne was aus meiner Sicht interessant wäre und bin für Feedback dankbar, weil die Anzahl der Leute mit denen ich das Thema besprechen kann überschaubar ist. So wie du dein Maschinchen beschreibst, vermute ich das du auch größere Verluste in der Absorptionskolonne hast. Vermutlich leitest du die Abgase in eine Waschflasche mit NaOH oder dergleichen um wenigsten Nitrat/Nitrit zu gewinnen? Wenn du schon eine so große Plasmakammer gebaut hast, dann würde ich versuchen das NOx in einem selbst gebauten Druckbehälter zu speichern damit du bei der Weiteroxidation mehr Freiheiten hast. Wenn du die Luft gut vortrocknest und auch trockene Luft für die Nachoxidation verwendest, dann ist auch das NOx hinreichend trocken um in einem Edelstahltank gelagert zu werden. Der braucht keine hohe Druckfestigkeit zu haben weil N2O4 siedet bei ca 21Grad. Brauchst halt noch einen alten Gefrierschrank um N2O4 zu kondensieren am besten gleich im gekühlten Druckbehälter. Danach kannst du wie gewohnt in Wasser absorbieren, aber du kannst jetzt weine wesentlich höhere Gaskonzentration fahren und erreichst auch ohne Destillation eine wesentlich höher konzentrierte Säure. Um die doch recht aufwändige und Platzintensive Absorber Kaskade kommst nicht herum. Daher würde ich dann den Schritt weitergehen und nochmal einen weiteren Apparativen Aufwand in Kauf nehmen und einen Ozonisator bauen (hab auf meinem Kanal noch einen Link wo einer beschrieben ist, der von der Leistungsfähigkeit zu deiner Anlage passen würde) dann brauchst noch eine Mischkammer und Nadelventile und wieder eine Kühlfalle fürs N2O5 oder du leitest das in Wasser und es entsteht direkt HNO3 die sich so beliebig bis 100% aufkonzentrieren lässt…. Wenn man sowas braucht. Wenn i ch mir deine Anlage ansehe und wie du Sachen verarbeitest, dann liegt das Beschriebene absolut im Bereich deiner Möglichkeiten.
@@Telectronics hi, N2O4 siedet so um die 21°C, das bedetet der Dampfdruck erreicht da Umgebungsdruck. Wenn du das in einem 10bar geprüften Druckbehälter lagerst braucht es keinen Kühlschrank. Ich hab jetzt nicht die Dampfdruckkurve gegoogelt, aber da kann man dann rauslesen welche Temperatur notwendig ist um 10 bar Dampfdruck zu generieren. Wenn du N2O4 mit reinem O2 und der berechneten Menge Wasser im Autoklaven (O2 Druck ca. 50bar einwirken lässt, kannst du auch hochkonzentrierte HNO3 herstellen. Nachtrag: hab dir einen Wert rausgesucht, bei 50°C hast du einen Dampfdruck von 3,4 bar, also ein 10 bar Druckbehälter ist vollkommen ausreichend. Hinsichtlich korrosionsfestigkeit solltest du dir schon ein geignetes Material aussuchen. Wichtig in dem Zusammenhang ist natürlich, dass das N2O4 möglichst trocken ist.
I couldn't make it after watching the video, please can you make a playlist or pdf or publish the diagram (so that there are all the details in it and how to do it and where to buy the equipment) on the internet,please?
I hope you will spare your time and create a playlist for us that contains some videos that explain how we make this device, because I need it. I hope it will be soon, please.@@andreasthealchemist9446
@@andreasthealchemist9446 If you would reconsider, I would pay for a copy of such construction plans. Schematics/diagrams, parts lists, etc. If you would consider open sourcing those, I'd still be willing to pay, and you might even get help maintaining the documents. A user manual might be a good idea, so I don't electrocute or gas myself.
Holy moly, this is huge. For 2L azeotropic in 12 hours at 5000W, that comes out to 32g/kWh. The professional process makes 61g/kWh. So that's really impressive.
Thanks for this info - I was not aware that the professional process makes 61g/kwh.
@@andreasthealchemist9446 This is just as cool as joining NurdRage on his OTC sodium process without glassware destruction and his chem synth on Pyrimethamine
This, Applied Science, Hyugens Optics - absolutely amazing stuff. Sub'd.
Seeing the amount of no2 rejected outside I guess one or more additional wash bottles would increase efficiency even more.
@@f4grxsebastien483 He could probably get easy wins on that cooling system. Right now, the power supply with the black heat sink fans on them all have the fins oriented 90 degrees off. Just physically changing the placement will give him a free win.
If he wound the magnet into a toroidal coil, he could control the plasma swirl flow path. Or he could use a cheap polypropylene,polyethylene or PTFE computer fan and modulate the flow that way. Replace the wires with RG178 coax which has a ground and a shield (I think...). The ball bearings usually are encased so you should be fine.
The most interesting part, for me, would be to fully characterize everything. Put a mag flow sensor on the pump for water flow, along with a VFD drive or pressure reducing valve or what have you. I'd put mass flow sensors and thermocouples at each stage, too. Then replace the power supplies with SMU's and have a schmick setup. (Maybe just get some precision Vishay 4-wire resistors and an instrumentation amp, but you need something super accurate to instrument the I-V settings, especially during plasma dissociation). Then crack open a Process Control textbook and get ready to have some fun tuning!
But the fact that he's generating O_3,NOX and probably a lot of other junk that's being off-gassed (from the tubing and such, at the PPM or PPB level) means there are certainly gains to make. In fact, most of the stages are mass-spec compatible, so he could likely pick up some (really bulky, but accurate) old HP gear from a uni and bypass the mass flow sensor necessity.
Yeah twice the power consumption but no natural gas input cost or the need for a full haber Bosch process to made NH3 and then oxidise it over a catalyst to make the NO2, I agree very impressive (as a professional chemical engineer). We’ll done good luck in your commercialisation phase!
This thing is incredible!! Truly an industrial scale nitric acid production machine.... Thank you for sharing with us....also thank you for the great ideas at the end. Truly time saving for those of us actually contemplating building a similar machine...
This is how farmers are gonna have to clandestinely make fertilizer in barns now that the nitrogen regulations are coming in. They'll need a heck of a lot of cheap ground mounted solar
The regulations are coming for a reason, I like having drinkable tap water
Fortunately, the ground is getting too hot to grow plants and they'll have to put the plants in more shade.
There OTHER ways like nitrogen fixer plants. We have subterranean clover here in Australia which does that well. But there's a bunch of others. Another one they do here because of the local chicken industry and that's buy truck fulls of manure and run a rotary hoe on a tractor to put it in the soil. The place stinks for a week.
Very well designed set up. 50% yield is quite impressive for a homebuild unit.
However, you can certainly improve the yield by doing what commercial producers are doing. As is, you're loosing a huge part of your NOx by venting the "surplus" outside. This should have been turned into nitric acid too! Not even commercial plants can convert all NO2 into HNO3 in just one pass through water, therefore in such plants the gas is recirculated through the water absober several times, thus substantially improving the yield of nitric acid.
If you can't recirculate the NO2 while running the unit, you can instead collect it in a gas back and later recirculate it a few more times. Several manufacturers in Germany make gas bags for specific purposes; i.e. resistance to different types of gasses.
Another way to improve your yield is to oxidize the hot gas leaving the arc chamber by adding either air, or far better a small continous addition of oxygen enriched air. The gas leaving the arc chamber consists of NO and NO2. The NO must be oxygenated into NO2 before entering the water absorption column. Again German manufacturers make excellent membrane filters for seperating air into nitrogen and oxygen. You'll need a small compressor as filtration of common air into individual components requires a pressure of between 5 to 10 bar. These two gasses can be stored unpressurized in respective gas bags; or, if more advanced, be cryo-cooled to liquid form for storage in high pressure gas bottles.
With those two additional improvements your yield will likely be over 90%.
It's worth noting that commercial producers don't just bubble the NO2 through a water column. They spray water into it in order to create a full contact surface between water and NO2. This might be a little complicated in a homebuilt unit, but installing an electric driven high speed mixer in the water column would further enhance your yield by establishing a better contact between NO2 and water.
With all these improvements your yield will increase; perhaps even close to 100%.
Hello! Thank you for this information.
Actually I made some experiments by injecting some O3 before the scrubber columns. I did not see a significan increase in yield. But maybe I should have added an additional chamber to give the O3 more time to react the NO to NO2, N2O4 and N2O5 etc..
Using membrans and recirculate is for sure a good way to go.
@superdream58 - You can't liquify O2 or N2 merely by compressing them; long before you have enough pressure, they enter the *supercritical phase.* The only way that works is cooling them to very low temperatures while keeping some pressure on them. That is usually accomplished by compressing them to around 300 bar, cooling back to ambient, then gradually expanding the compressed gas in a regenerative deLeval tube.
@@YodaWhat. Yes, I know most gasses must be cryo-cooled to liquify. English is not my native tongue and my comment has been corrected.
When using my air separator filter I just make in situ what I need for a specific chemical reaction. No need to store gases under pressure; gas bags are adequate for such a purpose.
The only gas I pressurize is from my anaerobic digester. The raw biogas is lead through a chamber capturing the poisonous H2S, from which elementary sulfur is recovered to be used for making SO2 and free sulphuric acid. The desulfurized biogas is then pumped through the air separator membrane filter to remove the CO2. The filtered gas, consisting mostly of pure Methane, is compressed using a homemade high pressure compressor, and stored in gas bottles. Later a lesser part of it is used for my gas torch, but the majority of it is consumed by my large gas burner when heating up the 130 liter stainless steel cooking pot when doing chemical reactions; like recovering lead from 8 tons of crystal glass.
Currently I have no use for the CO2, it's just a biproduct generated when filtrating the biogas. However, it's collected in a gas bag and then slowly released inside my greenhouse to enhance the growth of vegetables.
When using my air separator membrane filter I rarely use all the Nitrogen; only part of it as an inert gas for purging oxygen out from the reaction vessels in my pyrolysis units. The purpose of pressure filtration of air is primarily to get Oxygen for chemical processes and for calcining. I wonder if this N2 can be used to make Nitric Acid?
@@zero-waste > I wonder if this N2 can be used to make Nitric Acid? < Yes, but a lot of electrical energy is required. There are several videos which go into it. Air does not have the idea ratio of O2/N2, so some adjustment there would help. *Likely more profitable:* get ammonia from the breakdown of urea in urine, then oxidize it partially. Your systems for getting methane, compressing it, and other things sound interesting. Do you make videos of all that? If not, I encourage you to do so, and to upload the English version of your scripts as well, so more people can understand by turning on the Closed Captions.
@@zero-waste It's impressive. You're the chemical MacGyver.
Wow I have been thinking about building something like this but no ware near as fancy lol. I love the skill and disciplines in different trades you use to put this together you are truly a brilliant man. I myself am a welder and machinist by trade and an electronics and chemistry hobbyist so I love your videos please keep them coming!
This is incredibly impressive. I’d be very interested in talking to you about your design if you’d be willing. With a dedicated oxidation chamber following your cooling column, you could seriously get in the range of industry.
Oh hey man weird running into you in this abyss here on UA-cam. Small world! Quite an upgrade from the tri-neck 1L round bottom flask reactor.
Ridiculously naive.
?@@willthecat3861
@@willthecat3861 show us your hno3 generator
@@prakharmishra3000 Show me your degree in chemical process engineering. There's some nitric acid produced in every thunderstorm. See the Birkeland-Eyde Industrial process (patent 1903)... and probably experimented with well before that.
You can use your waste heat to run the distillation process.
Also in your bubbling tube, if you fill it with spiral prismatic packing, or bubble trays, you should be able to increase the contact and reaction area of the NOx/water.
5mm*3kv/mm should be 15kv breakdown at the igniter. Each microwave transformer (MT) should be ~4kv peak-to-peak so if you tied 2 MT outputs in series (center tapped ground) with parallel inputs from mains you should reach 8kvpp then you could treat this module as a single transformer and do the same to reach 16kv while maintaining only 4kv across the individual transformer. Ensure everything's in phase and submerged in oil.
Then you wouldn't need the HV flyback or inverter (full-bridge) circuit which could substantially reduce the cost. Did you try this? If so, what issues did you have?
I can build 32Kv or even 64Kv or there is a limit (insulation problems exculded)?
Just make a better transformer than those MOTs
Stunning. Most of us will keep dreaming about having the skills required to build such a thing.
In india one can buy a sack of 45 kilos of urea for like 3.60 us dollars.
I wonder if we can use urea to make something besides causing eutrophication.
@@nhilistickomrad4259 you make make ethylenediamine
Micro bubbles may be formed by placing an airstone bubbler inside a tube and pumping water through the tube. Water will have to speed up to get around the airstone bubbler. The speed of the water creates a venturi like effect with a local low pressure at the surface and rips tiny air bubbles off the airstone that latter collaps under pressure when there is no more ventri effect turning the bubbles into mkcro and micron sized bubbles that stay submerged far far far longer. have a much greater surface area to volume ratio ensuring greater gas adsorption. The airstone would be even better and more resistant if it were porous graphite like used in graphite air bearing.
sounds like a similar approach to using glass beads or other 'mass' in fractionating distillation?
@@djdrack4681hrm, I don't know. I'm not sure of the similarities. One uses the ventrie effect with fluid flow causing a low pressure zone. While the other uses surface irregularities to prevent encourage a phase change and avoid superheated bumping in the fluid. One tries to put a gass into a fluid and the other phase changes a fluid into a gas.
Hello. Very nice ! Microwave transformer overheating :
No !
Why are they overheating ? It’s because for copper and iron savings they are very saturated (understand made way too small as should) and this drives to huge losses in iron and in copper.
2 solutions :
1/ take a strong and good transformer and wind it yourself a higher voltage coil (just more winding, on a big transformer voltage grows quickly)
2/ use the microwave transformer in serial. 2 transformer in serial will draw only 20 watts at no load and can be kept turn on overnight. (Primary in serial, and secondary in serial too, so 2 times more transformer and same output but efficient transforming)
@Andreas Staudinger - Your server power supplies are already generating high frequency, high power at 300 to 400 volts and likely 100 kHz or more, which they feed into ferrite transformers to reduce the voltage and up the amps. It seems like you could just tap off the high voltage side of those internal transformers and feed it into your own step-up transformer, skipping the entire difficulty and cost of the full bridge. Did you consider that? If so, was there some other issue?
I watched the rest of the video and i got my answer, sorry for bothering with that question.
Nice winter time project. Heat your lab over winter while make enough nitric acid to last a year. or scale the lab production up to use all the nitric acid made while heating it over the winter. 😊
i’ve heard the addition of a peroxide to the bubbling solution can help increase yield by catching monoxides. really impressive design
Could be - I thaught about adding Ozone...
That's right. Hydrogen peroxide 12% should be enough. I wouldn't advise higher concentrations because of the inflammability AND the explosion hazard!
In that trajectory, you could also place a series of Erlenmeyer flasks, with caps with a two-hole lid on them. One hole for supply of HNO3 gas by means of a tube coming out below the liquid level (distilled water with or without H2O2), and the other hole serving as an outlet with a tube and a hose to connect to a next erlemeyer flask. This way, the nitric acid gets more contact with the water. The result is a decreasing concentration in the successive erlenmeyer flasks.
You can also use a reverse gas scrubber, but this requires air pressure. Under not too high pressure, you then feed the HNO3 gas into a vertical tube filled with marbles (to enlarge the contact area), for example. The higher the tube, the more nitric acid will be absorbed. The liquid in the tube is circulated using a small pump that sprays the liquid back over the contents of the tube at the top. All this is easy to make DIY using a transparent polycarbonate tube. If you fit a tap at the bottom, you can easily drain the product when it reaches the right concentration.
Just an idea.
Can you make fertilizer from this?
Yes
You could build portable ones for the third world combined with solar panels to produce nitrates for fertilizers. Great job !
Very interesting
Would need a source of ammonia. Haber-Bosch is expensive.
@@Grak70already provided: ammonia from urine.
@@djdrack4681 this process is an obscenely energy intensive method for producing nitrate salts. Doing it from urea where literal tons of water would have to be evaporated first makes it even worse.
@@Grak70true...but in 3rd world, where you're basically punching trees to build a house: any option may be better than no option.
Also, remember a desert is good for one thing, evaporating the hell out of liquids passively.
Have you tried bubbling the NO2 through hydrogen peroxide instead of just distilled water?
You make so many Fulminates with that bad boy.... lol
The running costs(=cost per 1l hno3) are very respectable! Good job.
Johnny was a chemist
Johnny is no more
what Johnny thought was H2O
was H2SO4
This has nothing to do with your deal here but it was funner than hell to type. Enjoy.
I learned a slightly different version:
Johnny was a chemist
But Johnny is no more
For what he thought was H2O
Was H2SO4.
All the lines have 6 syllables except the 3rd - which can be made that way by dropping the "For".
😛
I have never seen anyone make a better one than you. 31g/kWh is insane. Btw where did you find that beatifull transformer?
I made the transformer myself
Lovely system. I love the refinement of the arc ignition and magnetic capturing system. Did you build it mostly for fun with a side effect of having a nice supply of HNO3, or do you have no good source of HNO3 because of legal reasons?
I've been thinking about building a setup like this too, but a lot smaller. So i can nitrate a piece of cotton on occasion just for fun.
Well, when I started to build the first version, I could not buy HNO3. Meanwhile I can buy it legaly...
So I build the second version just for finishing the project and to see if I can bring it to work.
I would congratulate you on your achievement but it has already been done. Instead, I will congratulate you for it's beauty ! :)
It's neat and tidy. Just by looking at it I can alreay appreciate the man who made it.
I'd love to someday do something similar to make NH3 (hence my nickname).
thank you :-)
impressive how much €€€€€€€? 5KW, so requires 3 phase hook-up. 12x5000=60 KWh, so around 15 euro per liter.
You could have just burnt air and bubbled it through Hydrogen peroxide 👍
Those overhead capacitors looke like they can open a portal to Xen.
It's OK, as long as the portal is sealed with the "Elder Sign."
I don't fully understand your 2 stage power supply; why can't you generate all the voltage from the HF IGBT stage and ferrite transformer?
Wait, you grow through a full bridge, then go through a transformer? Is it a half-bridge rather than a full bridge? The transformer requires alternating current to induce the "wave" from the primary to the secondary winding. The full bridge eliminates the ("flattening") the AC power into DC. DC will go through an inductor but not a transformer. You lose me when you go to the power supply output (the two power supplies generating 96 volts at 3,000 watts) (do these output DC? Do you mean already rectified? Then why would you need the rectification afterward? If you are going into a switching GBT to make pulsed DC at 50 Hz as you stated it seems like you started with 50 Hz 220 volts before you even entered the power supplies. Basically a lot of messing around just to get back to less voltage to enter the transformer to step up the power to "high-voltage" to create the plasma.
12:50 Why are your radiators perpendicular to the flow of air?
You should have the fins of your heat sinks in parallel to the direction of the movement of air.
Correct.
I think I could get a 7,200 volt 60hz service from my electrical company, and eliminate the need for the microwave transformers. Do you get better efficiency with dc? Or is it for the Lorentz force magnets? The Wikipedia on the original commercial reactors says they were ac. Also, wouldn't it require less energy for distillation if the hot gas stream were just mixed with steam or a fine spray of water such that it could react at around 120° and simply condense at azeotropic concentration?
Great job, I wish you were around to help me
I really need to find a friend who's an electrical engineer, this setup is awesome. Very impressive!
I appreciate your innovation. I have a question: Is it practical to skip the step with water and apply the nitric acid directly to liquid or gassious methane in order to produce Nitromethane? Nitromethane is expensive compared to regular petrol products. I am looking for a way to mass produce Nitromethane from methane and I wonder if all the steps are necessary. Good luck with your channel.
Nice Work! . Do u got any Schematics for the High Voltage High Frequency PS?
Yes, this is needed to understand what you are doing.
Alter such dir ne Freundin!
13:20 I would immerse the transformers in a pure silicone oil and then flow the oil through a normal radiator to keep the temperature stable.
Yep, in other projects I am doing it like this. Here I was a bit lazy to mess around with such a setup.
Hahaha this is great!
Is that a video about birkeland-eyde process?
for some reason i thought this would be relatively simple
So , its concept comes from the theory on a thunderbolt creates NOx.
Please take better precautions with the electronics, they look far too exposed
I would love to see how you designed and built the full bridge converter.
Actually I do plan a video on the full bridge - when time permits I will make it.
@@andreasthealchemist9446 I look forward to it!
@@andreasthealchemist9446 Please do.
If the arc is localized only at the top of the inner electrode, why are the electrodes so tall?
Can I get schematics of circuit or diagram
Fantastic effort
really love it
and i love germany
Austria :-)
Do you run the chamber at high pressure?
This is beyond me.
Super! Thank you very much!
Its alternate Sam Hyde that chose chemistry
Why didn't you use a 1 or 2 million volt TESLA COIL!? You can achieve the same effect with a Tesla Coil by consuming 1 KW of energy! Oh, of course, I forgot, you cannot go beyond the boundaries of today's scientific world!
its because he needs a hot arc
Can we convert liquid nitrogen to nitric acid
To improve your yield you should consider two facts. First: NO does not easily react with Oxygen. In commercial reactors the hot NO leaving the arc chamber is only partially cooled. The oxidation chamber holds a temperature between 150 C to 400 C depending on the plants' set up.
Second: Even in the best constructed absorption chamber where fully oxygenated NOx is sprayed with a mist of water to create full contact between the two, far from all NOx becomes Nitric Acid; several passes through the water absorber are required. Further, when NOx reacts with water a lesser part of it actually converts itself back to NO!
This is why it is so important to recirculate the created NO and the remaining unreacted NOx to the oxidation chamber, thus achieving a near 100 % conversion to HNO3.
Thanks! this concept is doable but requires much more parts. On an industrial scale I would build it as suggested, for an hobbyist scale to get enough HNO3 to work with it is not neccesary in my opinion.
This guy gets to stay on survivor island
Highly informative! I viewed initially on my phone but will view again on big screen so that I can see in more detail.
Have you considered using a neon sign transformer to produce the high voltage? While crude and not nearly as cool as your high frequency solution it would be orders of magnitude less expensive.
Hello, yes I have initially considered using neon singn transformers - however you want an arc that burns as hot as possible. Neon sign transformers usually come with 100-250W per unit - with this wattage you can't burn a arc hot enough to make you happy with the NO2 yield at the end of the day.
In my opinion it is the best to build or buy a large ferrit core HV transformer and a full bridge.
I did not spend more than 450€ for the entire full bridge - however it did cost significant amounts of time till it was running as it should.
@@andreasstaudinger2313- Your server power supplies are already generating high frequency, high power at 300 to 400 volts and likely 100 kHz or more, which they feed into ferrite transformers to reduce the voltage and up the amps. It seems like you could just tap off the high voltage side of those internal transformers and feed it into your own step-up transformer, skipping the entire difficulty and cost of the full bridge. Did you consider that? If so, was there some other issue?
plz make a detailed pdf on how to construct this machine and where to get the parts etc. the stupid eu regulation is preventing me from getting nitric acid strogner than 3%
Hi, agree about the stupid EU regulations!
Maybe I make a video of the full bridge in the future if time permits me.
Not only preventing you from getting it. Owning anything over 3% as a privat citizen can get you massive fines or even up to three years of jail if I understand correctly.
Why not dissolve waste in water
It would be interesting to see how much energy can be saved distilling a first batch with heat from the second batch.
Or maybe you may forgo seperate cooling and have 5 bubble columns. bubble the hot gases strait into water column with another 4 trailing water colums to collect condensates and unreacted gasses. The first column will be highest concentrate and radiate most of the heat and subsequent columns may eventually be cycled into the one before it. You might be able to achieve near continouse operation, excepting the down time to cycle fluids from one bubble column to the one closer to the hot gas bubbler.
Yep there is a lot that can be done to make it more energy efficient.
Would it be helpful to charge some extra oxygen to "correct" skewed up N2:O2 in air?
possibly yes - but this would also put more stress on the plasma chamber
Really impressive work! hat's off to you, that's some professional engineering work right there.
Really love this video! A nice piece of device!
Have you ever thought of spraying the water in the gas chamber you can recirculate the water in the column end continue spraying it through the gas chamber until all or most the nitrogen dioxide is absorbed. I say this because I seen that this was done years ago to make sulfuric acid. Just an idea? Beautiful work sir. Highest marks. AAAA+++++🤗🤓🥂
Cooooool, great work. Hats off
Really impressive! A masterpiece of chemical process engineering into the home kitchen! One question....it's technically possible to built a reactor that convert natural gas (CH4) into methanol?
Pyramids?
I can never get straight what people are actually talking about when they say "plasma." It seems that there is a significant difference between a high voltage arc and a true ionized plasma. (ua-cam.com/video/vZ9taMGHm58/v-deo.html&ab_channel=GrischaKahlen) Here is a link to what is essentially an amazingly overpowered plasma torch. To get a sustained plasma in air, it is not straightforward. From what I have gathered, to get ignition in a plasma cutter the tip of the electrode has a nugget of Hafnium attached (apparently its more willing to give up electrons). The obvious problem with generating a true plasma is how extremely hot it is. You would have to be blowing an incredible amount of air through the thing with a very aggressive water cooling strategy to keep the whole thing from becoming a puddle of slag.
Plasma is just arc surrounded by powerful magnets.
Roger that, I can never seem to get some of these concepts straight, everyone is kind of speaking their own language. Thanks for the reply. @@urgot-bo1lz
this is super cool!
Why don't you scrounge an old medical oxygen concentrator and add that to the gas stream in the absorbing column? Then instead of a huge and wasteful brown cloud in a barrel, you'll increase your yield.
And it cost how much to make this?
I had all the parts in my workshop to build it.
If you buy everything, I guess between 1000 and 2000€
@@andreasthealchemist9446 I think your estimate is an order of magnitude too low.
@@buggsy5 no it seem about right, the pipes, aluminium extrusions, water pumps air pumps, rods etc are all the cheap stuff, the expensive things were the electronics and time.
Your machine consumes 5 kW for 12 hours to produce 2 liters of acid. If we do the math, it would give us that 30 kWh are consumed for each liter of acid produced.
According to the Birkeland-Eyde method, which is over 100 years old, his process consumed 15 kWh for every liter of acid produced.
Tell me what is wrong in my calculations or if the information I have is incorrect, but as I stated above, your machine consumes twice as much as the Birkeland-Eyde process.
I hope that what he has done is just a prototype that the planes continue to improve.
I appreciate your work.
well it doesn't use 500 psi for one thing
According your data I assume that you get initially a 6% HNO3 solution, so to boil it dow costs also time and energy and you are still limited to the 68%. Maybe it might be an interesting path to ozonize the N2O4 further to N2O5 which can easily be dissolved in water and you can make nitric acid in any desired concentration without further absorption losses. In respect of the scale of your device a relative powerful ozonisator is needed. If a small scale ozonizer only is available, there come up the need of storing the created N2O4 as liquid in a pressure tank. If it‘s dry, stainless steel will work. Then its easier to control the flow for the further oxidation with ozone. Years ago I did a try in very small scale and the reaction of NOx with O3 in oxygen is quite fast. I mixed the gases in a rbf in a warm water bath. The colour of the NOx disappears nearly instantaneous. To deal with the NOx amounts created by this apparatus needs some extra effort for an efficient O3 production. O2 concentrator, because high oxygen concentrations give high ozone yields and also the dryness of the oxygen contributes to the yield. Good cooling is a must not to loose too much ozone until its in the reaction chamber. Also a good miture of ozone and NOx is needed. This can be done with a small diy venturi glass nozzle…..maybe its worth to consider this pathway, what do you think?
Das Kochen von den 20 Liter dauert recht lange - der Titel ist daher nicht ganz korrekt... Wenn ich das Runterkochen mit hineinrechne, müsste der Titel "2 liter 68% HNO3 in 24 hours" heißen...
Die Idee mit dem N2O5 + H2O = HNO3 ist eine gute Idee.
Ich hatte vor Jahren einen großen Ozongenerator gebaut (etwa 500g pro Stunde). Ich hatte in dem System ein großes Problem mit dem generierten N2O5, da es mein Endprodukt kontaminiert hatte. Selbst wenn ich technischen Sauerstoff verwendet hatte wurde etwas N2O5 generiert. Ich hatte das Problem damals auch mit Gaswaschsäulen gelöst um das Zeug weg zu filtern.
Das N2O5 war ein oranges Pulver, welches das Wasser in den Säulen auch orange gefärbt hatte - nach etlichen Stunden hat das N2O5 jedoch zu HNO3 reagiert.
Um so etwas zu machen wird man 2 Generatoren benötigen:
a) NOX Generator (sehr heißes Plasma)
b) Ozongenerator (möglichst kühle Corona Entladung + trockene Luft)
und vermutlich eine große Reaktionskammer...
@@andreasthealchemist9446 Ja, für gute Ozonkonzentration ist möglichst reiner Sauerstoff vorallem trocken wichtig.
Ich hab mir dazu aber einen medizinischen Sauerstoffkonzentrator auf Willhaben besorgt, die 95% die der schafft reichen gut. Das orange Pulver von dem du schreibst ist sicher kein N2O5, hab jetzt auch keine Idee was das sein soll, aber grundsätzlich würde ich das sofort nach der Entstehung mit Wasser zu Salpetersäure umsetzen, da das Anhydrid nicht stabil ist und rel. schnell wieder zerfällt, ca. 10-20min. Bei Raumtemperatur, daher muss das nach der Entstehung sofort ausgefroren werden, bei ca -70 ist es haltbar, oder eben schnell in Wasser lösen, das geht auch verdammt schnell und quantitativ. Achtung es entsteht da ordentlich Lösungswärme. Ich glaube, das das auch im Heimlabor beherrschbar ist wenn man weiß was die Knackpunkte sind. Ich bin davon überzeugt, das man ein Gerät bauen kann, das völlig automatisiert ohne Destillation aus Luft und Strom und Wasser 98% ige HNO3 machen kann, mit vernünftiger Anschlussleistung und mehr als 20-30g pro Tag brauchst eh nicht, wenn das vollautomatisch geht, dann brauch ich auch nicht so viel Power im Lichtbogen verbraten,dami auch weniger kühlen, ausser du heizt im Winter dein Haus damit.
Dein Plasmabrenner ist beeindruckend und da waren sicher viele Details zu beherrschen um 5kW über Stunden in einem Lichtbogen zu beherrschen, ist aber über 100 Jahre alte Technik und da is nix mehr zu holen. Wennst Lust auf etwas Forschungsarbeit hast, dann könnten wir da aus meiner Sicht ordentlich was verbessern, ich würde als NOx Reaktor auf Kaltplasma setzen, sobald es mir die Zeit erlaubt nehme ich das in Angriff, wenn ich jemand hätte der da mit Ideen und Diskussionen mitwirken möchte wäre das sehr willkommen. Wie du an meinem traurigen Funken Video gesehen hast arbeite ich gerade daran mir ein entsprechendes Hochspannungs Netzgerät zu bauen, das im Bereich von 13-25kHz arbeitet. das ist das zentrale Teil der Anlage um eben Kaltplasma mit entsprechendem Volumen zu erzeugen.
@@andreasthealchemist9446 There was another early approach to ozone generation (late 1800s early 1900s) that essentially consisted of electrolysis of 10% aq. H2SO4 using either platinum ribbon anode or lead dioxide anode and high current density (massive, up to 80 A/cm^2 at 7.5 V) and water-cooling of the anode (Pt ribbon embedded in glass tube, one side exposed to the anolyte) and ice/water cooling of the anolyte. Anolyte and catholyte were the same (cathode was lead btw), simple glasswool was used as cell divider. Typical ozone concentration generated at the anode was 10-15%, but could be made as high as ~20%. Another interesting approach from those days uses AC superimposed on DC, apparently this increases the yield of ozone well above what can be produced using DC alone. An experimental run superimposed an AC of 6 amps upon a DC of 25 amps and current density of 33 A/dm^2. Check "The manufacture of chemicals by electrolysis" by Arthur J. Hale and the references therein. Ozone generated this way should be free of nitrogen oxides, as the oxygen is generated from acidic water.
This is art. Amazing job.
Is natural air the best gas mix for the process? However much nitrogen you ionise there is too little oxygen to react.
This is an impressive bit of multi-discipline engineering! This puts mine to shame lol. Well done Sir!
Whee that's complicated and expensive to run! I will just buy the small amount I need.
Plasma oxidation of nitrogen; much straight forward than the oxidation of ammonium.
The water equalizing tube is called an accumulator
Great job. I have a question if you don't mind, I am on 220v mains power, if I wire the primary coils of 2 identical MOT transformers in series which would mean 110v on each MOT, and wire the secondary coils in parallel to effectively double my output current. Then further cool them in Transformer oil. Will they be able to run continuously. Will I run into a problem in this configuration? I'm hoping the cores will not be saturated this way and current should be limited
This is really cool, how small can you scale it. I want the baby version.
the plasma chamber looks to me a bit like a massively scaled up tig torch
The post plasma hot air tube is copper? Aside from maybe cost, or to quickly dissipate heat, is there a reason why you chose copper over using a stainless steel tube, like say car break fluid line?
I needed to bend the tube - this is easyer done with copper than with stainless steel - and I had it at hand :-)
try using fridge air compressor or air compressors to supply it with air. it will drop the loudness down by 99%. this is a beautiful unit. good project sir
Since you are using microwave oven transformers, why not use microwave energy by itself to make your plasma? The plasma fireballs in a microwave oven can get very hot making visible reddish smoke of nitrogen oxides. Also a post treatment with ozone would convert the gas to N2O5. Then react this with oxygen water mist from a fine atomizer array.
Regarding microwave plasma. There are a lot of drawbacks - here are the 2 biggest ones:
1) Possible leakage of microwaves in a self made system
2) Magnetrons are not buildt to run 24/7 heating plasma
You are a fantastic genius, sir! Very nice work! Please keep going.
@andreas What is the reason u used those ceramic capacitors? Wouldn't the large elco's that are normally combined with microwave transformers?
NO - the reason is to bypass the low frequency power supplys (MOT) the HV HF would destory it otherwise.
I used a system with two power supplys to pump more energy in the arc
I see you did this a year ago, how Is the system now? attempted to make something like this.
the magnets are to make the plasma a flat disc for optimal surface area, the preheating, i do not know but it is probably to increase efficiency as the air wouldnt need to get heated as much in the plasma chamber
The preheating is mainly to prevent condensation in the champer. Compressed air is prone to condense... This is bad for all insulators.
You must put the exhaust tube to a lime solution
Can I buy one from you
Sry - I dont sell it.
you spelled guide wrong in the pop text shown in the first 20 seconds. also forgot the space between how & to.
im guessing it a was rushed or late at night edit?
HAHA you are right, did not notice this.
Timewise all my videos are edited and put online after midnight...
"Why does the arc rise" three reasons. 1) Air flowing up. 2) Boyancy, heat rises. 3) when current is fed through the electrodes from below? current in the arc pushes against the magnetic fields generated from the current in the inner and outer electrodes, exactly the same as in a rail gun. It's just that the current is substantially reduced from what you'd see in a magnetic rail gun.
The air is flowing up and the heat created drags the air and the arc up too.
@@andreasthealchemist9446 yup. As you said, airflow and boyancy. My third point was that their is a rail gun effect where current and its resulting magbetic fiekds create a railgun like effect that pushes the on the current path. 😁
This is magnificent 😦😯💪👍
How much the reactor cost?
Why use mots when you can use crt tv flybacks? Do they run more watts?
The MOTs pumping more energy in the system.
TV flybacks have not enough power.
You have to make your own 3-5kw flyback transformer.
How much volt?
Where did you get the high power ferrite transformer? Great setup!
I made it myself. It is a lot of work to make it. Just bought the big ferrit core in China.
Super Aufbau! Liebevoll gemacht. Output aus meiner Sicht relativ hoch dafür das man keinen besonderen Aufwand für die Nachoxidation von NO zu NO2 sieht (keine großen Volumina sichtbar wo diese Oxidation stattfinden könnte, ebenso keine aufwände Absorptionskolonne (Scrubber) sichtbar. Da wäre sicher mehr herauszuholen. Nachoxidationszeit unter Normalbedingungen sind laut Literatur ca. 30 sec. bei deinen geschätzten Luftdurchsatz brauchst einen orderntlichen "Ballon" zur Nachoxidation. Keine Ahnung, ob du mit dem aktuellen Status schon zufrieden bist, oder noch weiter an einer Verbesserung interessiert bist (vorallem die Energiekosten senken) ich hätte da schon einige Ideen. Wenn du möchtest können wir gerne mailen. Wenn ja, dann lass ich dir meine Mail zukommen. LG
Servus Michael!
Ich denke auch, dass man da noch einiges herausholen kann.
Allerdings brauche ich etwa 1 Liter HNO3 im Monat - das ist nicht sonderlich viel, daher werde ich einstweilen das Projekt so lassen wie es ist.
Deine Infos sind mir trotzdem sehr willkommen :-)
Das mit den 30 Sekunden Nachoxidationszeit ist eine gute Info - ich wusste zwar, dass es zur Nachoxidation von NO kommt - jedoch hatte ich keine Ahnung wie lange diese ist.
@@andreasthealchemist9446 was noch wichtig in dem Zusammenhang ist, ist der % Anteil von NO2 bzw N2O4 im Abgas, der bestimmt nämlich in gewissen Grenzen die erreichbare HNO3 Konzentration in der Absorptionskolonne.
Da gibt es nämlich ein Gleichgewicht das sich einstellt und mit zb nur 3% NOx Gehalt kannst du nur eine gewisse Konzentration HNO3 erreichen, da hilft auch kein längeres Durchgasen. Daher ist ein initial hoher NOx Gehalt wichtig um weniger Aufwand bei der Aufkonzentrierung zu haben. Grundsätzlich kannst du deinen NOx Anteil erhöhen, wenn die Speiseluft für den Plasmateil trocken ist, also durch einen Trockenzylinder mit Silikagel leiten, das du wieder regenerieren kannst durch ausheizen. Bei deinem geschätzen Luftverbrauch wird das schon ein ordentliches Teil sein…. Ca. 10cm Durchmesser und 120cm lang.
Wenn du mit deinem Setup eh zufrieden bist, vermute ich du hast keine Lust da noch weitere Schritte zu gehen, aber ich schreib gerne was aus meiner Sicht interessant wäre und bin für Feedback dankbar, weil die Anzahl der Leute mit denen ich das Thema besprechen kann überschaubar ist. So wie du dein Maschinchen beschreibst, vermute ich das du auch größere Verluste in der Absorptionskolonne hast. Vermutlich leitest du die Abgase in eine Waschflasche mit NaOH oder dergleichen um wenigsten Nitrat/Nitrit zu gewinnen?
Wenn du schon eine so große Plasmakammer gebaut hast, dann würde ich versuchen das NOx in einem selbst gebauten Druckbehälter zu speichern damit du bei der Weiteroxidation mehr Freiheiten hast. Wenn du die Luft gut vortrocknest und auch trockene Luft für die Nachoxidation verwendest, dann ist auch das NOx hinreichend trocken um in einem Edelstahltank gelagert zu werden. Der braucht keine hohe Druckfestigkeit zu haben weil N2O4 siedet bei ca 21Grad. Brauchst halt noch einen alten Gefrierschrank um N2O4 zu kondensieren am besten gleich im gekühlten Druckbehälter. Danach kannst du wie gewohnt in Wasser absorbieren, aber du kannst jetzt weine wesentlich höhere Gaskonzentration fahren und erreichst auch ohne Destillation eine wesentlich höher konzentrierte Säure. Um die doch recht aufwändige und Platzintensive Absorber Kaskade kommst nicht herum.
Daher würde ich dann den Schritt weitergehen und nochmal einen weiteren Apparativen Aufwand in Kauf nehmen und einen Ozonisator bauen (hab auf meinem Kanal noch einen Link wo einer beschrieben ist, der von der Leistungsfähigkeit zu deiner Anlage passen würde) dann brauchst noch eine Mischkammer und Nadelventile und wieder eine Kühlfalle fürs N2O5 oder du leitest das in Wasser und es entsteht direkt HNO3 die sich so beliebig bis 100% aufkonzentrieren lässt…. Wenn man sowas braucht. Wenn i ch mir deine Anlage ansehe und wie du Sachen verarbeitest, dann liegt das Beschriebene absolut im Bereich deiner Möglichkeiten.
@@michaelwonner6067 Hi reichen für das N2O4 maximal 10Bar wenn der Behälter im Kühlschrank ist ?
@@Telectronics hi, N2O4 siedet so um die 21°C, das bedetet der Dampfdruck erreicht da Umgebungsdruck. Wenn du das in einem 10bar geprüften Druckbehälter lagerst braucht es keinen Kühlschrank. Ich hab jetzt nicht die Dampfdruckkurve gegoogelt, aber da kann man dann rauslesen welche Temperatur notwendig ist um 10 bar Dampfdruck zu generieren. Wenn du N2O4 mit reinem O2 und der berechneten Menge Wasser im Autoklaven (O2 Druck ca. 50bar einwirken lässt, kannst du auch hochkonzentrierte HNO3 herstellen.
Nachtrag: hab dir einen Wert rausgesucht, bei 50°C hast du einen Dampfdruck von 3,4 bar, also ein 10 bar Druckbehälter ist vollkommen ausreichend. Hinsichtlich korrosionsfestigkeit solltest du dir schon ein geignetes Material aussuchen. Wichtig in dem Zusammenhang ist natürlich, dass das N2O4 möglichst trocken ist.
@@michaelwonner6067 how will cold trap work?
This is insane
I couldn't make it after watching the video, please can you make a playlist or pdf or publish the diagram (so that there are all the details in it and how to do it and where to buy the equipment) on the internet,please?
Hello, I fear that I lack the time doning this.
I was hoping however that this video will give people a good idea how aproach this project.
I hope you will spare your time and create a playlist for us that contains some videos that explain how we make this device, because I need it. I hope it will be soon, please.@@andreasthealchemist9446
@@andreasthealchemist9446 If you would reconsider, I would pay for a copy of such construction plans. Schematics/diagrams, parts lists, etc. If you would consider open sourcing those, I'd still be willing to pay, and you might even get help maintaining the documents. A user manual might be a good idea, so I don't electrocute or gas myself.