Discovery of new molecule can lead to more efficient rocket fuel
Trinitramid -- that's the name of the new molecule that may be a component in future rocket fuel. Credit: KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology Sweden
Trinitramid – that's the name of the new molecule that may be a component in future rocket fuel. This fuel could be 20-30 percent more efficient in comparison with the best rocket fuels we have today. The discovery was made at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden.
"A rule of thumb is that for every ten-percent increase in efficiency for rocket fuel, the payload of the rocket can double. What's more, the molecule consists only of nitrogen and oxygen, which would make the rocket fuel environmentally friendly. This is more than can be said of today's solid rocket fuels, which entail the emission of the equivalent of 550 tons of concentrated hydrochloric acid for each launch of the space shuttle," says Tore Brinck, professor of physical chemistry at KTH.
Working with a research team at KTH, he discovered a new molecule in the nitrogen oxide group, which is not something that happens every day. It was while the scientists were studying the breakdown of another compound, using quantum chemistry computations, that they understood that the new molecule could be stable.
"As mentioned, what is specific to this molecule is that it contains only nitrogen and oxygen. Only eight such compounds were previously known, and most of them were discovered back in the 18th century. This is also clearly the largest of the nitrogen oxides. Its molecular formula is N(NO2)3, and the molecule is similar to a propeller in shape," says Tore Brinck.
The research team, consisting of Martin Rahm and Sergey Dvinshikh as well as Professor Istvan Furó , besides Tore Brinck, has now shown how the molecule can be produced and analyzed. The scientists have also managed to produce enough of the compound in a test tube for it to be detectable.
"It remains to be seen how stable the molecule is in a solid form," says Tore Brinck.
It was during work to find an alternative to today's solid rocket fuel that the researchers found the new molecule. The findings are now being published in the respected journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
More information: http://onlinelibra … 047/abstract
Provided by
Swedish Research Council
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Dec 22, 2010
Rank: 5 / 5 (7)
Dec 22, 2010
Rank: 4.8 / 5 (5)
Hard to imagine 8 times the payload. Wonder what that would mean in terms of cost/lb to orbit.
Dec 22, 2010
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Dec 22, 2010
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weight at launch : 710 - 718 ton
payload LEO : 27 ton
payload GTO : 12 ton
just imagine having 8 times that payload, 216 tons!
thats instant no assembly, batteries included spacestation, spacefactory, nuclear powerplant, NEO miner-faccillity or a behemoth of a spacetelescope in one go that could look into the very infant stages of our universe, even if the payloads could be just doubled or the launch costs slashed by just 30-40 percent many new missions and bussinessmodels (space tourism for the masses) would become in reach, lets hope this molecule could be stabillised outside the lab tube!
Dec 22, 2010
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Dec 22, 2010
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I knew the swedes were good for something. Finally after so many years, they've done something other than take up space in europe.
Dec 22, 2010
Rank: 4 / 5 (7)
Why is it more efficient? The title of the article is misleading since the article doesn't say how this improves rocket fuel.
Article should be called "New stable Nitrogen Oxide Molecule found"
Dec 22, 2010
Rank: 2.2 / 5 (6)
this would allow us to put maneuvarable directed energy weapons in space. Bye Bye North Korean missile crisis. Hell, bye bye anyone's entire navy too. they couldn't so much as pass gas without our permission...
This would allow Lunar and Martian missions for pathetic tiny fraction of the cost.
This would allow deep space probes that carry every manner of instrument imaginable, and have the fuel when they get to the target to actually stop and enter orbit. Recall, the poor New Horizons mission only gets a "fly-by"...
We could launch something 8 times the mass of hubble for the same launch cost, or...launch an entire array of hubble-sized telescopes to the far side of the moon or lagrangian points...
Dec 22, 2010
Rank: 4.3 / 5 (9)
Could this oxidizer double the payload of a next generation shuttle design? Probably. But the man-rated launchers going forward have all learned the space shuttle lessons about large SRBs. (Once lit you can't turn them off. And, of course, joints can be dangerous.)
Dec 22, 2010
Rank: 4.1 / 5 (7)
I mean, anti-matter is a pretty efficient rocket fuel, if only it could be made in quantity...
Dec 22, 2010
Rank: 1.5 / 5 (4)
The amount of chemical energy stored in the molecule is greater per unit mass, while producing daughter products (water adn nitrogen compounds) that behave similar to existing rocket fuel, namely those that burn liquid hydrogen.
Greater energy per mass ratio translates to greater thrust per mass ratio.
It should be pretty elementary to prove that the ideal reaction of this is better than the ideal reaction in solide state rockets. Then you would just model the reactions on a super computer to see how efficiently the extra energy is being converted to thrust.
If the simulations look good, then you make a test model...apparantly, they've already done simulations
Dec 22, 2010
Rank: 4.5 / 5 (2)
Because of the way the rocket formula works, if you can increase energy density (energy per mass,) by just a few percent, then it's worth it even if the fuel costs twice as much to make.
Dec 22, 2010
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Dec 22, 2010
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Dec 22, 2010
Rank: 1.7 / 5 (3)
Our Left hand Brain, which does all the logical thinking, is forced into recursive pathways as it is unable to use information that it does not know to be "true".
It is only once we are out of the gravity well and our situation is experienced that we will be able to accept space living as obvious.
As an illustration the newspapers would not report the Wright Bros. achievements as they knew that flight was impossible.
Air fight is now "obvious" because we have all experienced it. Out of Well living will become obvious in the same way.
It is a boot-strap problem.
Dec 23, 2010
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Increase is 2^x
where
1.1^x = 1.3
Still: That would be pretty good. I'll believe it when I see it (testfired), though.
Dec 23, 2010
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http://www.fastco...tner=rss
Dec 23, 2010
Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
They've now synthesized it, and are studying how stable the molecule is in everyday situations, but they've already discovered that as an additive to solid fuels it could be up to 30% more efficient than existing fuel. Rocket scientists have a rule of thumb that says a 10% increase in rocket fuel burning efficiency translates into a doubling of payload. This means that trinitramid could easily quadruple the payload that solid rockets can fire into space.
Dec 23, 2010
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Dec 23, 2010
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Dec 23, 2010
Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
Dec 23, 2010
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Already on the drawing board. A kinetic energy weapon nicknamed "rods from God". It consists of long rods of tungsten. No explosives needed as the kinetic energy is comparable to small nuke.
Dec 24, 2010
Rank: 1 / 5 (1)
What they need to do, is with this fuel or another, make modular automated factories that can take lunar regolith and process it into fuel. If we can launch 200 tons to a refueling station on the moon, we can really open up the solar system to exploration fast.
Dec 24, 2010
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Dec 24, 2010
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Pointless. For long term flights, i.e. Mars and beyond, the Vasimir engine is already better than that.
With five engines of the The existing model Vasimir, and orbital tow vehicle to the moon can transport payloads much cheaper than conventional rockets.
Additionally, for a trip to mars, Vasimir ends up being cheaper AND faster than a chemical rocket, assuming nuclear power supply.
You'd still need chemical rockets to put the OTV in space, and to transit from earth to OTV or moon to OTV, or vice versa, but the point is it's slow, but extremely fuel efficient. Once you have it in orbit it stays in orbit
Dec 25, 2010
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Dec 25, 2010
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NASA scientists have proven you can get water from Lunar Regolith just by super-heating it. Adn then if you could electrolize the water, you'd have hydrogen and oxygen = rocket fuel.
However, this would require immense amount of solar arrays to do this in a reasonable amount of time. More solar arrays than we could lauch. This requires some form of nano-assemblers that can make at least primitive solar cells from materials available on the moon, as it would be too expensive to launch all this stuff from earth.
The problem with mining from an asteroid right now is you need nuclear power, at least fission, to make that even possible, as they are too far away for solar power to fuel the machinery, and they are so cold that many of our machinery components would shatter or warp under temperature variations.
Dec 27, 2010
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(Edit:) And of course, nitrogen's got that lone pair of electrons...heavens, this thing'd have strained bond angles. I wonder if it could be stored as a gas or in solution, and then rapidly precipitated/deposited for use as a propellant? Alternatively, you could dissolve it in some other liquid explosive, which could stabilize it while still making it possible to decompose or burn it in useful energy densities.