[HN Gopher] Scientists unveil fire-safe fuel
___________________________________________________________________
Scientists unveil fire-safe fuel
Author : geox
Score : 100 points
Date : 2023-09-28 11:40 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.ucr.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.ucr.edu)
| phyzome wrote:
| Researching combustion fuels seems like a little bit of a dead
| end at this point.
|
| (Also, what the fuck, this is a chlorine compound, as perihelions
| points out. WTAF.)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Combustion engines are still the only viable option for long-
| range, large-scale heavier-than-air flight, for marine
| transport (on oceans, and most lakes, rivers, and canals), for
| many mobile power operations ranging from handheld tools to
| remote power generation, and for much overland heavy cargo
| transport (trucks, much rail).
|
| _Some_ of those can be electrified, but there are likely
| always to be exceptions in which that is not possible.
| Electrification is most viable where usage is heavy. Tracked
| vehicles electrify more easily than road-based ones (though
| yes, trolley busses are in fact A Thing). Canal traffic _can_
| be electrified through use of onshore "mules" (electrified
| traction), though passing and overtaking become concerns. River
| and lake traffic is less suited to this (again, possible in
| _cases_ but not _entirety_ ).
|
| High-latitude sites as in Siberia, Alaska, Northern Canada, and
| Antarctica cannot rely on solar power, and would require either
| a fuel-based or nuclear-based generating capacity. (McMurdo
| Station on the Antarctic coast _had_ a nuclear plant, that didn
| 't go so well.)
|
| Mind that not all of these uses have a high demand for low-
| flammability fuels, which applies most specifically to
| aircraft. But all _tend to rely strongly on fuel-based energy
| systems_ , and substituting for those is exceedingly
| challenging. The alternatives are effectively:
|
| - Continue use of fossil-based hydrocarbon fuels.
|
| - Find an alternative non-fossil hydrocarbon fuel analogue.
| There's been interesting work, and commercial industrial
| creation, of synfuels _dating to the 1940s_ , though that was
| coal-to-oil conversion in Germany and South Africa. Generating
| fuels from CO2 sourced from seawater or the atmosphere has been
| researched since the 1970s at M.I.T. and the U.S. Naval
| Research Lab (USNRL), with technical proof but to date no
| commercial success. Google's X Labs attempted commercialisation
| under Project Foghorn, but failed on economics:
| <https://x.company/projects/foghorn/>
|
| (I've reasons to argue that it's the economics of fossil fuels,
| not synfuels, which is principally to blame here.)
|
| (Biofuels are often suggested. The problem here is that the net
| likely capacity is at best a small fraction of present fossil
| fuel usage. We might feed 5--10%, with the upper bound being
| highly optimistic, but we're not going to replace 100% of
| present fossil fuel usage, _let alone the future growth
| required to bring under-developed regions of the world to even
| a small fraction of industrialised nations ' consumption_.
|
| - Substitute non-combustion energy plants. To date that's
| nuclear, which ... has its own challenges. For larger fixed-
| site locations, that's possibly viable, though there are
| numerous cautionary tales to heed. For mobile applications such
| as rail or marine transport, the compounded risks of already
| probable accidents make this highly unattractive.
|
| - Substitute renewables. The prospect of resuming sailing ships
| for international sea cargo is floated, though cost and scale
| of ships would likely be impacted (rising and falling,
| respectively) tremendously.
|
| - Drastically curtail or cease such activities. One of the
| realities of economics is that _as expressed costs change_ , so
| too do activities in which those costs are incurred. The fossil
| fuel age has made transportation unbelievably inexpensive
| compared to pre-industrial times. It's possible that we'll see
| considerable back-sliding on both personal and cargo
| transportation as fuel costs rise. This will of course
| profoundly re-shape the world, in much the way that cheap
| transportation re-shaped in our recent past.
| perihelions wrote:
| If you missed my comment edit, it's a lot less clear than I
| initially thought. Per Derek Lowe's blogpost, the ClO_x species
| supposedly don't migrate into the vapor phase. They're a
| component of the liquid fuel, but wouldn't necessarily end up
| in the exhaust.
|
| - _"...This mixture spontaneously ignites under the
| decomposition conditions, but it does not thermally decompose
| the underlying liquid. Meanwhile, at the anode, the perchlorate
| gets oxidized to chlorate and chlorite ions, but none of that
| shows up in the gas phase. "_
|
| https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/instant-flames-saf...
| amluto wrote:
| None of the credible end products are good, though.
|
| Perchlorate itself is at least somewhat toxic. Chlorate and
| chlorite are, too, and efforts are made to reduce the amount
| in drinking water.
|
| Chloride is relatively innocuous (people need quite a bit to
| be healthy), although it's not great when it gets on metals
| due to corrosion issues. Bit chloride doesn't exist by itself
| -- it needs to be balanced by a positive charge somewhere.
|
| So that leaves HCl? Hydrogen chloride gas is fairly nasty.
|
| The best outcome I can think of for automotive use is to
| carry around a bunch of calcium carbonate, AdBlue style, and
| try to arrange for the end products to be CaCl and CO2, and
| to declare that this is somehow a good thing because the cars
| all emit a steady drip drip drip of deicing fluid.
| perihelions wrote:
| The point is there's supposedly *no* chlorine-containing
| species in the exhaust. They stay behind in the liquid
| phase, in a sort of "catalytic" role.
|
| - _" at the anode, the perchlorate gets oxidized to
| chlorate and chlorite ions, but none of that shows up in
| the gas phase"_
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Terrible for surrounding vegetation though
| iagooar wrote:
| Why do you think that combustion fuels are a dead end?
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| Because the only actual problem in EVs is making a better
| battery. They solve a bunch of other problems. Far fewer
| moving parts, better packaging, massive gains in pure energy
| efficiency, no smog, a direction for Zero emissions. The
| Internal combustion engine, as someone who has owned multiple
| Manual Mazda Miatas, is seeing the end of it's times. It's a
| dead end in almost every situation. Additionally, this has
| none of the gains that are actually desired, they want
| efficiency and less emissions. Not chlorine gas.
|
| Edit: To be clear, I'm talking about Gasoline ICE
| applications in the context of this article, which is far
| more narrow than all of combustion. Most ICE applications
| that are not ground transport are Diesel, which is not
| applicable to this. This is not applicable to jet fuel. Most
| small engines (lawn care) are rapidly being replaced with
| electric power as well.
| vardump wrote:
| > Because the only actual problem in EVS is making a better
| battery.
|
| The only actual problem is making a boatload of current
| batteries. Technology is good enough as it is. Of course
| it'll still improve over time.
| tianreyma wrote:
| > Technology is good enough as it is.
|
| Unless you have to travel long distances regularly, can't
| charge at home, or haul heavy things like a
| boat/camper/trailer/etc
| r00fus wrote:
| Better batteries will improve current uses
| (phones/laptops/cars) but unlock future ones (aircraft,
| naval, satellites).
| carapace wrote:
| > Because the only actual problem in EVS is making a better
| battery.
|
| Well that and tire particulate pollution.
|
| And the bugs that get killed by windshields and grills.
|
| And the people who get killed and maimed by collisions.
|
| And the conversion of useful space to roads and parking
| lots.
|
| And the disposal of the batteries so they don't catch fire.
|
| And getting the raw materials for the batteries without
| messing things up more.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| EV have nothing to do with almost all of the items you
| mentioned and the last two are fully covered under
| 'better battery'. A Gasoline vehicle does the same
| things. I get your point, in urban environments they are
| absolutely relevant and should be pushed for. I fully
| think NYC would be better without cars. In the rural
| areas...they are basically unsolvable in any short term
| less than 30 years. That's just reality.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Minor quibble: because of their increased mass _for an
| equivalent-sized vehicle_ , factors such as tire-wear and
| impact effects _are_ greater for EVs.
|
| That's a fairly minor point relative to the emissions
| picture, which is most significant. But nonzero.
| throwaway167 wrote:
| ~20% of final energy consumption comes from electricity
| [1], that's 80% that doesn't. Electric cars driven by green
| sources whose production create no emissions are a very
| very small part of the global energy mix.
|
| [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/key-world-energy-
| statistics-2021...
| mulmen wrote:
| EVs don't know or care where their electricity comes
| from. You can clean up the grid and EV emissions
| magically improve. This isn't something ICE vehicles can
| do.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Strictly speaking, not quite true.
|
| Fossil-based hydrocarbon fuels could be replaced by non-
| fossil synfuel analogues which are themselves carbon
| neutral. This is based on proved chemistry, though the
| economics to date have not permitted anything but
| experimental and pilot-project scales of operation.
|
| One of the appeals of this route to me, however, is that
| _by introducing equivalent fuels to the extant energy
| system_ it would be possible to convert to a green,
| sustainable energy economy without wholesale replacement
| of extant fleets, powerplants, and energy infrastructure
| for refining, transport, storage, and distribution of
| those fuels. In this sense it 's the exact analogue of
| replacing underlying grid generation and storage
| infrastructure with EVs.
|
| Again, the slight fly in the soup is that neither
| economics nor the necessary scale of operations are
| proven, though the prospect isn't _obviously_
| unattainable, as many other proposed solutions are. (Say:
| biofuels, for which biological capacity simply isn 't
| sufficient.)
| [deleted]
| mulmen wrote:
| This is true but burning hydrocarbons is always going to
| be a dirty business. CO2 isn't the only nasty thing that
| comes out of a tailpipe. Theoretically improvements can
| be made with synthetic hydrocarbon fuels but you're not
| going to collect and resynthesize 100% of tailpipe
| emissions.
|
| With an EV the only harmful emissions are tires and brake
| pads.
|
| Cleaning up the electrical grid is also a lot more
| attainable given current technology than scaling up
| synthetic hydrocarbon production. If a car has an
| estimated lifespan of say 20 years then I am more
| confident in achieving cleaner grid power than I am in
| clean synfuels in that lifetime.
|
| There is also the matter of where you live. Some grids
| are already very clean and so the EVs that operate there
| really are low or even zero tailpipe emission.
|
| I am curious how a synfuel ICE vehicle compares to an EV
| in terms of energy per distance. How much energy does it
| take to synthesize the fuel?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Largely agreed, though let's _also_ note that over the
| long term, the principle concern _is_ CO2 emissions.
|
| Of the secondary emissions of combustion, _most of those
| can be controlled through ensuring the purity of the fuel
| mix_ , and if you're _synthesizing_ the fuel in the first
| place, you can ensure that those components aren 't
| present, notably sulfur and other contaminants.
|
| That still leaves partially-combusted hydrocarbons (where
| fuel burn is too lean and/or cold), NOx emissions (where
| fuel burn is too hot, and the nitrogen comes from the
| atmosphere itself), carbon monoxide (partial combustion,
| again), and ozone. Those can all be _mitigated_ to some
| extent through engine, combustion, and emissions
| controls, though there will always be _some_ pollutants.
|
| My understanding is that the round-trip efficiency of
| electricity-to-fuel synfuels based on seawater-sourced
| carbon is about 50-60% in the fuel synthesis, and about
| 25--30% for the utilisation (Carnot efficiencies are
| again a weak point), for a round-trip of as low as 12.5%
| to a high perhaps of 20%. That is admittedly not great,
| _but_ what you do gain is an extremely energy-dense fuel
| that transports well and stores indefinitely. (Fossil
| fuels themselves are tens to hundreds of _millions_ of
| years old.) Where those characteristics are desireable,
| there 's simply nothing else which provides equivalent
| characteristics.
|
| The fuels are also remarkably non-toxic (contra ammonia),
| non-corrosive (contra methanol), at heavier weights _non-
| flammable_ (ironic in a fuel), certainly non-explosive
| (contra hydrogen). I have a feeling that they 'll be with
| us for some time yet to come.
| tzs wrote:
| Even electric cars driven by non-green electricity are
| massively better than ICE cars from an emissions
| standpoint for at least two reasons:
|
| 1. As non-green electricity sources are replaced by green
| electricity sources, those non-green EVs become green EVs
| with no action required on the part of their owners. To
| switch someone using an ICE to a green car you have to
| get them to buy a new car.
|
| 2. If you have to use a burning fuel power source, you
| can try to capture some of the emissions where the fuel
| is burned to reduce the environmental impact.
|
| If you are burning the fuel in your car, that emissions
| capture has to be done at the car where you are quite
| limited in feasible weight and volume of your emissions
| capture equipment.
|
| If you are burning the fuel in a big power plant and then
| distributing the energy as electricity to EVs you don't
| have weight limits and have much less restrictive size
| limits on your emissions capture equipment.
| vondur wrote:
| Heck, modern natural gas power plants can achieve up to
| 60% efficiency, which is far higher than a internal
| combustion engines. So even if you are charging electric
| vehicles from it, it will still be far more efficient
| than an individual petrol based car.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| That's a brutally flawed thought process.
|
| 1. Electric vehicles use 1/4 or less the energy of
| gasoline vehicles for the same result. If 75% of cars
| were EVs, your angle of cars would be "EVs only use
| 18%!". 2. Just because current state is mostly gas does
| not mean that we do not intend to change this. The
| current limitation is a propagation issue. EV cars for
| example are getting cheaper...but fewer people can own
| new cars anyways, it's going to take time. 3. Heating is
| a major use of energy and much of the world is behind on
| better solutions such as heat pumps.
| throwaway167 wrote:
| Please check the link. It's total global energy
| consumption, of which cars are a very small part of the
| mix, of which electric are most useful at displacing
| pollution from cities to production facilities, not
| reducing it. Just stop driving so much. Replacing use of
| car A for car B doesn't address the underlying problem of
| needing a car, it's like hitting 'favourite' on Facebook
| for a feel good cause and believing you've made a
| difference.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| I checked the link, my point stands and your explanation
| makes basically zero impact on anything here. This
| invention is only applicable to gasoline. Nothing in that
| link is applicable. Additionally, an EV powered by coal
| emits less emissions than a gasoline car. That is a fact,
| additionally, it enables a world where you replace the
| coal plant with zero emission options.
|
| Additionally, while I fully agree with your angle...in a
| city...much of the world does not actually work like
| that. You tell someone in Montana to stop using a car and
| they will ask for you to build a shrink ray. Saying' Stop
| using a car' is exactly the same as hitting like on FB
| for a social cause: It doesn't change reality of people
| needing to be at work, have food, or live life. The world
| isn't a happy imaginary place where 'Oh, just walk/take a
| bike/public transport!' works. It only works if it is
| better than the car. That is true in NYC and SF, that is
| not true between them.
| anon25783 wrote:
| > The Internal combustion engine, as someone who has owned
| multiple Manual Mazda Miatas, is seeing the end of it's
| times.
|
| I _really_ hope you 're right, because the internal
| combustion engine directly causes a substantial portion of
| climate change. It is not so obvious to me that it's on the
| way out, because petroleum companies have a vested interest
| in it.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Petroleum companies and the even bigger oil companies are
| also working hard on diversifying though; the petrol
| companies can (are?) investing in charging
| infrastructure, hydrogen, etc, and the oil magnates are
| buying up and investing in real estate and related
| projects in huge quantities.
| deeviant wrote:
| Working hard... may be overstating it. The thing they are
| working the hardest, for sure, is keeping their money
| fountain (petrochemicals) running as long as possible.
|
| Diversifying or other future thinking, is far down the
| list. (As measured by investment allocations)
| tzs wrote:
| It is also possible that ICE engines will remain but
| burning climate neutral fuel. One of the approaches
| people are working on for carbon capture is to use CO2
| from the atmosphere to make synthetic fossil fuels.
|
| The reason fossil fuels are bad when it comes to climate
| change is that they are taking carbon that was
| sequestered long ago and putting it back into the
| atmosphere. Fossil fuels that are made from carbon
| recently removed from the atmosphere are just putting
| that carbon back, so cause no net change in CO2 levels.
|
| They still have the same problem with putting things like
| sulfur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, and various other
| things into the atmosphere, so it would be best to
| someday move completely away from them, but that is
| massively less urgent than reducing CO2 emissions. They
| don't make those other things worse and could make
| reducing CO2 much less disruptive so would be a win if
| they ever get to the point where they can be produced
| economically in sufficient quantity.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Climate neutral fuel only makes sense for uses, like
| airplanes, where batteries won't work. For one thing,
| synthesized fuels will be expensive. For anything that
| can switch to batteries, it will be much cheaper to use
| electricity. Expensive enough that will have to force
| people to switch and not use fossil fuels. Nobody will
| use synthesized fuels for their car unless it is some
| special classic or sports care.
|
| Hydrogen or ammonia will likely be cheaper to make than
| hydrocarbons and might work for many uses, like airplanes
| and ships, that can't use batteries. Hydrocarbons may be
| only be used for places where can't upgrade.
|
| Synthesized fuels aren't fossil fuels. If you want name,
| say hydrocarbon fuel.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Air transport is different than ground transport in that
| _mass_ matters much more. Therefore, the higher energy
| density your power system has, the better. Last I checked,
| batteries are still far behind fossil fuels here.
|
| From ecological perspective, mid-term, it makes sense to
| use renewable power source and captured carbon to
| _synthesize_ fuel for airplanes to burn. That 's properly
| carbon-neutral, with gasoline being effectively a high-
| density battery in liquid form.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| My angle was entirely on ground transportation issues. As
| for aircraft, this is only really a thought for small
| piston airplanes, which is a minor detail in the grand
| scheme of things and might be solvable with solid state
| batteries. I would also note that engine development in
| private planes is...well..basically stagnant. I don't
| think this has any real application in jet/turbo prop
| aircraft.
| chongli wrote:
| One of the biggest advantages of combustion fuels for
| aircraft is that they lose weight as they're consumed.
| Batteries don't do that, so you're stuck hauling the dead
| weight of all the drained cells for the entire trip.
|
| Airlines optimize to such an extent that they include
| only the fuel needed to reach a destination, including a
| safety margin, so on short-haul flights the tanks are
| mostly empty at takeoff.
|
| I think electric planes could be made to work fairly well
| for those short flights because the batteries could be
| kept small. But for long flights the deadweight is going
| to be a huge problem!
| HansHamster wrote:
| > Airlines optimize to such an extent that they include
| only the fuel needed to reach a destination, including a
| safety margin, so on short-haul flights the tanks are
| mostly empty at takeoff.
|
| And on the other hand, planes on long flights are so
| heavy due to the additional fuel that they can not land
| early without getting rid of the excess weight first or
| risk structural damage or worse.This usually means
| dumping the fuel or burning it off in a holding pattern.
| TylerE wrote:
| And smaller aircraft often have nearly zero useful load
| with full fuel. So if you want to actually carry
| something, you're going to only filling up, say, half
| way. (The reason they do this is to have a useful ferry
| range when empty).
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| You think that all new vehicles will be EV, I think that
| this will be only a temporary hype, and will fade in 10-15
| years or so. Time will tekl
| mlyle wrote:
| Passenger vehicles are not the only use in society of
| combustion.
|
| The edge cases matter. Combustion fuels are going to be
| with us for awhile, even after automobiles and heavy
| industry mostly migrate.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| My angle was informed by the idea that this is only
| really applicable to gasoline fuel. Diesel and Jet fuel
| is not really changed by this. (Jet fuel because
| electrolysis at this scale requires heavy batteries or
| power draw.) To that end, the actual amount of gasoline
| edge cases get really small. Almost all small engines
| (lawn care, etc) are EoL due to better battery options.
| Motorcycles are an interesting use case but this likely
| requires too much electrical power to make sense. Once
| you get past all of that, the actual edge cases are tiny
| and nowhere in this report does it actually cover the
| impacts on efficiency or the fact that it makes chlorine
| gas.
| TylerE wrote:
| Diesel and thus jet fuel, which is mostly the same thing
| minus some variance in additives are both essentially
| kerosene + additives.
|
| Diesel is not very flammable. You can drop a kit match
| into a puddle of diesel and it'll extinguish the match.
|
| The big difference is that unlike gasoline, diesel
| doesn't really vaporize at standard conditions, and it's
| the vapors that are so dangerous - the god old surface
| area effect, the same reason sawdust is much more
| dangerous than a solid hunk of wood.
| mlyle wrote:
| Obviously perchlorate, etc, isn't great. I don't know
| whether this invention will find any use.
|
| Applications of liquid fuels which are remote, in high
| fire-risk environments, don't lend themselves to other
| safety countermeasures during fueling, and don't lend
| themselves to electrification are tiny portions of the
| energy market, but still could be quite noticeable in
| absolute terms.
|
| But that's not why I answered you. I answered in the way
| I did because you responded to a question "why do you
| think combustion fuels are a dead-end?". Even if we take
| the absolute best path for climate and get lucky on some
| aspects of battery and electrification economics, we're
| still going to be burning significant quantities of fuels
| for the next 100 years. They will be markets in
| significant decline, but still huge.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| I did not make the first comment above that so I read it
| a little differently, but the point, in this context,
| stands. Gasoline combustion, in the context of the
| article, is a dead end.
| mlyle wrote:
| The fuel we're talking about isn't a really good gasoline
| alternative, anyways. Gasoline isn't mentioned in the
| article, except as an example of a very volatile, easily
| ignited fuel.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| You're only talking about consumer cars. There will always
| be a range of other vehicles that will benefit from fuel
| better than batteries.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| The only exception of note is private small aircraft.
| Most commercial uses of an engine(Trucks, boats, etc) are
| Diesel, which is not a fire risk. Almost all small
| engines are rapidly being replaced with electric
| powertrains.
| bratbag wrote:
| If that edit is true, then why did you reply to a question
| asking why combustion fuels in general are dead?
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| I replied to comments to add nuance but I read it not in
| general, just in the context of this article. My original
| text was about ground transportation but the nuance is
| that almost all Gas use is in ground transportation or
| small planes and small planes are the only real exception
| and even that has nuance. None of my comments disagree
| with original take that was focused on ground
| transportation. The world is not black and white. EVs
| only ground transport problem can be battery development
| while there also being a number of other things happening
| in other uses of fuel that also change things.
| sobriquet9 wrote:
| Not the only problem. Internal combustion engines use
| oxygen from the air, so vehicles do not have to carry it.
| The reduction in mass is substantial, and directly
| translates to less tire and road wear. EVs carry all their
| chemistry all the time.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| And the batteries which _don 't_ actually _gain_ mass as
| they discharge. "Metal-air batteries", or a "metal-air
| electrochemical cell", as Wikipedia prefers to call it,
| rely on atmospheric oxygen as the cathode _which is bound
| to the battery during discharge_ , increasing total mass.
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%E2%80%93air_electroc
| hemi...>
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| Because they are of the delusional class that thinks the end
| of ICE engines is coming in the next few years.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Come 2035 no traditional OEM will sell you an ICE car
| anymore as they stopped making them.
| bhdlr wrote:
| Consumer grade vehicles and industrial vehicles are very
| different things
|
| Combustion engines will be around for the next 100 years,
| even if human society mostly collapsed
| __michaelg wrote:
| Reminds me a little of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Impact_Demonstratio...
| which deliberately crashed an airplane. The fuel contained an
| additive that was supposed to limit the post-crash fire, but
| wasn't as effective as hoped for.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| Wasn't a clip of that test shown as the in-flight movie in
| "Airplane!"?
| [deleted]
| scns wrote:
| The SR71 stored fuel directly below the surface. It would seal a
| leak and accelerate plane to (beyond? Corrections welcome) Mach
| 3! Mind Blown.
| toyg wrote:
| I wish this could be a way to get refuelling back into Formula1.
| rob74 wrote:
| So, you apply a voltage to the fuel to produce gas by
| electrolysis, and then you ignite the gas. But, if you apply
| voltage and produce a sufficient amount of gas before igniting
| it, you could still trigger a pretty big explosion, right?
| eagerpace wrote:
| Diesel is pretty fire safe already
| cwmma wrote:
| it's literally used as armor in some military vehicles
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| That sounds really interesting - can you give an example of
| what you are talking about? I can't find anything by
| googling.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| WW2 warships used fuel tanks as part of their torpedo
| defense systems. They would have fuel tanks outside the
| armor to absorb most of the damage.
| Kubuxu wrote:
| In most tanks fuel is used as higher density voidspace to
| decelerate projectiles and shrapnel.
| yread wrote:
| Kerosene is also very safe. Pprune is full of stories of
| technicians throwing burning cigarettes in kerosene to
| extinguish them (and to scare novice pilots)
| londons_explore wrote:
| Yes. Diesel fires are pretty rare. If a diesel truck crashes on
| the highway, the biggest risk is to the environment (it's
| pretty toxic), and to the road (diesel dissolves asphalt).
| timw4mail wrote:
| Never thought about the asphalt part, but makes some sense.
| From what I understand, bitumen is basically the part of oil
| distillation left over after you distill away all the
| aromatic(liquid) stuff.
| londons_explore wrote:
| It's actually pretty bad, because spilt diesel makes the
| asphalt much softer over the coming weeks until it's pretty
| much a pothole filled with gravel.
|
| It's easy to miss a small spill, and only weeks later does
| a hole appear in the road.
| hanniabu wrote:
| So if you hate someone you can spoil a little diesel in
| the road right in front of their driveway so they have
| potholes every time they come and go
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I'm going to file this one for future reference, :p. I
| wonder if this is why a lot of residential roads where I
| live are bricks instead of asphalt. Smells much less
| worse in summer too.
|
| Anyway, if you really hate someone, put brake fluid on
| their car, it'll melt the paintwork pretty thoroughly.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Only if you hate yourself even more, because that stuff
| makes its way to groundwater.
| lawlessone wrote:
| this explains so much.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" Theoretically, the ionic liquid fuel could be used in any
| type of vehicle."_
|
| LMFAO, the university press office suggests burning chlorine
| compounds in street cars.
|
| edit: I think I might be wrong. Here's Derek Lowe's commentary:
|
| - _"...This mixture spontaneously ignites under the decomposition
| conditions, but it does not thermally decompose the underlying
| liquid. Meanwhile, at the anode, the perchlorate gets oxidized to
| chlorate and chlorite ions, but none of that shows up in the gas
| phase. "_
|
| https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/instant-flames-saf...
| SilasX wrote:
| "You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by
| lighting a bonfire under her decks? I have no time for such
| nonsense." --- supposed quote from Napoleon about the first
| steamships.
|
| Yes, of course it would need measures to make it safer than the
| naive, straightforward version of the idea.
| Rygian wrote:
| They probably mean "in any type of ICE vehicle."
|
| It's already high time we address the distinction between
| modern cars (EV) and legacy cars (ICE).
| gorlilla wrote:
| Ya, but you see, what they did is went ahead and replaced all
| of the Chlorine with perchlorate... So it's fine. Everything is
| fine.
| orangepurple wrote:
| A more sustainable and eco friendly fuel option is to simply
| use high test hydrogen peroxide passed over a red hot
| catalyst. It decomposes to hydrogen and oxygen and water.
| What could go wrong?
| 15457345234 wrote:
| Isn't that the stuff where you have to make sure your pipe
| runs have gentle bends not 90-degree elbows because if it
| 'piles up' in a corner it spontaneously goes off?
|
| Or is it the stuff that infamously dissolved pilots during
| ww2
|
| Pretty sure it's one or the other
| readyplayernull wrote:
| > dissolved pilots during ww2
|
| I had to search that one and found this nice article:
|
| https://ig.space/commslink/me-163-komet-the-rocket-
| powered-g...
| oez wrote:
| Hey now who said it can't be both of those things?
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Erm.. that was his point.
| kotaKat wrote:
| I'm holding out for the first car accident narrated by the
| U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| Brilliant.
|
| A reminder of the YouTube channel of the USCSB for those
| who've not watched any of the excellently produced and
| narrated case studies there. Even if you're not in that
| industry, there are a lot of parallels to be seen in the
| negligent decisions made leading to disaster and how e.g.
| ignoring proper patching practices can lead to a much
| greater incident than simply doing the work when it needs
| to be done. If you're of the personality type that enjoys
| reading or watching air crash investigation reports this
| will almost certainly appeal to you.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@USCSB/videos
| jacquesm wrote:
| Those videos set a very high standard for educational
| videos.
| soggybread wrote:
| Youtube reccomended one of their videos and they are really
| well done with layman's explanations of everything and CG
| re-enactments, video evidence, and report evidence. They
| set a high bar for investigation videos
| scythe wrote:
| It's bmim!
|
| For those who don't pay much attention to ionic liquids,
| 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium, or "bmim", is one of the most common
| -- if not #1 -- ionic liquids used in organic chemistry. This
| property is rather unexpected, but the compound is not itself new
| or unusual.
|
| As for the perchlorate anion, it's a little surprising, but given
| the cost of bmim (which is unlikely to come down), I don't think
| the authors expect it to be cost-effective outside of safety-
| critical environments where a fume hood could be employed.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| So its like fluid semtex?
| bcatanzaro wrote:
| They are using a perchlorate to increase safety?
| perihelions wrote:
| So I looked it up. This group [a] had concerns about this ionic
| liquid class, because of the perchlorate, and they tried
| standardized impact- and friction- sensitivity tests. They
| looked at 1-ethyl-3-methyl-imidazolium perchlorate,
| [emim][ClO4]. The ionic liquid in OP is 1-butyl, [bmim][ClO4].
|
| [a] https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1002/ejic.201100529
|
| _" Stability of [emim][ClO4]: With respect to the hazardous
| nature of organic perchlorates, we tested the stability of I
| according to the UN Test Series UN 3a to UN 3d..."_
|
| Here's their conclusion :
|
| - _" Despite being relatively stable against mechanical stress,
| the friction test leads to the conclusion that I has to be
| categorized as a hazardous explosive material. Therefore, I
| would not become a commonplace ionic liquid like
| [emim][NTf2]."_
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| micw wrote:
| So we just need to add a reasonable large battery to each car?
| After that, let's see if we can skip most of the other fuel-
| burning parts ^^
| dylan604 wrote:
| are you assuming here that we've invented a battery that
| doesn't burn too?
| acyou wrote:
| Combustion is a function of surface area, fuel/air temperature,
| mixing, oxygen supply. If you were to vaporize this fuel in a
| hot, high-oxygen environment, it would burn, like pretty much any
| other fuel.
|
| The title is a little misleading, the fuel is most certainly not
| fire-safe. It is, after all, a fuel. A better title might be
| "Scientists vaporize ionic combustion fuels using an electric
| current".
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I suppose it is slightly misleading, but it still could be true
| for many intents and purposes. For instance, a fire marshal
| once explained that kerosene had a much higher temperature of
| evaporation than gasoline. You could put a cigarette out in the
| first but not the second. That can make a big difference even
| though kero will start on fire pretty quickly in other
| circumstances.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I've seen cigarettes put out in gasoline - including once
| when somebody thought it was a jug of diesel so didn't really
| take any precautions.
|
| It's amazing how we live through our teenage years sometimes.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I suppose the ambient temperature makes a big difference.
| Shoot, I've been winter camping and even propane won't work
| because it's too cold. That's why the stove companies make
| special cartridges for winter camping.
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